No ship ever brought so much misery to England, they say. When the White Ship sank in 1120, taking with it the rightful heir to the British throne, a battle for succession began.
At the same time, an architectural revolution gave birth to the Gothic style, and the battles between church and crown escalated.
Ken Follett put it all together in his historical novel, “The Pillars of the Earth,” concocting the fictional town of Kingsbridge to illustrate the English marketplace and stone-construction methods of the time.
Now, with a phenomenal cast and lavish $40 million production, Starz reconstructs Kingsbridge for the small screen as an eye-popping eight-part miniseries.
Bring on the cloaks, swords and, not least, the mud.
“The Pillars of the Earth” begins tonight at 8 on Starz, with Ian McShane, Rufus Sewell and Matthew Macfayden donning the 12th-century threads and chain mail.
You don’t need to know a flying buttress from a flamboyant arch to appreciate the drama, but you do need a strong stomach for some of the battle scenes and images of corporal punishments, with their vivid impalings, beheadings and accompanying gushing sounds.
Writer John Pielmeier (“Agnes of God” and 20 films for television) has deftly interwoven the fight for the throne — a power struggle between King Henry’s daughter, Maud, and his nephew Stephen — with the dream of a benevolent prior (Macfayden) to build a magnificent cathedral, “reaching for the light, which is hope, which is God.”
At eight hours, the film by executive producers Tony and Ridley Scott and director Sergio Mimica-Gezzan would be a bit much if the casting weren’t so rich.
Alison Pill plays Maude, Henry’s only surviving legitimate child. Maude and her illegitimate brother Gloucester go to war with King Stephen over her claim to the throne. In the mud and muck, the acting keeps the action — if not always the dialogue — credible.
Pill (currently on Broadway in “The Miracle Worker” but perhaps best known to TV audiences for “In Treatment”) is mesmerizing. Unfortunately, she has too little screen time in the first four hours.
Ian McShane (“Deadwood”) gives glimpses of his full Al Swearingen potential as Bishop Waleran Bigod, a scheming and ambitious player who will use religion as a weapon against the faithful monk Philip.
Rufus Sewell (“Eleventh Hour”) provides the machismo and sexual tension as Tom Builder. Whenever the action starts to lag, Sewell energizes the entire production as the talented mason who must negotiate the politics of the church, the will of the king and the interests of the workers.
Matthew Macfadyen (“Frost/Nixon,” “MI-5”) is a riveting force as the earnest Prior Philip, unafraid to give his flock fairy tales to believe in (a lost and destroyed relic is miraculously “found”) when it will serve a higher goal.
The red-haired actor with a name out of 12th-century England, Eddie Redmayne (“Red,” “Tess of the D’Urber villes”) has few words but soulful eyes as the nearly mute artist and sculptor Jack.
Donald Sutherland (“Dirty Sexy Money”) gets to ham it up as Bartholomew, Earl of Shiring, supporter of Maude’s right to the throne. And Hayley Atwell (“The Prisoner”) brings fire to the role of Aliena, Bartholomew’s devoted daughter.
Historians will quibble, as they did with the book’s occasional sacrifices of accuracy to drama.
But viewers longing for a big, lavish miniseries to sink into this summer — the kind they used to get for “free” from the broadcast networks — will embrace “Pillars of the Earth” and its clever mix of action and art, architecture and politics, truth and beauty.
Overall, it’s an engrossing epic.
Joanne Ostrow: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
