Claudius - in Modern Literature and Film

In Modern Literature and Film

The best known fictional representation of the Emperor Claudius were the books I, Claudius and Claudius the God (published in 1934 and 1935) by Robert Graves, both written in the first-person to give the reader the impression that they are Claudius' autobiography. Graves employed a fictive artifice to suggest that they were recently discovered, genuine translations of Claudius' writings. Claudius' extant letters, speeches, and sayings were incorporated into the text (mostly in the second book, Claudius the God) in order to add authenticity.

In 1937, director Josef von Sternberg attempted a film version of I, Claudius, with Charles Laughton as Claudius. Unfortunately, the lead actress Merle Oberon suffered a near-fatal accident and the movie was never finished. The surviving reels were featured in the BBC documentary The Epic That Never Was (1965), revealing some of Laughton's most accomplished acting. The motion picture rights for a new film passed to producer Scott Rudin. In 2011, it was announced rights for a miniseries adaptation passed to HBO and BBC2. Anne Thomopoulos and Jane Tranter, producers of the popular HBO/BBC2 Rome miniseries, are attached to the new I, Claudius project.

Graves's two books were the basis for a British television adaptation produced by the BBC. The series starred Derek Jacobi as Claudius and was broadcast in 1976 on BBC2. It was a substantial critical success, and won several BAFTA awards. The series was later broadcast in the United States on Masterpiece Theatre in 1977. The DVD release of the television series contains the The Epic that Never Was documentary.

Claudius has been portrayed in film on several other occasions, including in the 1979 motion picture Caligula, the role being performed by Giancarlo Badessi in which the character was depicted as an idiot, in contrast to Robert Graves' portrait of Claudius as a cunning and deeply intelligent man who is perceived by others to be an idiot. Barry Jones also portrayed him sympathetically in Demetrius and the Gladiators.

On television, the actor Freddie Jones portrayed Claudius in the 1968 British television series The Caesars while the 1985 made-for-television miniseries A.D. features actor Richard Kiley as Claudius. There is also a reference to Claudius' suppression of one of the coups against him in the movie Gladiator, though the incident is entirely fictional.

In literature, Claudius and his contemporaries appear in the historical novel The Roman by Mika Waltari. Canadian-born science fiction writer A. E. van Vogt reimagined Robert Graves' Claudius story in his two novels Empire of the Atom and The Wizard of Linn.