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The Pillars of the Earth reportedly took 1 year to make and cost around $40 million. Was it worth it? Absolutely.
The series, based on Ken Follett’s bestselling book of the same name, was co-produced by Canada and Germany, filmed in Austria and Hungary, and set in England (nothing like a bit of variety is there?) - it truly is a lavish adaptation, with superb production values (bar some dodgy special effects). Of course, such values are worthless if they don’t have an equally strong story to back them up but, thankfully, it was terrific.
Set in the 12th Century, the opening episode showed the King being murdered by his cousin Stephen (Tony Curran), who then claimed the throne thanks to support from Bishop Waleran (Ian McShane), the epitome of corruption. The King’s daughter Maude (Alison Pill) was not happy, as you might imagine, and so began the battle for the monarchy that would rage for the whole series. However, the series did not focus on this, but instead was about the building of a cathedral in a nearby town. For those who haven’t watched the series, this may sound extremely dull, but it was anything but, as working on the cathedral was the hero of the tale, Jack (Eddie Redmayne). Whilst it was his job to help build the cathedral, he also sought to overcome the corruption, and win the affections of his love (Hayley Atwell).
While the plot wasn’t hard to follow, it was complex, with each episode having the perfect balance of politics, romance and action, and it was very accessible, being easy to immerse yourself into. It had a similar feel to something written by Charles Dickens, with lots of twists and turns, a huge cast, multiple plot strands that were largely unresolved until the final episode (where events culminated in a nail-biting climax, packed with suspense and emotion). And, finally, in true Dickens tradition, all evil characters received their comeuppance, while everyone else lived happily ever after.
In short, it was a true rollercoaster ride, with the characters being refreshingly clear cut between good and evil. This ensured that the audience always had someone to root for, particularly the excellently written character of Jack, who was played with equal excellence by Redmayne, and someone to hate, most notably Ian McShane’s Waleran, who managed to be evil with such little effort that his performance had a tendency to teeter over into pantomime territory.
There were also plenty of shocks just in case the politics proved too much for some viewers, including Natalia Wörner’s character Ellen urinating on a table in front of Waleran, and slaughtering a chicken in front of a bride and groom, cursing their wedding. However, the most skin-crawling scenes came from Sarah Parish (who clearly relished her role) as Regan and David Oakes, who played her onscreen son William.
While The Pillars of the Earth won’t be winning awards for subtlety any time soon, it rocketed along at a superb pace, it had a fantastic ensemble cast, an effectively evocative (if occasionally derivative) soundtrack, well staged battle sequences, and a simply spellbinding story.
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