I am flabbergasted that someone has bothered to make a film about Romulus Augustulus; I would not have thought that enough people would know about him and the Goths to make it worthwhile. Maybe it is indicative of the perennial hold that the Romans still seem to have over the Western imagination and self-identity… or myabe because it is relatively unknown, the producers/director thought it would be easier to cut historical corners on. Who knows; I think I will go and see it, whenever it gets released, just for curiosity’s sake. Romulus is played by that kid from Love Actually – that, I am not convinced by. Nor am I entirely convinced by Colin Firth as Aurelius – nice choice of name though.

The other, more probably pseduo, historical movie that has caught my attention recently is 300, which is about the Spartans at Thermopylae. This has great potential, I feel – nice bit of self-sacrifice, high drama, etc. I am a bit dubious, though, because it is based on a graphic novel by Frank Miller… and, having seen the trailer, it has a very similar feel to Sin City. I imagine it will be very gruesome, probably highly sexual, and – I dread – a long way from any sort of historical accuracy. I am a fan of Gerard Butler, and heck, it’s got David Wenham too (hasn’t he done well from himself?), so maybe they will be saivng graces.

I guess this brings up the whole issue of whether movies ought to be ‘factual’ and ‘true to history’ or not, much like the Inga Clendinnen question about ‘historical’ fiction. Having not seen Alexander, I won’t even bring that one up, but… I’m really not sure where I stand with this issue. I like my movies that are based on history to be fairly ‘true to life’ (ack, such tricky waters… I know this brings up all sorts of issues about what we actually can know blah blah blah). That said, if a movie is blatant about the fact that they are not, in fact, striving for accuracy, but for a jolly good movie – and they actually manage a good movie – then I can forgive a fair bit….