Nero's Golden House starts with some contemporary shots of Rome, intercut with several vintage film clips of various actors portraying Nero (including Ustinov, of course), before stopping a wide pan on the Coliseum, which happens to be built on top of part of what once was the huge, 200 acre plot where Nero's building ambitions reached their heights. The camera then moves a bit to the right and reveals and nice little sylvan glade in the midst of the Roman madness, revealing that underneath the mini-forest are the only remains of what once was an astoundingly huge array of buildings.

The documentary goes into the history of the discovery of these remains (it was actually hundreds of years ago, and the frescoes on the walls back then were evidently as fresh as the day they were painted), before rippling out into what the archeological remains tell us about Nero the man, his reign, and some of the mistaken history we've all swallowed hook, line and sinker. Along the way we get the usual assortment of learned talking heads, intercut with some fun archival film clips, and, perhaps a bit bizarrely, shots of the old Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas being demolished and then a new hotel being built (shown via some pretty cool time lapse photography).

If Rome wasn't built in a day, it didn't take them too much longer, as Nero's Golden House makes quite clear. Due to their for the times advanced engineering techniques, including that new-fangled invention concrete, the Romans were able to erect absolutely epic structures in a surprisingly small amount of time. Nero, who it turns out wasn't even in Rome when it burnt (hence couldn't have been fiddling and/or lyre playing as it burned), used that facility to quickly reclaim the center area of Rome to build his Golden House, which, it seems, really was finished in gold leaf, something that must have been quite dazzling due to the main structure's southern exposure. Nero's aims for his massive manse were to solidify and give symbol to his power, which the project actually did for a while.

What is revealed throughout Nero's Golden House is that our commonly held precepts about the emperor are mostly wrong, or at least misguided. Was Nero lewd and lascivious? Probably no more than the average Roman of the day. Was he a wannabe "artiste"? Most definitely, though the jury is still out on whether the "wannabe" moniker fits, as he actually may have had some talent, and he certainly was a champion of the arts. Was he stupid? Well, he may not have been the brightest bulb in the pack, but it seems that he was mostly naïve, the result of a sheltered upbringing by a mother who, if not quite as ruthless as Livia of I, Claudius fame, was not above scheming to make sure her son ascended to the throne. That lack of guile is what ultimately led to Nero's downfall and the ultimate eradication of his huge fortress.

This is an appealingly broad, yet nicely intimate, look at a long pilloried figure of history who may not quite deserve the scorn he's frequently given. The recreations of what the palace may have looked like are neat, if not always photo-realistic, and the learned commentary gives us enough insight into Nero the man to help better understand why such an immense structure was built to begin with. Quo Vadis and its ilk may be the version of Nero most people will always remember, but sometimes truth can be stranger than fiction (as some wise man once said), and Nero's Golden House proves that, architecturally at least, that's one adage that holds entirely too true.

The DVD

Video:
Nero's Golden House arrives with an enhanced 1.78:1 transfer that is pretty typical of television documentary fare--a certain degree of softness, but good color and contrast and overall excellent detail. There were a couple of very brief moments of aliasing in some busy relief work. Some of the archival film footage from movies of yore doesn't look very good, and the wrongly blown up Quo Vadis (filmed in 1.33:1) looks horrible, frankly, which helps to show what an improvement the recent BD release of this venerable film really is.

Sound:
The standard stereo soundtrack suffices just fine for what amounts to talking heads and narration. There's nothing exceptional here, but equally there's nothing horrible. All voices are easy to hear and understand. No subtitles are available.

Extras:
None are offered.

Final Thoughts:
It may be more fun to relish in Ustinov's over the top portrayal of the "mad" Roman Emperor, but Nero's Golden House makes it abundantly clear that the actual man, while misguided and naive, actually did a lot of good for his Empire. Whether or not this frankly insanely massive structure qualifies as "something good" I'll leave to the cultural historians to sort out, but Nero's Golden House is an informative and consistently interesting documentary that helps dispel myths while illuminating a little known aspect of Nero's roiling ambitions. Recommended.

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"G-d made stars galore" & "Hey, what kind of a crappy fortune is this?" ZMK, modern prophet