Voices en Español

ROME.
The Tudors.
Elizabeth.
When well done, the pageantry, spectacle and intrigue of these films and tv series make for great entertainment, even when they may not be 100% historically accurate. After doing a marathon session of watching episodes of ROME, you could say I was in a ROME state of mind recently when I got a flyer in the mail from Historia National Geographic magazine. Practically every month they have some sort of giveaway or promotion to try and entice people to renew or extend their subscription. This month the promotion is the complete second season of the BBC-HBO critically acclaimed series Rome.

As I looked at the flyer it got me thinking…where are all the good historical dramas about Spanish history? They appear to be few and far between. Spain’s history is so rich and varied, it’s astonishing that it hasn’t been extensively mined by film directors and screenwriters.

I guess the reasons for this are twofold: expense and commercial viability. Producing historical films is expensive. At least if you want to do them correctly. The costumes and the set design alone are huge expenses. In fact, the TV series ROME was stopped after only 22 episodes because the production costs were just too high for the BBC and HBO to continue. The second factor is commercial viability. The histories of ancient Rome, the Italian Renaissance, the Elizabethean Era are in many ways already “presold” to the potential audience, considering that the names and places and events are already somewhat familiar to many people, whereas the history of Spain is less familiar to many. Yes, the Spanish colonized the Americas but setting aside Christopher Columbus, the names Hernán Cortés, Francisco Pizarro and Vasco Nuñez de Balboa aren’t exactly at the same household name recognition of Julius Ceasar, Cleopatra, Michaelangelo and Queen Elizabeth I.

Of course, the conquest of the Americas is just one chapter. There are centuries of history that came before, from the occupation of the Iberian peninsula by Muslims to the Reconquista by Catholics which led to the expulsion of Jews and Muslims from Spain. Very little of this history has been given extensive film treatment. It’s a shame, really, because there are so many stories to tell, stories that would be considered new and exciting to an audience that already knows how a movie about King Henry VIII is going to end. Boy meets girl. Boy marries girl. Boy divorces or beheads girl. Rinse and repeat.

Two years ago Viggo Mortensen headlined the historical Spanish film Alatriste. With a budget of 24 million euros it was the most expensive movie to have ever have been made by Spain’s film industry, but the film was a bit of a critical disappointment and wasn’t widely distributed outside of Spain and the Netherlands.

Here is the trailer of a Spanish historical drama that is currently out. The title is La Conjura de El Escorial and it appears to have been filmed in English and then dubbed in Spanish because the voices don’t fit the mouths. Unfortunately, the trailer doesn’t “sell” the movie, at least not to me. Looks like a lot of activity adding up to nothing, if you ask me. Either the trailer wasn’t well edited or the movie isn’t any good.