I fear that "Seneca" won't be made available on disc, at least not in English.
The subject matter is too obscure. It's about the last day in the life of the
Roman philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca. I can already hear my readers
shouting "Who's that?" Don't feel ashamed. When I went to see the film
in the cinema last year I also had no idea who he was. I could have googled
before I went, but I wanted to be surprised by what I saw. And surprised I
was. The scene where he makes repeated attempts to commit suicide by cutting
his wrists seemed unrealistic, but I read about him afterwards and found it
was true.
Seneca was the greatest philosopher of his time, the second half of the first
century AD. He was arguably a hypocrite. He spoke about the virtues of a
simple life, but he was also one of the richest men in Rome. In his defence he
said, "I own my wealth, but my wealth doesn't own me". He was the
personal tutor of the Emperor Nero, but he was foolish enough to speak his
mind on too many occasions. He fell out of favour, and Nero ordered him to
commit suicide.
The writings of Seneca remained popular for more than a thousand years. As
recently as the 13th century the Catholic Church praised him and speculated
that he might have been a Christian convert. That's highly unlikely, but I'm
curious what was so special about his writings. Before beginning this post I
ordered his complete works for my Kindle. The whole of his thoughts are now
mine for less than two dollars. That's a small price for a lifetime's work.
I'm the first to admit that "Seneca" isn't a film for everyone, but everyone
has to agree that John Malkovich puts on an excellent performance. The
director/screenwriter says that he wrote the film with John Malkovich in mind,
and if he'd turned down the role he wouldn't have made the film.
The film has been released on Blu-ray in Germany, but only in German. The
original English dialogue is missing from the disc. That's weird. It hasn't
been released in Britain or America. Luckily the original version is available
on Amazon Prime.
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