#and his portrayal was actually the most ok portrayal of the borgia family in this movie djdjsjds

[ducavalentinos]

Thoughts on Spanish movie "Los Borgia" (2006)?

It’s so bad, I don’t have that many thoughts, lol. Like the only good thing about it is María Valverde as Lucrezia, and I mean only asthetically, because as a character, it was almost hilariously bad. As a whole, It’s not the worst depiction of the Borgia family to be sure, but it’s definitely among the top 5. It confirms the old Spaniard bias against them, even though I’m sure it wasn’t intended at all. All the myths, the terrible mischaracterization of Rodrigo and his papacy, of Cesare, and of Lucrezia are present, only they aimed at a demonization with the first two, and the canonizing  of the latter. I felt personally insulted by the casting of Cesare and Rodrigo, as well as their characters. And it’s not even so much that the creators obviously wanted the audience to despise them and they are like the “villains”, and more like they’re “boring villains”, and I’m of the opinion that if you must follow the predictable, fallacious path of showing Rodrigo and Cesare as villains of the Italian Renaissance, then at the very least, make them fun. It was painful to watch. I didn’t know who those men were and I did not care to, I just wanted the thing to be over already. That being said, there are some moments, that I can remember, which made me laugh a lot because it’s so absurd: - The convo Rodrigo has with his children after he is elected pope, where is all like: for yeaaars these Italians mocked us and now we will get our revenge!!!!!, it was so dramatic and completely out of everything we know about Rodrigo and his papacy, if only it had been like that, quite frankly. To a fault Rodrigo was way too tolerant and without a sense of vengefulness towards his enemies and detractors, and it did not go very well for him and his family, the movie itself it just another example of that. - The depiction of Giovanni Sforza, as this young, kind and attractive man, and Lucrezia’s relationship with him: her being in love with him and helping him escape her terrible family’s murder plan dsjdjsdjsjdsjdjs. - The whole interaction between Cesare and Caterina Sforza, if Cesare was alive today, what they show there would be the thing he could definitely sue for defamation of character let me tell you. But it is hilarious to me how he just drags her to a secluded fortress???, proceeds to r*pe her, (in a rather strange position, too) and then just lets her go, and she goes, and iirc she never shows up again.................???? - Lastly, it was great to see how the writers clearly had a hard time reading the history and the facts which makes it clear Lucrezia never, ever, turned against her family, and much less against her brother, and she remained very aligned with their political plans, and one of Cesare’s most staunch supporters, until the end. It’s like they went on full on denial and they just thought: no, that can’t be right! oh well, we can change that in the movie. Hence, they make her break ties with him at the end, like see? our angel with superior morals had broken her bond with this monster of a brother, and again, it’s so dramatic 😂. And I think here are where my thoughts end, anon. I tried really hard to find positive things about this movie, as I do with all Borgia-related content, because otherwise I can’t enjoy anything about them in fiction lol, but this movie is just so strange, and poor. The casting is mostly off, the writing is totally off, the costume failed to impress me, not event the soundtrack did it, or the locations. There are no relationships I could enjoy, I mean, if you like Cesare and Lucrezia and the whole incestuous siblings myth, then their first scenes together are cute and can be seen as “positive” aspect, but as of now it doesn’t do anything for me, either, and it gets bad by the end anyways, so yeah, I think Spain owes it to the Borgia family to give them a more high quality production in fiction tbh, because this one is just no good. Thoughts on...ask meme

[mermaidsirennikita]

Couldn’t pick which figure but could you do the Borgia (from history not the show) family for the 🔥

Yessss

So for one thing, the family has gotten a lot of weird misinformation spread by that line about how in Switzerland or whatever everything was great but all they got was clocks, whereas under the Borgias everything was corrupt but oooh Wat Art.  I don’t see the Borgias as great patrons of the arts.  Yes, they of course did commission artwork and Cesare in particular seemed to be engaged in the art market re: his dealings with Isabella d’Este, but... the fact is that the great upswing of artistic expression in Rome--well, if it’s going to be credited to a pope, the pinnacle was Julius/Della Rovere.

On a more general level I suppose I have the somewhat unpopular opinion that Lucrezia Borgia is getting the classic reinvention as a lady historical figure which is that she was victimized and did no wrong, it was all her male family members’ faults (see: Anne Boleyn).  Of course Lucrezia was far from the evil bitch we often see her portrayed as; but she also wasn’t a wilting flower who did whatever Cesare or Rodrigo said.  This is proven by the fact that she actually essentially cloistered herself away from them for a good while after her second husband’s death and essentially refused to cooperate the way they wanted her to until Cesare physically showed up and--nobody knows what happened, but I imagine it MIGHT have involved some negotiation and apology.  Lucrezia clearly was someone who could discuss and debate with her brother and father.  She often CHOSE to go along with their plans because she was a woman of her time and location--family was important, women were raised to understand the political alliances they would represent.  Now, if Lucrezia had refused to go along with it--again, ultimately, her father controlled much of her life.  But when you read about her, it doesn’t seem like he often had to.  Lucrezia was ultimately loyal to her family; even after they lost the power and ability to compel her to be loyal.  When Cesare was at his lowest, Lucrezia was still rallying to help him.  That’s not a milquetoast victim.

I do still buy that Cesare killed Juan.  Obviously, this far removed from the crime all evidence is circumstantial really, filtered through years of rumor.  Plenty of people had reason to dislike Juan; plenty of people had the means to pay someone else to take care of him while merrily being somewhere else.  I feel like Cesare’s motive was the most compelling, he had the least to lose (what was his father gonna do if he found out, kill him? nah) and the most to gain.  And Cesare also strikes me as someone who had very little emotional feeling for basically anyone in his family aside from his mom and his sister.

I don’t super enjoy the portrayal of the Cesare/Charlotte d’Albret marriage as a grand love affair.  Not because I find his relationship with Lucrezia more compelling, even though it is lol, but because I feel like Charlotte was a victim there.  She married this functional psycho who fucks her eight times on their wedding night (and I imagine she was a virgin, so yikes) and then spends the rest of the night on the toilet because uppers are a bitch, he spends enough time with her to knock her up before running off to fuck and fight in Italy, and when she’s basically held hostage against him he’s like *shrug*.  Then she has to pretend to mourn this dude she barely knew for the rest of her life.  Ok.