Y tu Luna también: Casanova (2015)

This is quite the artifact: it’s the pilot episode of a TV show, starring Diego Luna and directed by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, that was never picked up. It’s been kind of haunting me from Luna’s IMDb page for years, as the very idea of it was fascinating to me. And I finally found it online! I went into it not knowing what to expect but came away really liking it.

In 1757, the notorious Giacomo Casanova escapes prison in Venice and flees to Paris, where he hopes to start a new life for himself. Wanting to put his scandalous reputation behind him, he’s seeking honest work but gets more than he bargained for when his friend, the French foreign minister, brings him a proposition: become the confidante of the king’s influential mistress.

Yep, it’s Casanova and Madame du Pompadour! I wonder if Russell T. Davies ever saw this, and if he kicked himself for not doing this story in his Casanova miniseries starring David Tennant. A bit of light googling tells me that Casanova and Madame du Pompadour did meet in real life, including after his escape from prison. And the foreign minister, Francois-Joachim de Bernis, was a real person who had real beef with Madame du Pompadour. From what I can tell, though, the specific plot of this show is fictional. A bit like Our Flag Means Death, but in a much less obviously fictional way, it takes tidbits of real-life fact and uses them to create historical fanfiction.

The Diego Luna of it all is going to loom large in this one, so I’ll quickly talk about the other elements of the pilot first. Bojana Novakovic is a strong Madame du Pompadour: loving, cultured, shrewd, and not about to suffer fools lightly. De Bernis points out that she’s “a commoner like you [Casanova], though she fights like hell to hide it,” but she knows the power she wields as Louis XV’s mistress, and she won’t brook any disrespect. The pilot also features Miranda Richardson as the Marquise d’Urfé, an aristocrat with a fascination for alchemy who could serve as a possible patroness for Casanova.

The direction is good, by turns dramatic, breezy, and scintillating. It doesn’t really scream Jean-Pierre Jeunet to me, which I suppose makes sense. He didn’t write the pilot, and so the story doesn’t have his usual sensibilities. However, he handles the parlor intrigue scenes and the seduction scenes with equal skill, throwing in a pretty horrific execution scene for good measure.

I still haven’t seen the Heath Ledger Casanova movie, but I’m on record as being impressed with the David Tennant miniseries and intrigued by how differently that story depicts Casanova compared to the stereotypical idea of him. This pilot, and Luna performance, maintains those more intriguing elements of Casanova while also incorporating more of the typical image. At the very least, Luna’s appearance is more aligned with what you’d imagine as the world’s most legendary lover of women—he’s got charisma for days, he plays the hell out of the love scenes, and he eats up those 18^th-century costumes.

Luna’s Casanova has all the charm, wit, and sex appeal that you’d expect, but he reminds us that he’s more than just a pretty face and an infamous penis. As he tries to get out from under his outrageous reputation, Casanova points out his extensive study, including fluency in four languages, and he’s used whatever resources he has at hand to rise above his humble beginnings, a fact that he’s quite proud of. He’s not above pulling a con, but he also cares about people and doesn’t want to see someone hurt if he doesn’t think they deserve it.

And like in the David Tennant miniseries, Luna’s Casanova shows that his appeal to women can be attributed to more than his good looks and cheeky claim to “have an abnormally long tongue.” No, he’s a seducer, but it isn’t really mercenary. He sums up his success with women quite simply in this exchange:

CASANOVA: “The truth is, I make them feel like I’m falling in love with them.”

ANOTHER MAN: “How?”

CASANOVA: “Because I fall in love with them.”

He doesn’t assume he’s smarter or better than the women he beds. He listens to them and takes an interest in what they care about, and he doesn’t push beyond what a woman wants to do. When he realizes he doesn’t have the cash for intercourse with a young prostitute, he assures her that it’s all right and cheerfully offers to go down on her instead. When his first meeting with Madame du Pompadour goes badly, he has a “game recognize game” moment and recalibrates for the second time they cross paths—on his own terms, not de Bernis’. For me, the most defining scene for him comes near the end of the pilot, when he’s at a fancy party surrounded by lavish food and beautiful people. “Sometimes I just can’t stand it,” he tells his date. And when she asks what, he explains, “How much I want everything!”

I really like Luna’s portrayal here, and I’m now bummed that the show didn’t get picked up. I’d have loved to see more of Casanova and Madame du Pompadour sizing each other up, and by the end of the pilot, it looked like the story was going to go in a pretty neat direction. On the other hand, within a few years of this pilot being made, Luna did Rogue One, 3Below, and Narcos: Mexico. Who’s to say which performances of his we might not have had if this show had taken off?

Recommend?

In General – I think so, as long as you’re okay with the content. This looked like it would’ve shaped up to be a cool Casanova show, and I’m really glad I finally got a chance to see it!

Diego Luna – Sure! Even if this pilot had only required Luna to be witty, sultry, and handsome, he would’ve had it in the bag, but the story offers a more interesting character for him to work with beyond that, and he nails it. I thought this was a great performance.

Warnings

Sexual content, violence (including rape and an intense execution scene,) language, drinking/smoking, and thematic elements.

Other Doctor Lives: Casanova: Episode 3 (2005)

Casanova’s final episode. Like episode 2, it doesn’t quite live up to episode 1’s promise for me, but my quibbles are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things and it’s still an awfully entertaining miniseries (one spoiler.)

Hard times have sent Casanova wandering, and he goes from country to country trying to find a means to get back to Venice. Along the way, he has a major reckoning with his rival Gramani, reconnects with an old flame, and examines the implications of the reputation he’s built for himself.

On the whole, I would put this above episode 2, mainly for the issues I discussed last week about the story feeling like the miniseries was written to be split into two parts, not three – the final hour feels more cohesive to me. It features plenty of the miniseries’ lively humor (I laughed out loud at the reveal of “scandalous” high London society,) all kinds of vibrantly-creative costumes, and some introspection along with the fun. For actors, Tom Burke (who I remember from State of Play) gets in on the fun as Jack, Casanova’s illegitmate son.

There are a number of places where this episode gets more thoughtful about different themes related to its eponymous character. As Casanova continues to romp his way across Europe, contriving various ways to keep himself on top, he’s also forced to confront what his carefree enjoyment leaves behind, the effect he has on others. And for all that he champions himself as a man who simply loves love and women, the present-day sequences return to the the notion of his exploits being more mercenary, more about conquest than affairs.

I’ve fallen completely on the side of this being a fine role for David Tennant. While I think he can sometimes hit the dramatic moments just a bit too hard (I thought that about his Doctor at times too – by Good Omens, he can navigate that much better,) but for the most part, he strikes the right chord with it. And the trickster/seducer side of Casanova just comes off so well. He has this puckish quality that makes it easy to see why people continue to fall for him, in every sense of the phrase.

The best scenes here are probably the ones Casanova shares with Gramani. He spends a good chunk of time being a mischievous thorn in his upper-class rival’s side, and that’s all delightful. But more than that, in between the barbs and needling, Casanova starts to understand Gramani and what makes him tick. It’s similar to the insight he employs to get women into bed, but it’s directed in a different way, with different intent. Cool to see.

Final thoughts:

Accent Watch

It’s mostly RP-ish, with lingering notes of London throughout. I have to give it to David Tennant – I pretty much never think about the fact that he’s Scottish whenever I hear him putting on an English accent.

Recommend?

In General – Yes, as long as you don’t mind all manner of naughtiness. You don’t find many period pieces that are this much fun and take such a fanciful tone.

David Tennant – Definitely. Even if the first few scenes had me thinking, “How is this going to work?”, Tennant easily won me over within the first 10-15 minutes. There are touches here of his Doctor to come, despite Casanova being a wildly-different character from his Doctor. I enjoyed this performance a lot.

Warnings

Sexual content, brief violence, drinking/smoking, language, and thematic elements.

Other Doctor Lives: Casanova: Episode 2 (2005)

 

IMDb lists this miniseries as three hour-long episodes and Amazon Prime offers it as a three-hour TV movie, but I wonder if it actually might’ve been made for two hour-and-a-half-long episodes. Because where there wasn’t a neat break where I decided to after after hour one last week, it does feel like there’s more of a break in the middle of the second hour. At this point, I’m just going to keep going with splitting it into thirds, but it makes today’s installment feel less cohesive.

Despite Casanova’s wide-ranging sexual exploits, he keeps coming back to Henriette. The witty, street-wise woman is likewise drawn to him, but as a former gutter rat who’s vowed never to know that poverty again, she’s engaged to an unexciting, possessive Venetian for his money. Casanova hopes to earn enough to offer the security to be with her, but Gramani, Henriette’s fiancée, isn’t about to see a social-climbing nobody like Casanova “take” what’s “his.”

I don’t enjoy this quite as much as I did the first hour, but again, I think a lot of that is that it feels less cohesive. I’m not much of a binger, so I usually prefer to watch serialized stuff in individual episodes and it annoys me when platforms don’t give an option of viewing miniseries that way. As such, I guessed here and most likely guessed wrong, since this episode feels more like a hodgepodge of a few different parts of Casanova’s story ending/beginning, so it doesn’t flow as well.

That said, there’s still a lot to enjoy here. There’s a fun, snappy scene of Casanova trying to make himself the toast of Parisian society, I like the recurring gag of him attempting to impress a new character introduced here, and of course a scene of him giving confession is everything you’d expect it to be. The bits with the older Casanova and Edith continue to be good.

The best parts, for me, are probably the scenes between Casanova and Henriette. Even though the basics of the story are the very definition of “been there, done that” – poor but romantic guy has instant chemistry with a woman and they totally get each other, but she’s engaged to a rich jerk – but David Tennant and Laura Fraser just play off of each other beautifully. Furthermore, we see plenty of glimpses for why these two like each other beyond just both of them being attractive. In all these party scenes, we see them finding each other, exchanging repartee and sparks, and all the while, each really understands the other.

I also enjoy the scenes between Casanova and his servant/partner-in-crime Rocco. As a character, Rocco feels a little underwritten, but Shaun Parkes has a good give-and-take with Tennant, and I like seeing how Rocco becomes invested in Casanova beyond just what Casanova can offer him. It’ll be fun the next time I rewatch “The Impossible Planet” / “The Satan Pit” from new Who, to remember Tennant and Parkes here as I revisit their performances there.

Other Doctor Lives: Casanova: Episode 1 (2005)

Moving on from The Crown in a decidedly “and now for something completely different” way. David Tennant is our Other Doctor du jour, and the project is a pre-Who miniseries he did with Russell T. Davies, starring in this whimsical bio-romp about the life of Casanova.

In his later years, Giacomo Casanova lives in reduced circumstances as he writes his memoirs. He regales a serving girl with tales of his infamous, salacious exploits in Venice: the love affairs, the career-hopping, and the tireless attempts to carve out a place for himself in fashionable Venetian society. We learn of his arrival in Venice and early rise in reputation, and while we see the beginnings of his sexcapades with a wide range of women, we also see that there’s one his thoughts keep returning to time and again: Henriette.

I’ll admit that I went into this understanding Casanova more as a trope than a historical figure, so there was a lot I didn’t know, and I have zero idea how much this miniseries reflects the actual man, or even just the image he presented of himself. That said, I like the angle taken here, with young Casanova bursting onto the scene as an enterprising social interloper, faking it till he makes it in career, society, and love. And on the latter front, the outrageous sexual exploits play out differently than I’d have imagined too. The pop-culture image I have of “a Casanova” is of a gorgeous playboy bedding and discarding women with ease and fueled by his masculine sexual prowess. But while the miniseries certainly depicts Casanova as being all about those ladies, it frames his irresistibility to them as more about emotional/sensual connections that develop into sexual ones. Women throw themselves at him because he listens to and cares about what they have to say, attracting them because he recognizes them as human beings. Again, I don’t know if it’s true, but I like that.

The miniseries has a fun, frothy air about it, with all kinds of quick cuts and costume porn. There’s a dash of whimsy that keeps you feeling just a little off-kilter, like you’re not quite sure whether you’re still in the bounds of reality, which feels appropriate for the story of such a larger-than-life figure. Peter O’Toole is well-suited to playing the older Casanova looking back on his life, and Rose Byrne plays well off him as Edith, the serving girl listening to his stories. The cast also features Laura Fraser (who I’ll always love as Door in Neverwhere) as Henriette, Rupert Penry-Jones (a former Mr. Rochester) as social/romantic rival Grimani, and a small gaggle of other future Who alumni that includes Nina Sosanya (“Fear Her,”) Shaun Parkes (“The Impossible Planet / The Satan Pit,”) Clare Higgins (who recurred in the Moffat era as one of the Sisterhood of Karn,) and Matt Lucas (Nardole!)

And so we come to David Tennant as the young Casanova. Now, in the opening scenes, I did not get this casting at all. Like I said, I had a particular, trope-centered view of what I thought Casanova was like, and while Tennant is probably the most conventionally-attractive actor to play the Doctor since Paul McGann, his physique and bearing don’t scream “sex god” to me (let’s just say that I know Heath Ledger played Casanova in a movie around the same time, and his look/style aligns much more with what I would’ve pictured for “a Casanova type.”) So I saw him on my screen and thought, “Sure, he’s cute and fun, but are all these Venetian ladies really gonna start throwing their panties at him?”

But within the context of the story, I realized it really works. As an ambitious young nobody reinventing himself to fit in, Tennant’s Casanova plays the game well, charming easily as he schemes to rise in society. Likewise, I buy him as a guy who wins women over by meeting them intellectually and paying them earnest attention. This is a connection I never would’ve thought to make, but in the scene where Casanova first meets Henriette, I suddenly flashed on a line from Hamilton, Angelica’s description of Hamilton in “Satisfied”: “intelligent eyes in a hunger-pang frame.” And Tennant nails that. While Casanova’s drive and passion is focused more squarely on his own fulfillment, not showing much concern in bettering the world around him, I totally get that same Hamilton-like tenacity to rise and be accepted within this higher social sphere.

So, one episode in and looking forward to more! Here are my first-impression reactions:

Accent Watch

Definitely English. Kind of RP, but not exactly posh. There are hints of London in there, which makes sense as a character who’s pretending to be more upper-class than he really is.

Recommend?

In General – I think so, as long as you don’t mind plenty of sex. This is a fun period piece that doesn’t take itself too seriously and is really defying my expectations for what I imagined it would be.

David Tennant – I would. Once I got plugged into how Casanova is presented in this story, Tennant makes a really good fit for the character. He’s an actor I’ve enjoyed in a number of larger-than-life roles, but unlike Doctor Who or Good Omens, we see him here bringing that energy and magnetism to a larger-than-life character who’s still a human.

Warnings

All kinds of sex, language, drinking, and occasional violence.