Last night on television Michael Hogan This drama is all blinged up with nowhere to go
‘Ibelieve that for a woman, a dress is a weapon to get what she wants.” So declared Donatella Versace with a power-pout and a toss of her peroxide mane. Sadly, it wasn’t sartorial weapons she needed. Last night, we reached the seventh episode of the high-camp docudrama The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story (BBC Two), which continues to chart the events that led to the 1997 shooting of Italian designer Gianni Versace (Édgar Ramírez) on the doorstep of his Miami mansion.
In 1992, Versace was diagnosed with a rare form of ear cancer, forcing younger sister Donatella (Penélope Cruz) to take the fashion house’s reins. Almost literally so – a leather-strapped bondage dress became the siblings’ first collaboration. Meanwhile in San Diego, delusional sociopath and budding serial killer Andrew Cunanan (creepy Darren Criss, who, along with Cruz, is the star of this show) conned his way into a lavish new life by targeting wealthy older men.
The first of his targets, architect Lincoln Aston (Todd Waring), ended up savagely beaten to death – a shock scene of gore amid the gloss. The second, silver fox businessman Norman Blachford (Michael Nouri), allowed Cunanan to move into his minimalist mansion. “Oh, if only they could see me now,” murmured Cunanan, taking in the ocean view from a vast glass balcony. “Who?” asked Blachford. “Everyone,” came Cunanan’s chilling reply.
Written by British export Tom Rob Smith, this was a souped-up soap opera, dripping in gaudy bling and unfolding in designer beige interiors. All gilt mirrors, baroque chairs and creamy soft furnishings, it’s styled like a luxury hotel lobby and rollicks along like an afternoon true-crime movie, albeit a wellappointed one. You half-expect Columbo, Murder She Wrote’s Jessica Fletcher or Hart to Hart’s millionaire spouses to turn up and solve the impending murder.
There are two episodes of the nine-part series still to come, but thus far a convoluted flashback structure has prevented it from hitting the heights of its predecessor, The People vs OJ Simpson. While the time-hopping approach might fill in the background and motivation, it hardly adds much in the way of forward momentum. The hypnotic horror we saw earlier in the series – episodes three to five were masterful, the next two less so – has given way to middling drama. As a guilty pleasure, though, it’s grim, fascinating and just gripping enough.
BBC Four just loves a documentary with a colon plonked in the middle of its title. One wonders if snappier titles might help ponderous films gain a stronger focus. That was certainly required with Bacchus Uncovered: Ancient God of Ecstasy (BBC Four).
Bacchus, whose Greek name was Dionysus, was a deity with a wide portfolio. He was the god of the grape harvest, wine-making and wine, revelry and release, ritual madness, fertility, theatre and religious ecstasy.
To tell his sprawling story, Professor Bettany Hughes jetted to Georgia, Jordan and Greece to investigate his mythic origins and relevance to the modern world. Bacchus has been a symbol of excess ever since Roman maidens fled to the woods and drank wine in his name. Bottoms up, Bacchus, old boy.
Classicist Hughes – an alumnus of the Victoria Coren Mitchell school of knowing smirks and eyebrow waggling for emphasis – traced the Bacchic cult through history, arguing that booze-fuelled chaos has been as important to civilisation as reason and restraint.
Bacchus’s qualities, she claimed, are just as important today as they were 2,500 years ago, with his presence living on in Sixties counter-culture, on the streets of Soho, in the philosophy of Nietzsche, and even in the transgender rights movement.
Her thesis seemed a stretch at times, connecting disparate dots in its eagerness to construct an over-arching theory. Different cultures enjoy wine binges because, well, they’re fun – it doesn’t mean they’re paying homage to Bacchus. Too many of Hughes’s sentences began with “For me…” or “It seems to me…”, – a sign, perhaps, that even she didn’t have full confidence in her premise.
This wasn’t the most visually arresting subject, either, with static cameras forced to linger on statues and antiquities. Hughes attempted to add momentum by striding around temples in a selection of flowing pink scarves, but it was in vain. Given that Bacchus was a god obsessed with the good times, this film was distinctly lacking in them.
The Assassination of Gianni Versace: American Crime Story Uncovered: Ancient God of Ecstasy