World History: The Hollywood Version – Early Antiquity Volume II

Andy Rohmer is the pseudonym of Eduardo Ramos, a Portuguese diplomat who, in recent years, has written some wonderful books on film criticism. First, there was the Writers-On-Film series, which looked at every novel in certain authors careers and every film adaptation it inspired. Now Rohmer is working on the World History: The Hollywood Version series, which looks at a specific period of history and the high and lows of every Hollywood film it has inspired.

There are probably more films about World War Two than there were volunteers in the Home Guard, so readers may be relieved to hear that Rohmer is going through history chronologically and his latest volume focuses on Early Antiquity, which Rohmer defines as 10,000 to 480 BCE. Film buffs will delight in his choices. Do you want to read about how director Robert Aldrich put the lamentable fate of Sodom and Gomorrah onscreen? This is the book for you. Was Rossana Podesta alluring enough to play Helen of Troy and become the face that launched a thousand ships? Rohmer has the answer.

Andy Rohmer is an amalgam of Andrew Sarris, the film critic, and Éric Rohmer, the filmmaker. Eduardo Ramos has chosen his pseudonym wisely. His books are full of love for cinema, a witty appreciation of when it goes horribly wrong, ‘ignore the camels’ he says of The Ten Commandants as they weren’t present in the Middle East until about a thousand years after the film is set, and most of all, an enduring wonder at everything cinema can achieve.

Add World History: The Hollywood Version – Early Antiquity to your library, and perhaps you might want to check out the other volumes Rohmer has written.