Addai67 wrote...
However they do show patronage relationships in the series, and from episode one you see the jarl undermining them and people resenting him for it and going against him. That's the problem with that criticism. It assumes there was never a jarl in history who ever tried to overstep his bounds and got slapped for it. Really? In what sort of world don't powerful men want more power?
Well, it’s a bit hard for me discussing this while I haven’t seen the series (haven’t seen any reviews by European reenactors, historians or history buffs either, Van der Hoek, while Dutch-born, is himself American). However, the Spectator article struck me as ideologically charged. Friends and acquaintances who are into the period and Iron Age Germanic societies would probably frown when it comes to the ‘democracy’ argument. More ‘democratic’ than the more centralized societies to the south of them, but not really democracy as we would understand it now. All those pagan Germanic societies were stratified and cyclically underwent processes of (if only temporary or limited) centralisation. Equality and freedom were always relative and fluctuating.
The kind of ‘freeholder democracy’ Mr. Walker talked about persisted in some parts of Scandinavia and the German Empire (Dithmarschen, a large chunk of the Netherlands, certain Alpine regions) for a long time, and that’s much better documented. There could be huge gaps in wealth and power between top and bottom of the freeholders.
Regarding the costumes & props, the designer is apparently Joan Bergin, who also did the Tudors. She’s probably one of the worst to take if you want historically accurate costumes, since she takes considerable, erm, ‘liberties’ and takes pride in that. I remember a short interview where she more or less fulminated against codpieces, and kept them out of her costumes. She’s the woman you want if you want glamorous semi-generic costumes for a not particularly well-informed audience. I don’t mean she’s a bad costume designer, just not the one you want for an ‘accurate’ costume drama.
It’s an old story though. Friends and acquaintances of mine who have some experience with the movie industry told me long ago that the problem’s not the budget (40 million dollars, the reputed budget, is moooooooooore than enough for buying or manufacturing lots of fairly accurate, decent-quality kit in Europe), it’s a general attitude of going for the easy and familiar. ‘The Vikings’ goes a bit more in the direction of accuracy than most, I’ll grant that, but it’s still far behind European productions of the last decade or so (barring the half-horrible, half-decent German ‘Nibelungen’ mini-series).
Edit:
Found a bit more about the costumes. Apparently ( variety.com/2013/tv/news/historys-vikings-ready-to-make-nordic-impression-821069/, they made some 300 costumes themselves and modified 500 rentals (for your information: Custom-made fairly accurate clothing would have cost around 30,000-100,000 euros, depending on how fancy it has to look. Of course, that would have made part of the props department unemployed...
).Here's an article about Bergin and her costumes: popstyle.ew.com/2013/03/18/vikings-costume-designer-on-dressing-pillagers-and-plunderers-for-the-history-channel-series/.
While I agree that photographing a couple of mannequins in, say, Moesgard museum isn't going to provide much visual variety, a bit of wider research would quickly have yielded great dividends. Then again, for Mrs. Bergin this is just a job between the last one and the next one.
Anyway, maybe the (relative) success of the 'Vikings' might give some fresh impetus to European attempts at similar series.
Modifié par Das Tentakel, 26 avril 2013 - 11:07 .
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