Byzantium: The Lost Empire

Byzantium: The Lost Empire (1997) is a four-part British documentary directed by Ron Johnston. John Romer is the host, and he narrates the series.

Romer has done many documentaries about the region, especially about Egypt. He approaches the subject of this film--the Byzantine Empire--as if it were a long lost civilization like the Etruscans. For me, this didn't work. We have an enormous amount of information about the Byzantine Empire.

The Byzantine Empire lasted over 1,000 years, and didn't end until the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Remains of the Byzantine Empire are in Turkey, Ravenna, Venice, and many other sites. (Contantinople, the capitol of Byzantium, is now Istanbul, Turkey. Tourists visit many of the buildings constructed by the Byzantines.)

To Romer's credit, he shows us many sites that are outside the tourist route. Often, he's the only person there. (It's hard to tell if nobody visits these sites, or if the public is kept away while he's filming.)

These four 52-minute documentaries are worth viewing, if you can get past Romer's "now it can be told" narrative. Also, I would suggest first checking out the Byzantine Empire on Google, unless you know all about it already. Most of the facts are there in the series, but there's no real overview to orient you. The historical material is there, but it's mingled in with everything else.

The good news is that Romer shows us great Byzantine artwork, so the series is esthetically pleasing. It's pop archeology, but pop archeology has its own rewards.

The series has a very high IMDb rating of 7.9. I didn't think it was that good. I rated it 7.

The musical scores used in the background along with some of the archaeological sites creates a sort of magic that keeps me coming back to look at this documentary over and over again. The passion and diction of John Romer inspires the imagination and you really do get unique insights as your journey, with John Romer, through the sites.

A definite must-see if you ever have listed Istanbul, Turkey, on your bucket list of cities to see because I don't think you'll capture the depth of the sites as it's portrayed in the movie. A tourist guide wouldn't go into that much detail.

What would be an interesting trip would be go to Venice, Italy to see the Byzantine treasures, visit Rome and then go to Istanbul, Turkey or include these sites in an eastern Mediterranian tour after being primed by this documentary.

Even if you don't end up travelling, you won't see that part of the world the same way.

This astonishing program is basically for geeks/lovers of the subject of the Eastern Roman Empire aka the Byzantine Empire. If you are just coming into this subject, a lot of what is presented will be somewhat lost on you. Mr. Romer does not elaborate on a lot of things. He tells the story of Byzantium in a fragmented way piecing bits of stories with architectural analysis and such. For example, he doesn't dwell very long or in much detail on the pivotal sack of Constantinople by the Venetians (and others) in the so called "Fourth Crusade" in 1204. The events leading up to this tragic event are long and he doesn't delve into the whys-and-wherefores so the viewer may be caught dumbstruck as to why this occurred.

What Mr. Romer DOES do well is imbue this documentary with his own sense of passion for the Empire and what it's loss meant to historians. You can tell by the way he describes the Golden Gate and the Emperor's palace that he truly loves the subject. His hand movements alone convey such a passion for the subject that he actually becomes part of the story. And he's got a great, soothing speaking voice.

If you want to know more about Byzantium, read John Julius Norwich's trilogy on the subject or the condensed version of the subject called "A Short History of Byzantium." When you watch this documentary after reading them, it will open your eyes and your senses to a whole new seemingly undiscovered world!

The lone commentator journeying around ancient cities begins to wear thin when you realize he or she does not bring in additional scholarship. In other words, all the perspective is from one angle similar to a Rick Steves exploration of a European tourist attraction. Despite an incredible subject, I felt that the reliance solely on John Romer's perspective and narration kept the documentary one dimensional which was frustrating if not rather boring. At several moments, my interest began to wane. The Gonzo-like journalism in which the viewer is not only supposed to be enthralled with the ancient sites but enthralled with John Romer's own fascination diminished the import of the subjects being discussed. Somehow, the narrator also playing sole commentator makes for a rather distracting experience. I prefer documentaries of this type in which the narrator and the commentator(s) are separate.

Aside from the Gonzo format, the other major problem is that the documentary lacks a clear thesis. What was Romer's goal aside from showing us interesting ruins? The documentary is mainly an exploration of ancient sites and a few artifacts with Romer standing in front of almost every ancient building. Romer then presents some history, but almost off-handedly. He would walk around a site and tell some stories about what happened there, but I wanted to hear the larger story, particularly about the reign of Emperor Constantine. As the documentary unfolds, I realized Romer never used to stills and did a poor job of explaining the chronology of events. Another frustration was Romer would bounce from city-to-city but he was not always clear as to where he was exploring. At one point he jumped from Istanbul (aka Constantinople) to Ravenna, Italy and back without clarifying that we had returned to Istanbul.

A far superior documentary on a similar subject is Secrets of the Dark Ages. The format is somewhat similar: a journalist-scholar goes on a quest of exploration to uncover the many mysteries of the Barbarians. However, in Dark Ages, the goal is very clear: to debunk previous prejudices about the so-called Barbarians. The host meets a plethora of scholars and experts that tell him (and us) about many of the unknown aspects of Barbarian culture which fit into his larger purpose. I would have loved to hear the perspective of local scholar-historians in Istanbul explain the historical implications of the Byzantine Empire but Romer decided to do it all himself. With the numerous scholars who have spent entire lifetimes studying this history, Romer really does not have much of an excuse for not using other scholars. If there was a larger point to the documentary Byzantium, I missed it, and maybe that's the other big problem.

If you want an excellent survey of Byzantine history done in colorful fashion, this is for you. This documentary would also be excellent for educators, who are teaching about Roman, or medieval history. This documentary is divided into three portions, first dealing with the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the rise of Christianity and the beginning of the Byzantine Empire. The second video deals with Byzantine diplomacy and the iconoclastic controversy. The third and final video explains the decline and fall of Byzantium. The series is shot in several countries, and beautifully integrates Byzantine history into the realities of the modern world, showing the place of this civilization as part of human civilization in general. Do, take the time to watch.