of the Pompeii Movie!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLfQ9_WOnNc
Pompeii Teaser Trailer
Oh, its going to be an epic laugh for most of us but who else is looking forward to it! I was a bit confused about the plaster cast people being there during the eruption...
A blog for all those who work on Pompeii and the other archaeological sites of the Bay of Naples.
1 comment:
LiveScience.com had an article about the accuracy of the new Pompeii movie. Here's the link, and my response to assertions that the filmmakers got the details right.
http://www.livescience.com/43529-how-accurate-is-pompeii-movie.html
I'm surprised that USC's Pompeii expert Sarah Yeomans praises the accuracy of the depiction of the ancient city. The most amusing detail the filmmakers got wrong was inexplicably moving the amphitheater (arena) and adjoining palaestra to the completely opposite end of town. The arena is also shown twice its actual size with a complex of subterranean cells to hold its slave-gladiators (there is no lower level in the real amphitheater). It collapses almost entirely in the film, but actually survived the disaster pretty much intact. Kiefer Sutherland's royal box seating at the arena is an architectural renovation the filmmaker's made despite their alleged attention to detail.
More major inaccuracies: When we first see the city, the ingenue Cassia is arriving from Rome, but oddly, she is shown approaching Pompeii from the south (Rome is about 250km north). For some reason, there is a siege garrison encamped outside the city walls (Pompeii had been a legal colony of Rome since Sulla captured it in 80BC - 160 years before the eruption - there would be little need for a major military presence with high fences and guard towers). The area where the encampment is shown in the film is devoid of other structures, when it reality it was a sprawling suburbia of shops and villas (not just the single villa owned by Cassia's father as the movie depicts).
The Sarno river is missing from the "accurate" aerial shots, and there is no archeological evidence to support the film's particular representation of the port. The Forum is shown as being next to Pompeii's southern wall with a major gate leading to the outside. No such gate exists in that location and the Forum is actually several blocks from any city wall. Et cetera. Et cetera. Ad nauseum. Even I'm getting bored with this list.
Overall, the filmmakers got the "feel" of Pompeii right, and certainly a few details are admirably well done, but they praise themselves on an "accuracy" that is mostly marketing hype and puffery.
Post a Comment