THE REAL ROMAN ARMY vrs. the renactments

[tlclark]

The most authentic Roman costumes in film so far IMO are in the Polish version of "Quo Vadis" and in the 1964 production "Fall of the Roman Empire". While the costumes in FOTRE are not totally authentic, in my opinion they convey a good sense of heavier/later part of the 2nd century Roman armour.

but Sophia Loren in a lime green body huggin stola! Or how about that red outfit she's wearing in commodus' triumph! Holy cow! She looks good, but totally inaccurate. The rest, not so bad.

Also, that movie was done on the cinecitta set which is totally authentic to that point, a great view of the forum and very accurate to the acutal forum, EXCEPT that it has the decannalia which is too early for the Antonine period. The date of the set is about 305-315. That same set has been used for many many productions, including HBO's Rome and most of the objects in it are post augustan, yet we see Septimus Severus Arch and the Temple of Vespasian as plain as day. Oy! That's like doing a movie about the American colonial period with the 20th C. Manhattan skyline in the background!

Scenes from the palace are awful in FOTRE, but Later scenes showing the interior of the Curia are very accurate.

The whole entrance of Commodus into Rome resembles more a Leni Riefenstahl scene (which I think it's supposed to) than anything in ancient Rome (what is that square when Commodus goes up the stairs? St. Peter's Square???).

If supposed to be the steps of the Basilica Ulpia, but why the heck did they pick that as the final destination of Commodus' triumph? FOTRE does it right and has Christopher Plummer wind up at the Capitolium which is accurate.