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The Last Station
Jun. 8th, 2013 12:54 amSo I have finally come up with my fantasy casting for Brutus, if someone decided that they were going to make a film adaptation of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar! James McAvoy, because I have seen him in two movies where he excellently portrays young idealists cruelly betrayed by reality, which is clearly the most important quality in any interpretation of Brutus.*
I say this because I have just recently seen The Last Station, where McAvoy reaches the acme of idealism undercut by reality in his part as Valentin Bulgakov, who is an infatuated convert to the doctrines of Tolstoyanism: pacifism, vegetarianism, celibacy, living in general peace and harmony. Driven by the fire of his convictions, he becomes Tolstoy’s secretary near the end of Tolstoy’s life.
Unfortunately for idealistic young Bulgakov, Tolstoy’s estate at Yasnaya Polyana is a hotbed of acrimony. Before he even arrives at the estate, Tolstoy’s acolyte Chertkov gives him a journal to write down, oh, things that Tolstoy’s wife Sophia says, things like that... a request soon bookended by Sophia’s request that Bulgakov should report to her about Tolstoy’s conversations with Chertkov.
Sophia and Chertkov, Bulgakov eventually realizes, are battling over the posthumous rights to Tolstoy’s work: Sophia wants the family to retain them, while Chertkov wants Tolstoy to sign away his copyright so his works can be distributed free to breed converts to Tolstoyanism (which will, of course, increase Chertkov’s prestige).
McAvoy is good, and Helen Mirren is particularly affecting as Sophia, balancing histrionics and pathos to remain a sympathetic character. (It helps that the moviemakers seem to be not-so-secretly on her side. I have the impression that they feel they are settling a score against Chertkov sympathizers.) It’s an excellent period piece.
***
*Apparently most of my fellow Julius Caesar fans ship Brutus/Cassius, which I cannot fathom. Cassius is clearly not fit to kiss the hem of Brutus’s toga, while being simultaneously so prideful as to believe that kissing the hem of Brutus’s toga would be a degradation rather than an honor to which he should aspire.
I am sure the moment when Brutus realized that Cassius had convinced him to assassinate Caesar not for the good of Rome and the saving of the Republic, but to salve Cassius’s own miserable pride, was one of the most terribly disillusioning of his noble life.
...As you may have guessed, I first read this play in ninth grade, and I had ~feelings~. Brutus was forced, forced by the dictates of his conscious to kill his beloved friend Julius Caesar, who had become a danger to the ideals of the republic! It was so sad and glorious and gloriously tragic.
I say this because I have just recently seen The Last Station, where McAvoy reaches the acme of idealism undercut by reality in his part as Valentin Bulgakov, who is an infatuated convert to the doctrines of Tolstoyanism: pacifism, vegetarianism, celibacy, living in general peace and harmony. Driven by the fire of his convictions, he becomes Tolstoy’s secretary near the end of Tolstoy’s life.
Unfortunately for idealistic young Bulgakov, Tolstoy’s estate at Yasnaya Polyana is a hotbed of acrimony. Before he even arrives at the estate, Tolstoy’s acolyte Chertkov gives him a journal to write down, oh, things that Tolstoy’s wife Sophia says, things like that... a request soon bookended by Sophia’s request that Bulgakov should report to her about Tolstoy’s conversations with Chertkov.
Sophia and Chertkov, Bulgakov eventually realizes, are battling over the posthumous rights to Tolstoy’s work: Sophia wants the family to retain them, while Chertkov wants Tolstoy to sign away his copyright so his works can be distributed free to breed converts to Tolstoyanism (which will, of course, increase Chertkov’s prestige).
McAvoy is good, and Helen Mirren is particularly affecting as Sophia, balancing histrionics and pathos to remain a sympathetic character. (It helps that the moviemakers seem to be not-so-secretly on her side. I have the impression that they feel they are settling a score against Chertkov sympathizers.) It’s an excellent period piece.
***
*Apparently most of my fellow Julius Caesar fans ship Brutus/Cassius, which I cannot fathom. Cassius is clearly not fit to kiss the hem of Brutus’s toga, while being simultaneously so prideful as to believe that kissing the hem of Brutus’s toga would be a degradation rather than an honor to which he should aspire.
I am sure the moment when Brutus realized that Cassius had convinced him to assassinate Caesar not for the good of Rome and the saving of the Republic, but to salve Cassius’s own miserable pride, was one of the most terribly disillusioning of his noble life.
...As you may have guessed, I first read this play in ninth grade, and I had ~feelings~. Brutus was forced, forced by the dictates of his conscious to kill his beloved friend Julius Caesar, who had become a danger to the ideals of the republic! It was so sad and glorious and gloriously tragic.
