The Iliad XXIII-XXIV on Core Curriculum

Giovanni Maria Benzoni, Hector Lying on his Funeral Pyre

This is a melancholy day—the final episode of the Core Curriculum series on the Iliad dropped this morning. In this episode, host Michial Farmer talks with Coyle Neal and me about the two final books of the poem, XXIII and XXIV.

In this episode we cover the funeral games for Patroclus and the incredibly moving penultimate episode of the poem, Priam’s trip to Achilles to beg for the return of Hector’s body. Along the way we discuss mercy and its role—or absence—in the Iliad and ancient pagan society; the “breather episode” of Patroclus’s funeral games, in which things that would ordinarily seem to call for violent retribution are given a pass; and we spend a lot of time talking about Priam and Achilles and what their encounter at the end of the poem tells us.

We conclude by reflecting on the rather small question of what the Iliad means and what it can teach us today. This was perhaps my favorite part of any of the episodes I got to participate in. We reflect on things like the fleeting glory of victory, the inevitability of death, and especially the appreciation the Iliad can give us for the loser’s side in human conflicts. A quotation I didn’t think of at the time, but wish I had, is this from Richard Weaver, which I actually used as an epigraph to Griswoldville:

“It is good for everyone to ally himself at one time with the defeated and to look at the ‘progress’ of history through the eyes of those who were left behind.”

— Richard Weaver

You can access this episode’s exceptionally thorough and detailed shownotes here. The shownotes include a lot of the allusions we make as well as full blockquotes of some of the passages from other writers that we talk about, including those from CS Lewis’s Preface to Paradise Lost and Chesterton’s Everlasting Man. In the episode I also mention writing a blog post about one of Chesterton’s reflections on the Iliad. You can read that post here.

You can listen to Core Curriculum on iTunes, Stitcher, and other fine podcasting services, or via the embedded player in this post.

I was honored to participate in this series and have enjoyed this deep read back through Homer’s masterpiece. The Core Curriculum will return with a second series on Plato’s Republic, a series I’m looking forward to listening to. Thanks as always for listening! I hope y’all have enjoyed this as much as I have.

The King

Timothée Chalamet as King Henry V in Netflix’s The King

At the beginning of the month, Netflix released The King, their second action drama—after Outlaw King—based on the reign of a medieval British king to be released in November. I hope this becomes an annual event. I also hope the movies get better.

The King, directed by David Michôd and written by Michôd and actor Joel Edgerton, tells the story of England’s King Henry V. All retellings of Henry’s reign move in the shadow of Shakespeare’s play, so there are a couple of ways a new film about him can go. One is simply to adapt the play, which has been done plenty of times before—by Sir Laurence Olivier, Kenneth Branagh, and most recently as an episode of The Hollow Crown. I had hoped The King would go the other route and give us a straight historical film about Henry. Michôd and Edgerton split the difference—the film is not precisely historical but more a reimagining or updating of Shakespeare. It doesn’t quite work.

A kingdom for a stage

The film begins with material from Shakespeare’s Henry IV, Part I, in which the Percys—erstwhile supporters of Henry IV in his seizure of power from his cousin Richard II—rebel against the king. (Here’s more about that, courtesy of Netflix.) Henry or Hal (Timothée Chalamet), the wastrel Prince of Wales, learns that his younger brother Thomas (Dean-Charles Chapman) has been given command of his father’s army. He leaves his slumming and wenching in a snit, rides to the battle, seizes control of the army from Thomas, and defeats the rebels by killing their leader, Harry “Hotspur” Percy (Tom Glynn-Carney), in single combat. Hotspur’s death ends the rebellion and Henry’s risking of his own life spares those of the soldiers on both sides.

The film sets up a number of rivalries in this opening act—Henry IV vs Hotspur, Hal vs his younger brother Thomas, Hal vs his ailing and distrustful father. But shortly thereafter the king (Ben Mendelsohn) dies and the prince, now King Henry V, ascends the throne. Thus one more rivalry ends. Then Henry receives word that his brother has died subduing rebels elsewhere in the kingdom. There goes another.

So by the time we reach the thirty-minute mark, Henry rules in reasonable and uncontested comfort and has already begun carrying himself like a king. Already the narrative begins to sag, and Falstaff (co-writer Joel Edgerton) occasionally appears to give the film the appearance of some kind of throughline, but has little to do but mutter and banter with his landlady.

The bulk of the movie, beginning with the tennis ball incident, is spent on Henry’s first campaign in northern France, renewing the English claim to the French throne that had begun the Hundred Years’ War under Edward III. Henry is presented as motivated by retribution—first for slights to his person by the French, then because of an assassination attempt that is foiled by his adviser William Gascoigne (Sean Harris), and a French-sponsored conspiracy to remove him from the throne. From this point the film follows the historical record and Shakespeare reasonably closely, first with the siege of Harfleur and then the Battle of Agincourt. Neither is presented particularly accurately, but they are dramatic and visually stunning, and Henry emerges bloodied and muddied but victorious.

Even if the film was a bit dramatically inert, I enjoyed it up to this point and especially liked the scene the screenwriters give to Henry and his ultimate rival, Charles VI, King of France (Thibault de Montalembert), in which Charles tenderly reflects on the sources of their conflict and the role of family. But then we reach the final scenes of the film. Henry meets his betrothed, Charles’s daughter Catherine (Lily-Rose Depp), and she gives him a woke show of force, refusing to submit to her new husband—“You must earn my respect”—and throwing shade at the entire structure of medieval life: “All monarchy is illegitimate.” Okay then.

Regardless, Catherine rattles Henry enough that he seeks a private audience with his adviser William Gascoigne, who has skulked in the background through much of the movie without really being fleshed out. William reveals that he was behind the assassination attempt and he helped construct the attempted coup in order to give Henry an enemy to prove himself against. It’s Henry’s court as the Bush White House, complete with Cheney. The Hundred Years’ War was an inside job.

Henry then kills William in a fit of rage, just to seal the stupid in for added flavor.

Princes to act

Robert Pattinson as the Dauphin in The King

It’s probably clear what I disliked about the movie, but I did like a great deal of it. It is technically brilliant, with beautifully lit and composed cinematography that, especially in the cool, moody interiors of the opening act, evokes the great Roger Deakins. The cinematographer and editor, Adam Arkapaw and Peter Sciberras respectively, also resist overreliance on handheld (so-called “shaky cam”) and fast cuts and give us battle scenes that are both impressionistic and comprehensible, which was refreshing. Everything from the cinematography to the costuming to the droning string score is austere and moody to a fault. It’s heightened and operatic and I really liked the look and feel of it.

The film’s greatest strength—and weakness, as I’ll discuss below—is its performances. The supporting players are all excellent. Ben Mendelsohn, everyone’s favorite lip-smacking baddie, stands out in a short appearance as Henry IV and Tom Glynn-Carney, who played Mark Rylance’s son in Dunkirk, was so good as Hotspur that I wish he’d had more screentime. I’ve already mentioned Thibault de Montalembert as the King of France, who makes a strong impression as a fragile and weary monarch in his one scene, and Sean Harris as Gascoigne. Harris, who was great in the two most recent Mission: Impossible movies and as Macduff in the 2015 Macbeth, is very good in a severely underwritten part, using a stoop and a serpent-like hissing voice to suggest wisdom and insight as he steps up to mentor the young king. The twist with his character at the end would have worked well if Harris had had more to work with, if it had been more carefully set up from the beginning, and if it weren’t so stupid. Harris acquits himself admirably, though, and until that final scene I enjoyed him every moment he was onscreen.

But the standout member of the cast, to my surprise, was Robert Pattinson as the Dauphin. Despite his misuse in the Twilight films, Pattinson has talent and indulges in his part, speaking in a mincing Inspector Clouseau accent that suggests he is mocking Henry every time they interact. He also, as the internet was quick to appreciate, gets in some sick burns before dying at Agincourt. He steals every scene he’s in.

Unfortunately, the biggest problem with The King is the king himself. Timothée Chalamet, alumnus of Oscar-bait films Call Me By Your Name and Beautiful Boy, plays Prince Hal as an emo kid, slouching around in black clothes and a stringy haircut and hating on his stupid dad. I’ve had this kid in the back row of many classrooms over the years. If you’ve ever tired of Shakespeare’s “warlike Harry” and wanted something more punchable, your ship has come in. Chalamet shows more life and intensity at the beginning of the second act, after he has assumed the throne and has steeled himself to take charge of the kingdom. But this energy flags and by the time his army has reached Harfleur he is mooning around his tent soliciting advice from Falstaff. If Pattinson and the others consistently steal the scene, it’s because Chalamet lets them.

Piece out our imperfections

Posthumous portrait of Henry V

Before I say anything about The King’s “accuracy”—which I’ve already been asked about—a quick note about that. Accuracy per se does not make or break a movie. I love and adore Braveheart, perhaps the worst historical film ever made, precisely because it is a good story, well told. (For more on all those points, see here.) So even as I realized the film was going to be more fiction than historical, I was still ready to enjoy it.

As I said above, The King reimagines or repurposes Shakespeare, following the Bard more often than the historical record but frequently departing from both. Its borrowings from Shakespeare include Hal’s wastrel youth—for which we have no contemporary evidence but which had become a staple of folklore by the Tudor era—his friendship with the fictional Falstaff, his triumph over Hotspur in single combat at the Battle of Shrewsbury, the French sponsorship of the Southhampton plot (which was really a move by English nobles to place a cousin of Henry on the throne), the presence of the Dauphin at Agincourt, and quite a lot more.

Its departures from Shakespeare include killing off Henry’s brother Thomas before the invasion of France and killing the Dauphin during the Battle of Agincourt, giving Falstaff a longer life and an active role in the leadership and fighting in France, as well as a battlefield death—the meaning or purpose of which eludes me—and, especially, having the plots against Henry turn out to be the work of a devious underling.

The real Henry V did lead his father’s army—at age sixteen—against the Percys at Shrewsbury, but there was no single combat. Henry was, in fact, shot in the face by a crossbow and his surgeon saved his life with a remarkable piece of medieval surgery. (A small scar on one cheekbone appears to be the filmmakers’ concession to this real-life event, but nothing is made of it and Henry emerges from Shrewsbury unscathed.) The timeline is compressed quite a bit, moving from Shrewsbury in 1403 to Henry’s accession in 1413 without so much as a speedbump. The real Thomas lived almost as long as his brother and was present throughout the campaign in northern France. The dauphin was not present—much less killed—at Agincourt, but did die shortly afterward in an unrelated incident.

I could go on, but that would become tedious—and that’s not even getting into nitpicking the reenactment of the Battle of Agincourt or other issues of authenticity. (Here’s one pet peeve: longbowmen shooting coordinated unaimed volleys high into the air rather than aiming.) That’s not what this movie is about. What’s here is fine, nicely realized and beautifully shot and orchestrated, but in the end it’s not enough.

Unworthy scaffold

When I had finished the film I was left wondering who The King is for. It is not and apparently was never intended to be a historical film, and its loose grasp on the real events and its otherwise forgiveable interest in atmosphere over authenticity work continuously against that kind of enjoyment. But The King doesn’t really work as an adaptation of Shakespeare either. In altering the plays it loses the Bard’s grasp on character and plot and, perhaps most grievously, his magnificent poetry. Whatever Michôd and Edgerton can come up with for the speech before Agincourt could never eclipse the words of Shakespeare’s Henry, and it doesn’t.

The King, like the title character himself, is handsomely mounted but lifeless, which is a shame considering the legendary stuff the filmmakers had to work with.

The Iliad XVIII-XX on Core Curriculum

Thetis commissions new armor for her son Achilles from Hephaistos

Episode nine of Core Curriculum’s ongoing deep read of Homer’s Iliad dropped this morning! In this episode, Michial Farmer, David Grubbs, and I talk through books XVIII, XIX, and XX of Homer’s great war epic.

In this section, Achilles, mad with rage at the death of his friend Patroclus at the hands of the Trojan prince Hector, vows revenge; his mother Thetis orders him a magnificent new suit of armor from the blacksmith god Hephaistos, including a remarkably detailed shield; Achilles has a short chat with his horses, who have definite opinions on what is about to happen; Agamemnon tries too late to make amends; and, with the gods agreeing among themselves not to interfere with whatever may happen next, Achilles returns to battle.

You can listen to Core Curriculum on iTunes, Stitcher, and other fine podcasting apps, or via the embedded Stitcher player in this post. The shownotes, with pertinent links and glosses on our discussion including which translations we’re working from, are available at the Christian Humanist Radio Network website here.

I had a great time discussing Homer with Michial and David and, as always, I hope y’all enjoy our chat, too. Sad to say there are only two more episodes to go after this one. Thanks for listening!

The Iliad XVI-XVII on Core Curriculum

Episode eight of Core Curriculum’s series on the Iliad has arrived! I’m honored to appear as a guest along with host David Grubbs and fellow guest Carla Godwin. In this episode we discuss the drama, action, and tragedy of books XVI and XVII of Homer’s epic.

A lot happens in this chunk of the story, from Achilles’s concession to Patroclus that he lead the Myrmidons out to battle disguised in Achilles’s armor, the awe inspiring slaughter wrought by Patroclus, Hector’s intervention and Patroclus’s, the fight over Patroclus’s armor and corpse, and an amazing amount of ancient trashtalk. It’s brutal and thrilling and tragic and represents Homer at the height of his art. We discuss all this—and more—in this episode.

I had a great time recording this conversation and hope you enjoy listening to it, too. You can listen in via iTunes, Stitcher, and other fine podcasting apps, or via the Stitcher player embedded in this post. You can read the shownotes, including which translations we’re consulting as we read and talk, here. Thanks for listening!

The Shining on Book of Nature Podcast

Current mood

I’m excited to participate in the Christian Humanist Radio Network’s Halloween crossover event again this year. Last year, we did a series of episodes on the films of Alfred Hitchcock, and I was a guest on the Christian Humanist Podcast to talk about The 39 Steps. This year, the network is focusing on the novels of Stephen King.

I was honored to be a guest on the Book of Nature Podcast along with Jay Eldred and regular host Charles Hackney, and together we discuss The Shining, one of King’s great early works and a classic of the horror genre. Along the way we talk about Stephen King’s personal history, the inspirations for the story (all hail Edgar Allan Poe!), the novel’s dramatization of the psychology of alcoholism and abuse, the real hero of the novel, and the relative merits of Stanley Kubrick’s film adaptation, including Jack Nicholson’s evil face.

If you’d like to catch the other episodes of the crossover, last week The Christian Feminist Podcast talked about Carrie, Monday my old haunt The City of Man Podcast dropped an episode on Revival, yesterday the flagship show talked about Misery, and tomorrow, Halloween proper, Danny Anderson’s Sectarian Review will talk about Pet Sematary.

Tune in and enjoy! You can listen in on the embedded Stitcher player above or via iTunes or other fine podcasting apps. And as always, thanks for listening! I’m blessed and honored to be involved with a network of such fun and intelligent people. Hope y’all enjoy listening as much as I did participating.

Cicero on bad leaders

Detail from Cicero Denounces Catiline, by Cesare Maccari, 1888

From Cicero’s philosophical dialogue De Legibus (On the Laws), Book III, XIV:

“Corrupt leaders are all the more pernicious to the republic because not only do they harbor their own vices but they spread them among the citizenry; they do harm not only because they are themselves corrupt but because they corrupt others—and they do more harm by the example they set than by their own transgressions.”

Let the reader understand.

I expand on thoughts like these in fictional form in The Last Day of Marcus Tullius Cicero, which I wrote in the summer of 2016 and has only grown more starkly relevant since. But be forewarned—my vision in that book is neither a partisan one (whoever you think I’m thinking about as I write this post, it’s not them) nor a hopeful one.

Chesterton on chronological snobbery

A short line from Chesterton that I hadn’t run across before, as quoted in this piece from the Imaginative Conservative by GKC biographer Joseph Pearce:

“[M]an should be a prince looking from the pinnacle of a tower built by his fathers, and not a contemptuous cad, perpetually kicking down the ladders by which he climbed.”

Chesterton is writing in praise of the historian Christopher Dawson, whose work “has given the first tolerably clear and convincing account of the real stages of what his less lucid predecessors loved to call the Evolution of Religion.” This was a topic of especial concern for Chesterton, and meditations on that topic form a large early part of his own book The Everlasting Man.

But his primary concern in this line is with a problem that CS Lewis and Owen Barfield, both drawing from Chesterton, would later term “chronological snobbery.” Lewis: chronological snobbery is “the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our own age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited.”

This is the air we breathe, now. It’s the water we swim in without even knowing it. In his essay, Pearce imagines a scenario in which a resurrected Plato is first treated as a curiosity, then as a nuisance, and finally as a subject of scorn. I don’t have to imagine this—I’ve seen it. I have to take great pains to teach my Western Civ students anything of value about—to follow this example—the Greek philosophers. Virtually all their textbooks offer about Plato and Aristotle is that they were sexists who made excuses for slavery. Inadequate.

Chesterton’s solution to chronological snobbery was tradition. From Orthodoxy: “Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about.” Key to embracing and maintaining is tradition is a certain pietas or respect for the past. This is the minimum buy-in. Without respect—a respect that should blossom into a filial love—the tradition breaks down and you are left with nothing but yourself. A paltry and limited thing and, to kick this back to Lewis one more time, a prison:

The man who is contented to be only himself, and therefore less a self, is in prison. My own eyes are not enough for me, I will see through those of others. Reality, even seen through the eyes of many, is not enough.

That’s from An Experiment in Criticism, which Lewis published in 1961. Chesterton’s earlier essay argues almost exactly the same thing, expanding the scope from wide reading to a wide and deep understanding of the past and, especially, our debts to it. To expand the line I quoted earlier with a bit more of its full context, Chesterton is summarizing Dawson’s scheme of “four stages in the spiritual story of humanity.” He concludes the summary—and the essay—by saying that

I will not complete the four phases here, because the last deals with the more controversial question of the Christian system. I merely use them as a convenient classification to illustrate a neglected truth: that a complete human being ought to have all these things stratified in him, so long as they are in the right order of importance, and that man should be a prince looking from the pinnacle of a tower built by his fathers, and not a contemptuous cad, perpetually kicking down the ladders by which he climbed.

Don’t be a snob. Have a suitable respect for the past and you will inevitably learn from it and enrich yourself.

Pearce’s entire essay is worthwhile—you can read it here. You can read the entirety of Chesterton’s essay, collected in Avowals and Denials in 1934, here. And I’ve previously written about pietas, which I’m more and more convinced is the most important of our neglected virtues, here.

Jefferson on ignorance and freedom

This morning I happened across this quotation from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to Charles Yancey, a Virginia state legislator, in January 1816, seven years after leaving office as president to return to private life back home in Virginia:

“if a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be.”

— Thomas Jefferson, January 6, 1816

The whole letter is quite remarkable, a blend of commentary on mundane Albemarle County infrastructure projects (a dam project that could wreck property values and the navigability of a river); his fervent hopes that an acquaintance named Captain Miller will be able to open a brewery nearby (both for his own enjoyment and for humanitarian purposes: “I wish to see this beverage become common instead of the whiskey which kills one third of our citizens and ruins their families”); and some quite pointed—and still relevant—observations about the early 19th century mania for banking:

Like a dropsical man calling out for water, water, our deluded citizens are clamoring for more banks, more banks. the American mind is now in that state of fever which the world has so often seen in the history of other nations. . . . we are now taught to believe that legerdemain tricks upon paper can produce as solid wealth as hard labor in the earth. it is vain for common sense to urge that nothing can produce but nothing: that it is an idle dream to believe in a philosopher’s stone which is to turn every thing into gold, and to redeem man from the original sentence of his maker that ‘in the sweat of his brow shall he eat his bread.’

But the most striking portions of the letter come near the end, when Jefferson reflects on the prospects of funding improvements not just in roads and canals (the big infrastructure craze before railroads), but in education. He theorizes about a minor tax that could help fund education at every level, including a projected college which would later become the University of Virginia, and criticizes the fanaticism bred in students after they leave to study in New England universities. (The more things change…) Jefferson:

if a nation expects to be ignorant & free, in a state of civilisation, it expects what never was & never will be. the functionaries of every government have propensities to command at will the liberty & property of their constituents. there is no safe deposit for these but with the people themselves; nor can they be safe with them without information. where the press is free and every man able to read, all is safe.

I am less sanguine than Jefferson—a hopeless Enlightenment rationalist who did not believe in original sin or any of the doctrines that traditionally imparted a salutary dose of reality to ambitious moral improvers—about the power of the press and of education, and have a hard time knowing which it would be more foolish to place much hope in. But Jefferson is exactly right that in a system such as ours, it’s up to the citizenry to defend themselves against abuse of the powers they have granted to their government. Republics run on such tensions.

I don’t think I have to argue that we’ve failed. By Jefferson’s lights, we are now and have for a long time been asking the impossible.

And education does have a role to play, especially if we hope to recover some of the republican virtues and liberties the Founders assumed were necessary to maintaining freedom. (See Jefferson’s friend John Adams on this point here.) After all, the purpose of liberal education is to train free people—citizens. It’s precisely that vision informing Jefferson’s comments above.

You can read this quotation with a bit more context here or the letter in its entirety here. You can even peruse Jefferson’s original, with a helpful transcription, here. The portion I’ve quoted has sometimes been shared with a spurious additional line or two about citizens being informed. I think this probably began as a gloss on Jefferson’s original and got lumped in with his actual words, as is the wont of internet quotation. You can read about that at Monticello’s page on spurious, corrupted, or misattributed Jefferson quotations here.

Downton Abbey

Over the weekend my wife and I got to see Downton Abbey, the film continuation of the great British TV series.

I'll start off by saying that it was a perfect date movie—definitely so if you've watched the entirety of the show and especially so if you love it. My wife and I had a great time. But I'm honestly not sure how much someone with no familiarity with the show would get out of it. One of the things I liked about the movie was that it wasted almost no time bothering to introduce characters fans will already know. That means fans get a lot of bang for their buck but I imagine newbies may well be lost.

The film takes place over a few days at Downton Abbey, the estate of Lord Grantham and his family. A letter from Buckingham Palace that informs the family of an impending visit from the king and queen sets the house in motion and the plot follows the family, the household staff, and the guests through the labyrinthine progress of a royal visit.

The Grantham family faces the myriad pressures of properly accommodating the royal family—including everything from clean and comfortable rooms to a well-executed military parade—and the household staff find themselves sidelined by specialists brought in from London to prepare the house according to arcane royal protocols, which they find insulting. Taking especial offense are Mrs. Patmore (Lesley Nicol) and Mrs. Hughes (Phyllis Logan), the cook and housekeeper, who bristle at the condescending intrusions of the outsiders.

You’d be forgiven for thinking so based on this poster, but Downton Abbey is not a horror movie

In Downton Abbey fashion, some characters misstep in trying to make things easier and further complicate matters. Lady Mary (Michelle Dockery) asks her old favorite Mr. Carson (Jim Carter) to come out of retirement (a last minute development in the finale of the series) to act as butler just for the royal visit, an insult to Thomas Barrow (Robert James-Collier), who is clearly proud of his new position as butler and, apparently, handling himself well. Furthermore, interpersonal drama looms as the Dowager Countess (Maggie Smith) learns that an estranged cousin (Imelda Staunton) whom she believes is scheming to cheat the Grantham family out of an estate rightfully theirs will be returning as one of the queen’s ladies in waiting.

And there’s much, much more, including subplots about a handsome young plumber who flirts a smidge too much with Daisy (Sophie McShera), provoking jealousy in her intended, Andy (Michael Fox); the prying and questioning of a mysterious army officer (Stephen Campbell Moore); and the embarassing eagerness of Mr. Molesley (Kevin Doyle) to return to staff just long enough to wait on the king and queen; and of course the inevitable secrets that every character refuses to divulge until things have gotten very complicated indeed.

It’s a lot of fun, and while a few of the subplots show off a little too clearly the soap opera that’s always been a part of Downton Abbey’s DNA—for instance, one involving the identity of a mysterious lady’s maid who also immediately turns into a love interest—some of the subplots are very funny. Perennial sad sack Mr. Molesely gets some especially British cringe humor at one crucial moment of the film.

The entire cast is excellent, especially considering that with well over thirty speaking roles in multiple intersecting plotlines and only two hours to work with, each performer had to make an impression with a very small amount of screentime. In fact I find it hard to say who the star of the film is, but the meatiest parts belong to Tom Branson (Allen Leech), erstwhile Irish socialist chauffeur, for whom the film seems to be trying to find a love interest, and to the great Maggie Smith as the Dowager Countess, who invests her small slice of the plot with a sense of long history and hurt and, in the end, enormous pathos.

The film left a number of its many subplots underdeveloped or too little explored. An Irish Republican plot against the king doesn't get quite enough time to breath, and neither do a few following incidents involving Tom Branson, though they do have a nice payoff at the end. Similarly, an very important subplot involving the Dowager Countess only plays out secondhand, like events happening offstage in a Greek drama. By contrast, the most noteworthy and time consuming subplot involves Thomas Barrow taking a first trip into the gay underbelly of York, a subplot that reminds us how Barrow's issues have usually served as the vehicle for the show's most anachronistic and pandering messages. A little less time on this and a little more to set up—to choose one thing—the Dowager Countess's big revelation at the end of the film would have been a better use of screentime and felt a little less cloying.

But those are minor complaints. What needs to work works. The rivalry between Downton Abbey's staff and the royal staff is fun and has some delightful moments and all of the plot threads are nicely woven together and intertwined. Almost everyone has a moment or two. A favorite of mine: After Barrow has angrily stormed out of an interview with Lord Grantham, Lady Mary, and Mr. Carson in which he learns he’s being temporarily replaced, Lord Grantham chooses to ignore his insubordination with: “I never thought of him as a man of principle before.” And of course the Dowager Countess gets a heaping share of zingers, including “I never argue. I explain.” My wife noted that the film couldn't have been more carefully calculated to satisfy lovers of the show. I think she's right.

I thought a few times that the film could have used a little more substance. I had just recently watched Gosford Park, screenwriter Julian Fellowes’s first foray into this kind of storytelling (Downton Abbey was apparently originally intended as a spinoff) and marveled at the dramatic potential in a story with that many plots and side stories and such a huge cast. Compared with Gosford Park, Downton Abbey didn’t seem especially weighty.

But I realized that one of the things I most liked about Downton Abbey the film was its relatively low stakes. Royalty and status aside, the plot boils down to We’re having guests over for dinner. And after almost twenty years of the whole world threatened by rings of power or Decepticons or Sith lords or—especially—Infinity Stones, this was a refreshingly human-sized story. This has been the strength of Downton Abbey all along—its human proportions have allowed for delicate interplays of deference, respect, courtesy, and decency that remind us of what it means to live among others and connected to others. In a movie like this, not hurting the grocer’s feelings offers more personal meaning than any number of sci-fi MacGuffins and CGI battle scenes. I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed that change of pace.

So definitely check out Downton Abbey, especially if you are at least passingly familiar with the show or simply want to a pay a visit in which your relationships with other people matter.

The Iliad V-VI on Core Curriculum

Diomedes casting his spear against Ares, illustration by John Flaxman

Episode three of Core Curriculum is here! I was honored to be a guest on this episode with host Victoria Reynolds Farmer and my friend and sometime host on the City of Man Pocast, Coyle Neal. In this episode we continue Core Curriculum’s slow walk through the Iliad by looking in detail at Books V and VI of Homer’s masterwork. We talk about the nature of the war dramatized by Homer, the gods, the heroes, arete and the aristeia, and the unforgivable fecklessness of both Paris and the movie Troy. Coyle and I also sing the praises of a criminally underrated character, the ferocious god-fighting hero Diomedes.

You can read the shownotes at the CHRN website here. You can listen in on the web here or in the embedded Stitcher player in this post. Please also add Core Curriculum to your usual lineup of podcast listening, which you can do via iTunes, Stitcher, and other fine podcasting services. Thanks for listening!