THE TEXT-HISTORY-CINEMA INTERSEMIOSIS IN HBO’S <i>ROME</i>

Abstract

From August 2005 to March 2007, the two seasons (with 12 and 10 episodes respectively) of the award winning miniseries HBO’s ROME were aired by the Home Box Office (HBO) channel. With screenplay signed by various writers and directors, the TV series was a co-production of HBO (USA) and BBC (UK) with support from RAI (Italy), and the show was filmed in multiple locations, but mainly in Cinecittà Film Studios in Rome, very famous for having been headquarters also for Federico Fellini’s movies. In the first season, the miniseries depicts the conquest of Gaul, made by the military genius of Gaius Julius Caesar, and the political trajectory that made him accumulate power to such an extent that this divided Roman citizens into two factions, one supporting and the other opposing him, the latter focused mainly on the historic figure of General Gnaeus Pompey Magnus. The second season shows the period of civil war following the assassination of Caesar, and the future rise to power of his nephew, adopted son and sole heir, Gaius Octavian Augustus, who was destined to overcome his rivals as well as their allies in the triumvirate that had been formed to pursue and punish Caesar’s assassins. These facts are well known and usually crowd the mind and imagination of every minimally educated person. The HBO series broke new ground not only for the talent of its writers, directors and actors, not only for its visual effects and locations nor for the vibrancy and grandeur of historical scenes – after all, “historical movies” in general do the same – but it has done so also by the (re)construction of historical events from the perspective of a pair of protagonists of whom too little is known: the centurions Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorenus, who are the only low-rank soldiers mentioned by Caesar in his book Commentaries on the Gallic War (Commentarii de Bello Gallico V.44). Thus, the fictionalization of events also took into account several Roman civilization data which were scattered through historical sources and also those that belong to the modern knowledge of material culture, resulting in a TV series whose filmic aesthetics has rare beauty and creativity. From the survey of textual, historical and cultural data put together in this film, as well as the distance featuring the creative space in the dimension of the gap between them, this paper aims to highlight two pivotal moments of visual and narrative strategies of the show: the opening credits footage and the final scenes of the first season of HBO's Rome.