Men wielding power in hellish times(Wolf Hall's revisionism)

WaPo ^ | 04-30-2015 | Charles Krauthammer

[NRx]

“Wolf Hall,” the Man Booker Prize-winning historical novel about the court of Henry VIII — and most dramatically, the conflict between Thomas Cromwell and Sir Thomas More — is now a TV series (presented on PBS). It is maddeningly good.

Maddening because its history is tendentiously distorted, yet the drama is so brilliantly conceived and executed that you almost don’t care. Faced with an imaginative creation of such brooding, gripping, mordant intensity, you find yourself ready to pay for it in historical inaccuracy.

And “Wolf Hall’s” revisionism is breathtaking. It inverts the conventional view of the saintly More being undone by the corrupt, amoral, serpentine Cromwell, the king’s chief minister. This is fiction as polemic. Author Hilary Mantel, an ex- and anti-Catholic (“the Catholic Church is not an institution for respectable people”), has set out to rehabilitate Cromwell and defenestrate More, most especially the More of Robert Bolt’s beautiful and hagiographic “A Man for All Seasons.”

[vladimir998]

There are FReepers who are just as determined to attack More as the writer of this tv show.

[TomGuy]

Have been recording it, but haven’t watched any of the episodes yet.

[Veto!]

You’ll like it. I do. Especially that snake, Cromwell. PLUS, Damian Lewis is Henry VIII. Lewis starred in Homeland, Showtimes absolutely terrific series.

Anyway, Masterpiece once again produces — well — a masterpiece.

[PGR88]

I’ve never heard of this TV show before (I rarely watch TV), but after reading the review, I’m going to make a guess and say the writer of the series, Mark Rylance is a homosexual.

I’m relying on Krauthammer’s very brief synopsis, but the anti-catholic themes he describes seem so much the typical and hackneyed ones one constantly sees from homosexuals with an axe to grind.

Now I’m going to do some research on this Rylance chap to see if my hunch is correct....

[BenLurkin]

I’ve got new for Dr. Krauthammer — history is distorted from the very first moment a historian puts pen to paper.

[KC Burke]

I bought the books and read them before the series started. I have enjoyed both. Krauthammer is somewhat over the top in his allegiance to the Bolt fictional portrayal. Mantel makes her vision of the events quite stimulating.

The truth is in the middle of these views and unobtainable from this distance in years.The Henry in the mini-series is not so mildly outlined in Mantel’s books. There he is a lot more arbitrary and harsh — the “Majesty” that can give death at a whim, and does.

[llevrok]

All history is revised to one degree or another seconds after the event happens.

One thing I am certain of is that there was enough blame on all the players in Henry’s circle.

[Veto!]

Mark Rylance is an actor, plays Cromwell (brilliantly) on the show. Rylance is married, has two children.

[FredZarguna]

There are FReepers who are just as determined to attack More as the writer of this tv show.

Just as there are FReepers as determined to defend that blind zealot and sadomasochistic pervert.

[vladimir998]

“Just as there are FReepers as determined to defend that blind zealot and sadomasochistic pervert.”

You could not have done more to prove my point. Thanks.

[windcliff]

ping

[fieldmarshaldj]

*possible ping of interest*

[pgkdan]

Thanks for saving me the trouble of pointing that out. I think Wolf Hall is lousy history but absolutely fantastic drama. IMHO, it’s without a doubt the best thing on TV. Outstanding.

[ponygirl]

I'm watching this as well... Since discovering an ancestor who was imprisoned and tortured for being a Catholic during Elizabeth I, I've completely devoted myself to learning the history of the Tudor era that I did not learn in school. What I did not know anything about was the violent history of the borderlands and how that played out during Henry VIII.

As for the series, it's certainly better than "The Tudors" series on Showtime. But after watching the"Outlander" series on Starz (about the Jacobites), I find myself critiquing the costuming on Wolf Hall. I can't help it and it's getting in the way of my enjoyment of the series. Henry looks ludicrous parading around in his grandmothers bed quilt. When you compare that with the beautiful fabrics, gorgeous settings and accuracy in detail they've created in Outlander, Wolf Hall falls pretty flat.

[Veto!]

For those who haven’t seen it, or even if you have, Masterpiece has very detailed rundowns of what happens in each episode:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/masterpiece/programs/features/recap/wolf-hall-s1-e1-15-essentials/

[Oratam]

Years ago, flipping through second hand paperbacks, I found one titled "The Tudor Police State."

It's had me thinking ever since.

[SunkenCiv]

VIIIth had been readied to become Archbishop of Canterbury, and his older brother Arthur to succeed their father. As such, Henry was better qualified and better educated to run the church in England than the Popes were. :')

It inverts the conventional view of the saintly More being undone by the corrupt, amoral, serpentine Cromwell, the king's chief minister.

The Boleyn faction had managed to get Catherine of Aragon removed, as it had earlier gotten rid of Wolsey, predecessor of More. Cromwell helped get rid of More. Ultimately, Thomas Cromwell was exactly what Henry VIII wanted him to be. Those are the kind of officials all absolute rulers want. Of course, it wasn't enough -- when he finally made a misstep, he was given a show trial and executed.

Thomas' nephew was great-grandfather to Oliver Cromwell, victor in the English Civil War. Oliver was installed as the first modern dictator, and had King Charles I executed. Try that on for size, monarchy.

[Hawthorn]

>> flipping through second hand paperbacks, I found one titled “The Tudor Police State.” <<

I read a history of the Tudors a few years ago, just after having read about Stalin’s purges. It seemed to me that the ruthlessness of Henry the 8th resembled that of Stalin more than it resembled the characteristics of any other recent tyrant.

[Pelham]

ping