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October 8, 2006: Casanova, Part 1
The story of Casanova’s life adventures, told in flashback by an exiled, 50-year-old Giacomo Casanova (Peter O’Toole) to a young kitchen maid, recounts the reckless and hilarious adventures of a wildly misspent youth. The young Casanova, played by Doctor Who’s David Tennant, recovers from a lonely childhood with an absent actress-mother by indulging in romantic liaisons starting from the shockingly early age of 11. (I suppose your options for entertaining yourself were much fewer in the days before television.) From that point on he is a star scholar, a prodigious gambler and an adorably wry and cheerful lover of ladies (usually married) all over Europe. Giac is a wildly intelligent, scrappy young man who has no money or professional prospects and must learn to navigate the shark-infested waters of the 1740s Venetian social scene using his charm and wits alone. And what wit he has — he is deliriously sharp-tongued and fast on his feet. (How great was that line about the slave taking the name of his master? Even I swooned.) While partying in Venice, he changes careers as often as he changes women — about every other night. We see him meet with wild success as a physician, an astrologer and a lawyer to the Venetian nobility, and his scams and common-sense approach to problems that are generally reserved for specialists is endearing.
Throughout all this, he meets one Henriette (Laura Fraser, He Knew He Was Right), who, according to the story, would become the love of his life — but, naturally, she’s engaged to someone else. Those of you in my Masterpiece Theatre book club know that this character of Henriette is totally exaggerated — in the book she gets hardly a footnote mention. Screenwriter Russell T. Davies’ decision to modernize the story by using the Henriette character as Giac’s lifelong ideal and his romantic conscience seems to me like a pretty cheap cop-out, as if Casanova’s story of infidelities isn’t worth telling unless there’s some love-based disappointment that motivates him. With Henriette in the picture, it makes it look like all his affairs are merely some attempt to secretly run from some early pain — or a search to replace his absent mother. According to the book, the truth is that the guy just never wanted to settle for one woman, although he did love lots of them with truth, depth and real ardor. Nevertheless, the role of Henriette in the movie is charmingly outlined — they seem like soul mates who totally and wordlessly understand each other. It’s a pretty adorable relationship, actually — one based on real friendship, generosity, kindness, intelligence and fun. The Giac we see in the movie seems to be someone who values women as peers and equals, as advisors and as people who need to be heard and understood to feel loved. That whole scene with the two redheaded sisters who say they just want to be listened to — that’s straight out of Dr. Phil! Again, this story is so shamelessly modernized!
My favorite part in the movie so far was that hilarious scene in the priest’s confessional, when he confesses to having “lustful thoughts” as well as liaisons with two sisters, a mother, a man, a woman with a fake penis, a married woman behind her husband’s back (literally) and “two nuns... you may know them!”; that scene was so funny I had to rewind it three times. My second favorite so far was the party scene in which Giacomo and Henriette have a wordless conversation from across the room, using only their eyes. That looked like true love to me, I must say.
So, to you book-club folks out there, how do you think the movie compares so far to the book? In next week’s installment, we get to see the famous duel scene, and hopefully a little more focus on those nuns!
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TVGuide Links:
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Oct 9, 2006 8:28 AM
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Michelle,
Life has gotten in the way so I've not had a chance to get past the introduction or even see this episode yet! I will check in later in this week.
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Oct 9, 2006 8:32 AM
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"50-year-old Giacomo Casanova (Peter O’Toole"
Is he really only suppose to be 50? If so, time has not been kind.
I really enjoyed Casanova the movie, despite the anachronistic approach. Just like I enjoy Casanova the character, despite his use and abuse of women. I find them both irresistibly charming whatever their faults, and I think that's the point anyway.
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Oct 9, 2006 2:14 PM
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OMG!!! I can't believe I didn't see this. My friend and I have been dying to see it (cause David Tennant is in it and I've seen a few clips on Youtube) I did even know it was on, That really upsets me. Is there any chance they'll show it again? Or will it be released on region 1 dvd? I'm really sorry I missed it. 
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Oct 9, 2006 3:47 PM
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double post
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Oct 9, 2006 3:48 PM
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Talk about fate! A year ago, March 2005 to be exact, I was in London on vacation. I decided to check the Brit boob tube one night and stumbled across a BBC tv movie called Cassanova! THE MP feature last night! I found it to be incredbily entertaining and hilarious. David Tenant is a genius. Anyhow, when it ended, I thought, "What a great movie". Thennnn, the announcer comes on and says, "Scenes for next week's Cassanova". Whaaat? Luckily, I was still going to be in London, so I caught it the following week. Apparently, the Brits use the term tv movie instead of "mini-series". Again, loved the show, glad I got to see it. Then, the announcer comes on and says, "Stay tuned for next week's conclusion of Cassanova". What the??? I don't get to see how it ends??? Imagine my surprise and delight when I was channel surfing and came across MP last night  FINALLY, a year later, next week, I'll know how it ends!
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Oct 9, 2006 4:30 PM
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I don't know about this production. It is very colorful. I think David Tennant was brilliant, as always. I'm still out on this production. It's not faithful to the book, but it does have some entertaining parts. I too loved the part were Casanova confesses, David Tennant does comedy well. Looks like part two will gloss over the fact that Cassanova has an affair with his own illegimate daughter, ugh. If it's true what he wrote about his life, I wouldn't of confessed to that if I were him.
I'm not really a fan of the trend now to modernizing period films. If it ain't broke, why fix it. Since I'm a professed costume drama whore, I'm iffy on the whole thing.
I'm definitly going to rent the dvd when they release it, it's the original uk edit, uncut. Unfortuately we saw an edited version. It's a shame that PBS has to edit their programs now, back in the day they aired the stuff uncut. Case in point, when they aired 'He Knew He Was Right', they cut over and hour of footage. My jaw dropped when I saw the dvd and released how editied the aired version was. You can't fit four parts into two like they did. That's why I think I'll reserve my finale judgment on this program after watching it on dvd. Thank heavens the dvd will be uncut. I really have issues on editing, I'm sure everyone figured that out by now, lol.
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Oct 11, 2006 3:42 AM
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Sorry double post.
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Oct 11, 2006 3:43 AM
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hi, sci_fi40. Masterpiece Theatre often repeats the next Saturday night at either 4 or 4:30 am (I'm speaking Eastern time). PBS is so hard to schedule. You need to find your local affiliate and check it out at http://www.pbs.org.
Thanks, ladyofthelake, re He Knew He Was Right. That'll be next week's Netflix now.
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Oct 12, 2006 12:52 AM
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Hey, thanks, I saw it last night at 1 am. My roommate and I were both exhauste, but we couldn't stop watching it. And before I found out when it would be on, I ordered the DVD off of Amazon. So that'll be here in a few days.
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Oct 14, 2006 12:00 PM
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If you liked David Tennant, check him out on SciFi/BBC's DOCTOR WHO Fridays
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Dec 19, 2006 12:32 PM
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