Byzantine Empire in Movies

Ok, I've managed to convert all the three DVDs on another computer. Now I only need to move them this one, to cut the scenes and upload them...

As I promised, I'm uploading the first clip - "Crossing the Danube". Two more are ready and waiting to be uploaded - "Building the fort" (a short one) and the famous "Imperial March". You can check my YouTube profile to see what's been uploaded so far...

"mandarins of the east europan cinema"? What would that mean?

Btw, I've already uploaded even three parts from the first day of battle (around two clips more are left)...

I only hope if they ever make a movie (and this is even further stretching the wishful thinking this thread is about) that they would refer to the Empire as the East (or Eastern) Roman Empire.

Call the inhabitants Greek if they want (as they did back then), but refer to the Empire as "Roman" (as they did back then).**

They probably will not do this, so I can only hope that at the very least, call it the "Eastern half of the ancient Roman Empire" in the prologue to give people the tie-in.



**(Thinking about this sentence, maybe "Greco-Roman Empire" would have been a better name than "Byzantine" as it would have kept the Roman identity, but showing the Greek character......)







Edited by Jazz - 25-Nov-2006 at 12:14

I just watched the video on NikeBG's youtube link, that was amazing. Without computer enhancements, how did they arrange for so many thousands of men to participate in the scenes? That would cost any director today millions of dollars, I find it amazing.

Oh, I just remembered this when I was going through my DVD collection.

Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (with Sean Connery) had 2 references to the Byzantine Empire.  One simply called it "the Eastern Empire" and the other referring to the 4th Crusade as "the sack of Byzantium".

Originally posted by konstantinius Great uploads, NikeBG. I found the armor/uniform/equipment particularly accurate, a good feat for what seems to be an average/low budget Bulgarian movie. If hollywood, with their hundreds of millions of $$, only showed the same respect for historical accuracy...

Edited by Byzantine Emperor - 27-Nov-2006 at 15:44

Thanks for the compliments!
The 50 000 real extras are not all that strange - don't forget that the movie was made still in commie times and many of these extras are actual soldiers (recruits) from the Bulgarian army. But it's still a pretty big thing...
As for the accuracy - well, I read that they hired a whole team of historians to keep track of that, although they still had some mistakes. Like f.e. in the first or second DVD there was a scene where the Bulgars were training their riding and fighting skills, but instead of watermelons, they were hacking pumpking, which weren't known to them yet. Oh, and now I'm watching "Tsar Ioan Asen II's weddings" - interesting movie, I'd say more artistic than historic, the movie in whose shootings Apostol Karamitev died, so he's in only some parts of the movie. Anyway, here are some screenshots. What was very interesting for me was this screen with the "icon-shields". Do you know if any of the Byzantine successor states have used such shields in the middle of the XIIIc.?

i would cut off my right hand if that what it would take to get a movie made about the Fall of Constantinople.

i would slit my other wrist if it was as poorly produced as Troy was.

What about the chariot, I just wonder were they still used even for ceremonial purposes as late as VIIth century?