Fall of Eagles

I recently watched the film "Nicholas and Alexandra" (Columbia, 1971), and wanted to continue refreshing my historical data, so I pulled out this series, which was broadcast on our local PBS station about 15 years ago. I taped most of it, as I found it fascinating, and fairly accurate according to most of the historical biographies I have read. The series is pretty bare bones as far as production values go, but the acting is very good. It can't compare to the lush photography or direction of "Nicholas and Alexandra" or the fictional "Dr. Zhivago," given their American studio budgets. Patricia Neal provides great introduction/narration. I would buy this series in a minute if it was available on DVD, and highly recommend it to anyone who loves late 19th/early 20th century European history.

If you like mini-series I Cladius, you will like this series. I watched this as a young teenager and learn more on what brought the world, World War I that all of the boring history lessons I took in school. Also, the breath and scope of this TV mini-series just can not be remade today. Only HBO has the clout and finances to tackle this type of material.

The acting in this series is old school British theater and is a little talkative for the modern MTV generation who are use to more action, however, it is very rewarding to listen to the words and watch the scope of history unfold. You will understand that the end of the series that it is individuals who make history and individuals have the power to literally to change the world.

This mini-series is well worth your time and attention.

Looking back at the old programs from the 70's coming out on DVD, one realises that TV reached a peak at that time and has gone downhill ever since.

This miniseries harks back to the days when Britain only had two TV channels, the BBC and ITV. This meant that not only was there more money to spend on individual programmes, but half the viewing audience would watch them. Along with I Claudius, Fall of Eagles was the best of the best, and I doubt that it could be made today, with the myriad of channels spreading the available money thinly. I grew up with live drama on the BBC ever Sunday night - plays by Shakespeare, Shaw and more controversial writers. Contrast this with the inane reality offerings of today!

This series was the first time I had ever seen Patrick Stewart, who has remained Lenin for me ever since, just as Michael Caine will always be Alfie and Christopher Eccleston has remained the tragic slow witted Derek Bentley. The acting and production values are outstanding throughout, although the actors are noticeably stage actors, and some episodes, especially the final one are very "talky". The series holds up startlingly well compared with big budget films covering the same events, Nicholas and Alexandra and Reds, to name two.

My main complaint is that there is no captioning for the hearing impaired on the US release, which means that impaired people such as myself cannot follow allthe dialog despite the crisp theatrical delivery of the actors. This is a particular handicap in the more "talky" scenes - I was unable to follow any of the last episode where the Kaiser went into exile rather than being hanged as a war criminal. A detailed synopsis of each chapter would have helped, but captions are essential in an aging population. I really hope to see more of these great TV series of the past, but hope that they will add captions.

Many of the BBC's mini-series dealt with Britain's loss of Empire - "Jewel in the Crown" was just one. Here the subject is the end of monarchy and the collapse of major royal houses of Europe: Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia.

The history is grand and sweeping, but the focus of these television dramas is not on spectacle, but on the personalities of the participants. On that basis it succeeds wildly. The cast is huge and the acting is splendid.

Patrick Stewart gives the performance of his career as Lenin, and the same goes for Barry Foster's Kaiser Wilhem. An astonishing array of acting talent strides through, often with only a few telling moments on screen: Michael Aldridge, Pamela Brown, Rosalie Crutchley, Marius Goring, Michael Gough, Charles Gray, Freddie Jones, Curt Jurgens and the list goes on.

Plus it's always fun to see major talents near the beginning of their career, such as Tom Conti and John Rhys-Davies. It's also surprising how little overlap there is with the cast of "I, Claudius" which followed only two years later. What a deep bench the BBC had in those days!

The scripts are uniformly intelligent, though the budget often requires major events to be described rather than shown. However the art department does a valiant job of differentiating among the splendid apartments of different countries, so you almost always know where you are before anyone starts speaking.

If you want to see thousands of extras tumbling across the giant screen, watch "Nicholas and Alexandra" or "Dr. Zhivago" instead. But if you want to meet fascinating people in an absorbing story of the decline and fall of the Hapsburgs, the Hohenzollerns, and the Romanov's, this is grand television.

There is a scene in Fall of Eagles, when the German General Ludendorff falls into a fit of rage, screaming "Traitors! Traitors!" Ludendorff will appear later in history, near a certain beer hall in Munich, with an equally enraged colleague, who will visit upon us another world war.

After thirty years, BBC have finally released Fall of Eagles on DVD. What's more, they've done it right, with a beautiful transfer. This elaborate production presents the defining event of the twentieth century, the Great War (World War I), from the points of view of those who brought it about and were themselves consumed by it.

Some may regard Fall of Eagles as soap opera, and it is indeed staged like one, with almost all the scenes shot indoors. However, British television has always worked well within this constraint, as in I Claudius and Elizabeth R. The sets are magnificent and varied, shot in and around some imposing locations. The costumes are lavish and intricate, making me appreciate how "dressing the part" in those times could be called part of one's duty. I can't imagine how the women managed.

Except for Patrick Stewart, Barry Foster, Michael Kitchen, and Gayle Hunnicutt, the cast is made up of character actors unfamiliar to non-British audiences, especially when hidden by beards and mustaches. However, the depth of talent in this huge cast is striking, with convincing portrayals, from the walk-ons to the leads. The producers also should be praised for running a tight ship, which could easily have become an unwieldy mess, due to the parallel and complex events, the 13-episode length and the fact that the directors varied from one episode to the next.

Though the story is made up of undocumentable private dialog (except perhaps via diaries), skillful writing, directing and acting create an intimacy that makes one truly to feel like a fly on the wall. Some of the scenes are indeed contrivances. For example, the future empress of Russia, Alexandra, is told by the current empress Marie Dagmar about her concern, that she, Alexandra, wife of the future Emperor, is not Russian Orthodox but German Lutheran. This should not have concerned the old Empress, since she herself was a Danish Lutheran who had converted and was embraced by the Russians. Alexandra not only converts to Russian Orthodoxy, but does it with a militancy that's downright, well, German. Though such an exchange probably wouldn't have taken place, it serves the historical and dramatic purpose of establishing religion as a major factor in the fate of the Romanov dynasty. Alexandra had something to prove, and she did so with a disastrous vengeance. Another value of apocryphal scenes like this is to portray characters as real people, rather than mere "names on a page".

Through the intimacy of these private scenes, we can see how the lack of detachment from their own affairs and complete detachment from the affairs of their subjects is the central thesis of Fall of Eagles: that mundane concerns and banal motives in an age of romantic excess, drove monarchs, ministers and consorts, who in turn drove history. Oh yes, did I mention the word "hubris"?

Do not let the length of Fall of Eagles put you off. This is one of those wonderful viewing experiences, so rich, so deep, that while watching it the first time, you resolve to watch it again, because you know that characters and events will fall into place, in a seamless, poignant, often maddening saga of real people, caught up in real events, rushing like lemmings to their dooms or, in one case, to a pitiful denouement.

And speaking of the Kaiser, Fall of Eagles is not just a routine chronicle of events, but a particular interpretation of history, not only in its choice of dialog but in its perspectives and emphasis. For example, the actual trigger of the Great War depicted here is more complex than what you may recall from your generalized history lessons. So, yes, there is a bit of revisionism here -- that the Kaiser by no means bears sole responsibility for this tragedy -- which you may or may not be inclined to accept. (As a history buff, I do.) Though Fall of Eagles is conventional, i.e. top-down, in perspective, it makes clear that history is not only driven by individuals in power but by the currents and events confronting them and, in this history, overwhelming them.

If you are truly concerned about how we got where we are today, you owe it to yourself and your children to witness this amazing epic.

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Further thoughts:

1. There are two soundtracks, one for the opening credits, the other for the end credits. (Opening theme is Mahler, I think.) Both are in perfect accord with their subject, the closing music, in particular, a chilling depiction of the title.

2. There is an indispensable program guide included with the DVD. Each episode is supplemented by well-written capsule biographies. There's even a genealogical chart to help keep the dynasty members and their relationships (one might say incestuous relationships) straight in our minds.

3. There are three interviews with two players (not including Patrick Stewart, alas) and a director. Gayle Hunnicutt, in particular, stands out for her insightful observations.