I chanced upon this mini-series soon after my parents died & I was enthralled by it!
My father was a sailor & his love of the sea, the wild blue yonder beyond & man's curiosities were most impressive to someone who prefers having his feet on the ground but loves being near the water! So this "Christopher Columbus" mini-series was the more appealing to me at the time!
Having signed on as a 19-year-old so long ago, he could not expected his youthful idealism to be a contract unrelenting, until he was 31-years-old. As was the case at the time. And often forced to encounter tolerance & undisciplined natures & contributions from his sons, MUCH beyond what he was forced to tolerate! Surely, no youth of today, in the modern world of contemporary mass-media, would accept such binding obligations of blindness to commands of superior-ranked but often dictatorial officers!
While his family were raised to speak their mind in his absence! Surely this must have infuriated him! He was ship-shape but he came to expect such questioning to tempered by humility & obedience, but found it was not reciprocated much by the family he also sought to serve! As such, in many ways, he was a double loser in this world's terms, always the servant, but it was on such as his humility & self-control that lands were conquered by the likes of Christopher Columbus & Captain James Cook.
His consolations of life as many a sea-man of good heart, was to bury a few quiet ales whenever the opportunity arose & burrowed his head into the Sunday papers, for comic light-hearted relief & look for a naval or cowboy movie of simplicity on TV viewed from the armchair comfort he had worked hard for in many voyages. Surely still seeking a tilt of the prevailing tide, in his favour, that the world did not otherwise allow!
The magnificence of Christopher Columbus' immense & unlikely undertaking, was far from his patient & mostly unanswered appeals for his journey that was to open the dimensions of the Northern Hemisphere beyond imaginings. While Spain was persecuting anyone who dared to think differently among their own, in an era of inquisitions & persecution of those on a whim accused of heresy. But so this foreigner, eventually by much patience & personal hardship, was given an opportunity to lead an expedition that would yield remarkable treasures for the Spanish, yet just as remarkably came to conversely have his role diminished in the eyes of many to the tune of bigoted religiousness!
For me, this fine mini-series, strongly built on a major article I chanced upon in a "National Geographic" magazine of maybe 20 years ago, that I don't have access to now. But what I read of the epic encounter of great patience & faith by Columbus in finding even an opportunity to land on hostile coastlines of furious seas, was fleshed out all the more in this fine dramatic production, seemingly faithful to historical fact.
"Christopher Columbus", the mini-series will remain close to my heart as long as I am privileged to have it so, no matter how stark & ambivalent the memories! EVERYTHING about this production is TOP CLASS!!!
I would liken it & similarly recommend Keith Michell's version of the adventures of Captain James Cook!!!
They are remarkably similar in vision, grandeur of their accomplishments heralded, yet ABSURDLY, in the eyes of many, mostly taken for granted in their brave & selfless journeys of immense sacrifice & danger, to themselves & their crews & those they sought to bring towards the modern day reality where we are able to communicate across the planet in seconds, without leaving the firm ground we mostly live on.
This mini-series on "Christopher Columbus" also features the fine acting of stars like Gabrielle Byrne & Faye Dunaway. The settings are magnificent & the whole thing is put to together like an artistic masterpiece carefully & accurately restored, with clear research & fore-thought in its production.
Highly recommended!
