Catherine the Great (2019)

Helen Mirren as Catherine II and Jason Clarke as Prince Potemkin

 Let me start by saying that watching the Russian-made historical dramas about Russia that are now available on Prime have totally ruined for me any non-Russian productions. In my opinion, the Russian miniseries Ekaterina (2014, 2017, 2019) is still the best and most accurate depiction of the Great Catherine. Marina Aleksandrovna does an excellent job in conveying the subtle charm of Catherine and her remarkable ability to win people to her cause when she was a non-royal, powerless foreigner. It was that very vulnerability that won followers, as well as her brains and her genuine love for the Russia. The torment that the young Catherine experiences as a scorned wife and a thwarted mother in a court surrounded by enemies explains the consolation she eventually seeks in love affairs. In spite of her personal moral failings, she saves Russia as a nation and protects the Russian Orthodox Church from Protestantism.

I did have some hope for the series Catherine the Great with Helen Mirren but was ultimately disappointed. Too many f-bombs emitting from elderly actors. Yes, I know that Catherine's personal life was sordid and that the Russians are earthy people but that can be portrayed without someone saying "f---k" every three seconds. Furthermore, Catherine II was supposed to be only in her thirties when the story begins, but Helen Mirren is obviously much older, as well as the aged actors playing the Orlov brothers. I did find Jason Clarke to be a fabulous Prince Potemkin, Catherine's secret husband. I wish that there had been more about the Prince's massive engineering and building projects. The series touched on it, a bit. And it would have been wonderful to have more of their intellectual conversations, which would last all night and be taken up again in the morning. Potemkin was also an expert on the Russian Orthodox liturgy and spent time visiting monasteries. I suppose I should be glad that the writers totally left out Potemkin's nieces, one or two of whom were always with him, even when he died out on the steppes. For an excellent assessment of Potemkin's life and conquests one must read Catherine the Great and Potemkin: The Imperial Love Affair by Simon Sebag Montefiore. The book explodes the myth of the "Potemkin villages," a myth which tries to claim that the cities the Prince built for his Empress were a mere façade. Unfortunately, the genuine accomplishments of the pair, in times of both peace and war, are usually overshadowed by their scandalous personal and private habits, especially in movies.

Helen Mirren is marvelous as an older Catherine II. However, a great actress like Mirren should be able to create a strong female character without bellowing across the ballroom. The bellowing and shouting was perhaps an attempt to show modern audiences that Catherine was a powerful woman. However, the real Empress did not have to shout in public. She won and held onto power by being able to control herself in the presence of a variety of difficult people, often at great cost to herself. Although she was able to impose order on a vast empire she was never able to conquer her own demons. Tragically, the real Catherine possessed a seemingly bottomless abyss of emotional and physical need that not even the love of her Prince could fill. 

While any portrait of Catherine II can hardly ignore her obsessive search for love, the Ekaterina series avoided any exploitative, graphic scenes, in sharp contrast to Mirren's Catherine the Great, which at times is downright vile. The boy lovers who parade through her boudoir as the years pass do not make her appear to be independent and self-actualizing, but needy. It is clear that those young men want only the rewards they might receive from her. It is just as disgusting to see an old woman seeking gratification from boys as it is to see an old man taking his pleasure from young girls. The reality of any young person being pimped out for sex is degrading to those who participate in it. That sexual addiction was part of Catherine II's life should be seen as the weakness it was rather than exalted as a protofeminist virtue.

The most remarkable aspects of the production are the sets and costumes. Catherine II is usually arrayed in sumptuous blue or silver silks and brocades, flattering to Helen Mirren's blue eyes and grey hair. Shot in the lands of the old Russian empire, there are many magnificent gardens and palaces, including both the Winter Palace and Peterhof, the summer palace. The uniforms are detailed. The furniture and paintings appear to be authentic. Every scene, or almost every scene, is a work of art. Such a lavish production deserved a better screenplay, with more emphasis on Catherine and Potemkin's relationship and their political accomplishments, including more about their famous tour of the Crimea. There is so much about them to focus on rather than their promiscuity, which they themselves, as Orthodox believers, acknowledged as a failing.

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