A more valid criterion will be to see how its influence survives today, or say, how at home we would be if we are somehow sent back to one of these civilisations?
On both these standards, ancient Rome, say in the late Republican period (1st century Bce), could well qualify.
In Rome of this period, you would find yourself in a large sprawling city, where plush neighbourhoods with elegant villas are interspersed with more crowded areas full of multi-storey buildings, streets teem with people from all over the known world, there are markets and various services, common people eagerly follow and gossip over the foibles of the rich and famous, are swayed by sops and entertainment spectacles, stay keenly involved in governance which, however, is largely a preserve of professional politicians with issues over public works, food subsidies, corruption et al predominating.
Unlike most other ancient civilisations across Europe, Asia,...
On both these standards, ancient Rome, say in the late Republican period (1st century Bce), could well qualify.
In Rome of this period, you would find yourself in a large sprawling city, where plush neighbourhoods with elegant villas are interspersed with more crowded areas full of multi-storey buildings, streets teem with people from all over the known world, there are markets and various services, common people eagerly follow and gossip over the foibles of the rich and famous, are swayed by sops and entertainment spectacles, stay keenly involved in governance which, however, is largely a preserve of professional politicians with issues over public works, food subsidies, corruption et al predominating.
Unlike most other ancient civilisations across Europe, Asia,...
- 4/9/2023
- by Agency News Desk
- GlamSham
After starring in over 80 features and racking up four Best Actress Oscar nominations, Barbara Stanwyck ended her 35-year film career in 1964. The 57-year-old, who had first ventured into TV acting eight years earlier, only accepted small screen roles from then on and quickly found success on the ABC western “The Big Valley.” In 1983, she appeared on the first installment of the four-part limited series “The Thorn Birds” and was ultimately rewarded with her fifth Emmy nomination and third win.
“The Thorn Birds,” an adaptation of the novel by Colleen McCullough, starred Stanwyck in the role of Mary Carson, a wealthy widow who sets out to ruin the romantic conquests of a much younger man after he scorns her advances. At 76, she was originally the second oldest winner and fourth oldest nominee in the Best TV Movie/Limited Series Actress category. Nearly four decades later, she ranks as the 10th oldest contender,...
“The Thorn Birds,” an adaptation of the novel by Colleen McCullough, starred Stanwyck in the role of Mary Carson, a wealthy widow who sets out to ruin the romantic conquests of a much younger man after he scorns her advances. At 76, she was originally the second oldest winner and fourth oldest nominee in the Best TV Movie/Limited Series Actress category. Nearly four decades later, she ranks as the 10th oldest contender,...
- 8/25/2022
- by Matthew Stewart
- Gold Derby
After starring in over 80 features and racking up four Best Actress Oscar nominations, Barbara Stanwyck ended her 35-year film career in 1964. The 57-year-old, who had first ventured into TV acting eight years earlier, only accepted small screen roles from then on and quickly found success on the ABC western “The Big Valley.” In 1983, she appeared on the first installment of the four-part limited series “The Thorn Birds” and was ultimately rewarded with her fifth Emmy nomination and third win.
“The Thorn Birds,” an adaptation of the novel by Colleen McCullough, starred Stanwyck in the role of Mary Carson, a wealthy widow who sets out to ruin the romantic conquests of a much younger man after he scorns her advances. At 76, she was originally the second oldest winner and fourth oldest nominee in the Best TV Movie/Limited Series Actress category. Nearly four decades later, she ranks as the 10th oldest contender,...
“The Thorn Birds,” an adaptation of the novel by Colleen McCullough, starred Stanwyck in the role of Mary Carson, a wealthy widow who sets out to ruin the romantic conquests of a much younger man after he scorns her advances. At 76, she was originally the second oldest winner and fourth oldest nominee in the Best TV Movie/Limited Series Actress category. Nearly four decades later, she ranks as the 10th oldest contender,...
- 8/25/2022
- by Matthew Stewart
- Gold Derby
It’s no mystery to the cast of The Thorn Birds why the 1983 miniseries was — and remains — the second-highest-rated miniseries ever (after Roots). "The attraction of doing, or thinking of doing, something forbidden appealed to the audience," Piper Laurie, who played Anne Mueller, tells Closer. "It was powerful!" The 10-hour drama, based on Colleen McCullough’s best-selling novel, followed a half-century in the life of the Cleary family in Australia: sheep rancher and matriarch Mary (Barbara Stanwyck), her lust for conflicted priest Ralph De Bricassart (Richard Chamberlain), and his forbidden love for Mary’s niece Meggie (Rachel Ward). With its family drama, scorching love scenes, and sprawling scale, The Thorn Birds "really was a watercooler show," Sydney Penny, who played young Meggie, tells Closer. "I didn’t appreciate how big it was at the time until I was watching the Emmys and I saw all these people I knew who were nominated.
- 9/8/2018
- by Editorial Staff
- Closer Weekly
Such Moving Pictures Clayton picks his top 11 of the year
The Film Doctor and his wife discuss Birdman and crisis of identity
The Backlot does a readers poll of the greatest gay movies but Yikes some of the titles and their rankings. It's also very very American movie centric. No Happy Together on a list of 100 greatest gay movies? That's A Deal Breaker, Ladies.
20 Weeks to Oscar - David Poland wonders if it's wide open due to preferential balloting which he hates (and explains why)
NY Times Colleen McCullough author of the Thorn Birds dies at 77. My mom was obsessed with that miniseries when I was a little kid so I vaguely remember it.
Variety reviews Lila & Eve starring Viola Davis & Jennifer Lopez. Yes, I realize they're billed the other way round but let's be real, okay? I really wanted to see this one but it did not screen during...
The Film Doctor and his wife discuss Birdman and crisis of identity
The Backlot does a readers poll of the greatest gay movies but Yikes some of the titles and their rankings. It's also very very American movie centric. No Happy Together on a list of 100 greatest gay movies? That's A Deal Breaker, Ladies.
20 Weeks to Oscar - David Poland wonders if it's wide open due to preferential balloting which he hates (and explains why)
NY Times Colleen McCullough author of the Thorn Birds dies at 77. My mom was obsessed with that miniseries when I was a little kid so I vaguely remember it.
Variety reviews Lila & Eve starring Viola Davis & Jennifer Lopez. Yes, I realize they're billed the other way round but let's be real, okay? I really wanted to see this one but it did not screen during...
- 2/1/2015
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Author Colleen McCullough, whose 1977 internationally best-selling romantic novel The Thorn Birds was the Fifty Shades of Grey of its time, died Thursday afternoon in a hospital in her native Australia, reports the Sydney Morning Herald. She was 77. McCullough had suffered a series of small strokes, according the paper, which also said her eyesight had failed due to macular degeneration and she was restricted to a wheelchair. She lived on the isolated Norfolk Island in the Pacific with her husband of nearly 32 years, Ric Robinson, who survives her. According to a People profile in 200O, McCullough was born in Wellington, New South Wales,...
- 1/29/2015
- by Stephen M. Silverman, @stephenmsilverm
- PEOPLE.com
Colleen McCullough, the Australian author of 1977 bestseller, The Thorn Birds, which served as the basis for one of the most popular TV miniseries ever, died today on Australia’s Norfolk Island. The novelist had suffered poor health in recent years. She was 77. McCullough was born in New South Wales in 1937 and worked as a neuroscientist before writing the first of her 25 books, Tim. Published in 1974, it was later made into a feature starring Mel Gibson and Piper Laurie…...
- 1/29/2015
- by Nancy Tartaglione
- Deadline TV
So, first love drove young Jorge to the priesthood. But unless you're Charles and Camilla, such amour rarely goes the distance
In the flurry to discover all there is to know about Pope Francis, Rome's newly minted pontiff, one poignant little narrative has been unearthed: love drove him to it. And this not the divine love one might imagine, but a pubescent passion for a fellow 12-year-old back when Jorge Mario Bergoglio was but a youth. The melodiously named Amalia Damonte, from the equally mellifluous Buenos Aires suburb of Flores, recalled that her childhood suitor declared: "If I can't marry you, I'll become a priest." The rest, as they say, is history.
Those of us of a certain vintage will immediately start crying: "Thorn Birds!" Yet this was a romance utterly removed from the cassock-ripping of Colleen McCullough's left-footing bonkbuster. As a tale of thwarted young love it has...
In the flurry to discover all there is to know about Pope Francis, Rome's newly minted pontiff, one poignant little narrative has been unearthed: love drove him to it. And this not the divine love one might imagine, but a pubescent passion for a fellow 12-year-old back when Jorge Mario Bergoglio was but a youth. The melodiously named Amalia Damonte, from the equally mellifluous Buenos Aires suburb of Flores, recalled that her childhood suitor declared: "If I can't marry you, I'll become a priest." The rest, as they say, is history.
Those of us of a certain vintage will immediately start crying: "Thorn Birds!" Yet this was a romance utterly removed from the cassock-ripping of Colleen McCullough's left-footing bonkbuster. As a tale of thwarted young love it has...
- 3/16/2013
- by Hannah Betts
- The Guardian - Film News
While I was in Philadelphia, there was a presentation in the Constitution Museum on Ancient Rome and the comparisons to America (some of these similarities were a result of the fact that the Founding Fathers were using the Roman Republic as both an example and a warning), and the Franklin was having a special exhibition on Cleopatra. As a result, I really felt the urge to watch "Rome" again and reread Margaret George's The Memoirs of Cleopatra, which is one of my favorite novels, but instead opted to read an actual history.
Overall, this book does a good job of explaining the historical context and politics of the time. She spends a few chapters breaking down the situation in Egypt during the reign of the Ptolemies, and then uses several chapters to discuss the way the Roman Republic had been changing in the past few decades, and how great...
Overall, this book does a good job of explaining the historical context and politics of the time. She spends a few chapters breaking down the situation in Egypt during the reign of the Ptolemies, and then uses several chapters to discuss the way the Roman Republic had been changing in the past few decades, and how great...
- 8/16/2010
- by Dustin Rowles
The Thorn Birds - which began life as Colleen McCullough's multi-million copy best selling 1977 novel and went on to become one of the most successful TV mini-series of the 1980s - deals with the clash between passionate love and faithful duty to God. Anyone who finds the courage to go to see the new musical version by Ms. McCullough and German classical composer Gloria Bruni, currently in the early stages of its world premiere tour at the Swansea Grand Theatre, may well wonder that if God exists why would he allow such mindless nonsense to be presented to them.
- 4/22/2009
- BroadwayWorld.com
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