BORGIA VS THE BORGIAS

[jenni_blog]

The Borgias was a TV series on the Showcase channel here that I dearly wanted to see but it was being shown too late for me (10:00 PM). Since I've had Netflix I discovered recently that it was showing a TV miniseries called Borgia and at first I mistook it for The Borgias, not noticing the difference in the titles.

I watched the first episode of Borgia and was hooked. It's very involving from the start, and very graphic; in fact, one of the executive producers on the show also worked on Rome, and the two series have a lot in common. Borgia is a French-German production, but in the English language.

Another curiosity is that one of the characters is played by the same actor who plays Samwell Tarly in HBO's Game of Thrones.

Borgia was produced in 2011 and first shown in July. I had never heard of it before, but it's really good. There is an interesting review on IMDb, comparing it to The Borgias, here:

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1736341/

While I still want to see The Borgias, I am enjoying Borgia so much that the Showcase production will have to wait!

Borgia is highly recommended! :)

EDIT: Because the stupid IMDb link might not work, here is a link to the official German site:

http://borgia.zdf.de/

But I loved the review so much at IMDb that I think anyone interested in watching one or both Borgia series would like to read it. :)

Comments

[lady--croft.livejournal.com]

I have loved the Borgias in all their gloriousness - both the fictional versions and the historical family - for many years now. If I were to go back to university for my Masters I'd study Italian Renaissance history just because the Borgias and the Medici are soooo interesting. While I have seen the primarily Cdn series (The Borgias) I have not watched any of the French-German version, Borgia...I have been limited to clips from that series on Tumblr. I loved the CBC series. Truthfully my greatest hope was that after Rome ended on HBO that HBO would make a series about the Borgia family. It would have filled the void left on HBO from both Rome and The Sopranos. I am fine with the Showcase production though. Jeremy Irons is a fabulous actor. He would not have been someone I would have thought could play Rodrigo but he has turned out to be completely believable in the part. The Borgias does a great job capturing how the family was caught up in the tide of the world they lived in - that their actions were shaped by the circumstances around them. For the first season Chez and Crezia are pretty much still learning their place in society and I am assuming in the second season, as they become more 'tainted' by the society and the people around them, they will start growing and grasping for more power regardless of how they achieve it(aka the ends justifies the means). I love the cameos by other great historical faces - Machiavelli, Savonarola, Il Moro (Ludovico Sforza)...I'm hoping next year for Leonardo da Vinci to show up.

There are plenty of historical fiction books on the Borgia family if you are interested. I guess the basic one is The Family by Mario Puzo (yes that Mario Puzo, the one who wrote The Godfather. But there are plenty of other novels - some sympathetic to the Borgias, others not so friendly. I love the books by Jeanne Kalogridis - she keeps me hooked on the Italian Renaissance and has a couple of books with the Borgias as main characters. There are also plenty of genuine biographies about the Borgias with one the better ones being written by Sarah Bradford. Enjoy :)

[just-jenni.livejournal.com]

The Borgias are truly fascinating. I can't wait to watch the CBC series once I've finished the German-French one. While I am very impressed with it and thank Netflix for bringing it to us, I really want to see Jeremy Irons. I'll probably get the DVDs.

Oh my gosh...Mario Puzo wrote about the Borgias? That's great. I really like him as a writer...I've read The Last Don as well as The Godfather. I'll have to get The Family for sure now. I'd like to read a non-friendly book and a friendly one, just to make the comparisons between them. :)