ampersandology: film. culture. words.

Friday, November 27, 2009

History is Outstanding.





by Jillian Leigh, Ampersandology


So I doing my daily morning roundup of news and whatnot, when I stumble onto a classic 'this day in history' entry on Wired.com (they do have a superior version of this old chestnut): I discovered that on July 9th, 1993, the Romanovs' remains were confirmed thanks to modern technology.


Since learning is fun, and the Russian Revolution was a complete obsession an inexplicable fascination in my younger days, I'm always up for reading a little Romanov speculation. So I'm reading this article on how DNA proved that every member was buried back in 1917, and stumble on the following throwaway detail: 

As the lab tests eventually determined, the bodies [of the Romanovs] were taken to Koptyaki and buried in a mass grave.
[...]
The Soviet Union kept mum about the family's fate until finally admitting, in 1926, that they were dead. Although two Russians -- a movie producer and an ethnographer -- claimed to have discovered the grave in 1976...(emphasis mine) 

Wait, what? What the hell were a movie producer and an ethnographer, of all people, doing together--in the middle of a Russian nowhere?  WITH SHOVELS? My mind is agog with possibilities. The middle of nowhere in Russia is a hell of a different story than the middle of nowhere anywhere else -- by the hammer of Thor, what is going on here?!?!

But now I'm fixated. Is it just me, or there an AMAZING MOVIE to be made from that one little sentence? Starring Ralph Fiennes as the fey, articulate producer and Kevin Spacey as the nebbish, withdrawn
 ethnographer HIDING A DEADLY SECRET. You could call it,  "Oscar Bait: Return to Koptyaki." 

Outstanding. History is outstanding. 


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