As a fan of both Conrad Veidt and Showtime's TV series The Borgias, I was intrigued to see that he had starred in a film about the Borgias. In this silent film, liberties are taken with history (as any fictional work on the Borgias seemingly does). Here, Cesare and Juan Borgia are not Pope Alexander's sons, but his nephews. Lucrezia Borgia is not Cesare and Juan's sister, but instead their cousin. Perhaps this change was to make Cesare's love for Lucrezia less scandalous for audiences of the day.
Unlike the Showtime series, this film does not depict Cesare and Lucrezia as having a close, loving, platonic relationship. Instead, Cesare is cast as a total villain, lusting after Lucrezia and determined to have her to himself despite her loathing for him. To this end, he plans to keep her from marrying her betrothed, Alphonso of Aragon, by any means necessary.
There is also a subplot involving Cesare's rivalry with his brother Juan over a woman named Naomi. So that makes two love triangles in the film already, and then Lucrezia's first husband Giovanni Sforza is thrown into the mix, and he is portrayed in a much nicer and more heroic light than he plays in Showtime's series. (In fact, you could say that his and Cesare's roles are reversed in this film, Giovanni playing a hero, Cesare a villain.) This is a rather dense movie, particularly for a silent film, running over 2 hours, and without a traditional three-act structure. A fair amount of time is spent on Lucrezia and Alphonso falling in love. Cesare's henchmen Micheletto, Sebastiano, and Lodowico get their share of screen time as they carry out Cesare's schemes. And an entire act is devoted to Cesare's army marching on Sforza's castle in Pesaro, in a battle scene that reminded me of Helm's Deep in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. I found the epic scale of the battle impressive for its time.
Conrad Veidt is at his diabolically debonair best, playing Cesare as totally captivating and powerful: A ladies' man and villain whom anyone would be afraid to cross. (Cesare is the complete opposite of Veidt's character in The Man Who Laughs, Gwynplaine, a wholly sympathetic, timid, innocent man on the bottom of the social structure, which is a testament to Veidt's range as an actor, and his particular strength as a silent film actor to create and inhabit fully formed characters with his striking, devastatingly controlled body language and facial expressions.) And yet, Cesare is not without a sympathetic moment or two, thanks to Veidt's compelling performance. He does have chemistry with Liane Haid as Lucrezia, who, repulsed by Cesare's actions and murderous intent, launches a determined strike against his plans. There are some truly tense scenes between these two actors that work fantastically.
For a movie released in 1922, I think the filmmaking holds up remarkably well today. Highly recommended for fans of the Borgias, silent films, or Conrad Veidt.
Unlike the Showtime series, this film does not depict Cesare and Lucrezia as having a close, loving, platonic relationship. Instead, Cesare is cast as a total villain, lusting after Lucrezia and determined to have her to himself despite her loathing for him. To this end, he plans to keep her from marrying her betrothed, Alphonso of Aragon, by any means necessary.
There is also a subplot involving Cesare's rivalry with his brother Juan over a woman named Naomi. So that makes two love triangles in the film already, and then Lucrezia's first husband Giovanni Sforza is thrown into the mix, and he is portrayed in a much nicer and more heroic light than he plays in Showtime's series. (In fact, you could say that his and Cesare's roles are reversed in this film, Giovanni playing a hero, Cesare a villain.) This is a rather dense movie, particularly for a silent film, running over 2 hours, and without a traditional three-act structure. A fair amount of time is spent on Lucrezia and Alphonso falling in love. Cesare's henchmen Micheletto, Sebastiano, and Lodowico get their share of screen time as they carry out Cesare's schemes. And an entire act is devoted to Cesare's army marching on Sforza's castle in Pesaro, in a battle scene that reminded me of Helm's Deep in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers. I found the epic scale of the battle impressive for its time.
Conrad Veidt is at his diabolically debonair best, playing Cesare as totally captivating and powerful: A ladies' man and villain whom anyone would be afraid to cross. (Cesare is the complete opposite of Veidt's character in The Man Who Laughs, Gwynplaine, a wholly sympathetic, timid, innocent man on the bottom of the social structure, which is a testament to Veidt's range as an actor, and his particular strength as a silent film actor to create and inhabit fully formed characters with his striking, devastatingly controlled body language and facial expressions.) And yet, Cesare is not without a sympathetic moment or two, thanks to Veidt's compelling performance. He does have chemistry with Liane Haid as Lucrezia, who, repulsed by Cesare's actions and murderous intent, launches a determined strike against his plans. There are some truly tense scenes between these two actors that work fantastically.
For a movie released in 1922, I think the filmmaking holds up remarkably well today. Highly recommended for fans of the Borgias, silent films, or Conrad Veidt.