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In other words, when the cameras started rolling, so did the heads.
The same proved true for Henrys first wave of cinematic depictions.
As time and tolerance progressed, however, Tudor film and TV proved increasingly thematically malleable.
Henry began appearing as a supporting character viewed through one of his wives or an adviser.
(Technically two did, just for the record.
This isAnne of Cleveserasure.)
In Henry and the Tudor court, the political and the sexual coalesce.
This history hinges disproportionately on women, their bodies, their reproductive capacities, their animal nature.
Shes refusing to divorce him.
Shes making him break with Rome.
Shes dying in childbirth.
Shes living out her days on a generous settlement after getting an annulment.
Shes getting beheaded for committing adultery with a distant cousin.
Emil Jennings plays the prototypical Henry, slugging ale from a stein and doggedly pursuing a reluctant Anna.
Reject modernity (nepo babies), embrace tradition (nepo mistresses).
Otherwise, he doesnt stick around, kicking the bucket roughly 30 minutes in.
Take it away, Jean.
But in terms of bisected endings, its right in line with the rest of its genre.
The rest of Anne, played by Charlotte Rampling, is almost manic and fiendishly jealous.
That its characters also suffer from an endemic lack of heads perhaps goes without saying.
I will look God in the eye.
Its nothing if not an overacting master class and all draped in gold lame.
And by the halfway point, it’s possible for you to sense theyve stopped trying.
Well always havePeter OToole as Pope Paul III, stealing all his scenes while pioneering new pronunciations ofputain.
As Henry, Damien Lewis is especially virile if privately conflicted and a sentimental drunk.
Casual Anne Boleyn enjoyers need not apply.
The Spanish Princess(20192020)
Poor Catherine of Aragon.
Like Iberian ham, she tends to come pre-aged.
His believable romance with Catherine unfolds in flirtatious swordplay and kisses in corridors primed forfancams.
The show is, in a word, fine.
The costumes and sets are nothing special.
If only his neck fetish had ended there, hardee harhar.
Correction: A previous version of this story incorrectly stated the actor who plays Henry VIII inWolf Hall.
It is Damien Lewis.
