{"id":58,"date":"2022-01-07T11:53:44","date_gmt":"2022-01-07T10:53:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-bremen.de\/filmblogesc\/?p=58"},"modified":"2022-01-07T11:53:44","modified_gmt":"2022-01-07T10:53:44","slug":"house-of-cards-new-isnt-always-better","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-bremen.de\/filmblogesc\/2022\/01\/07\/house-of-cards-new-isnt-always-better\/","title":{"rendered":"House of Cards: New Isn’t Always Better"},"content":{"rendered":"

When we speak of <\/span>House of Cards<\/span><\/i>, we usually speak of the American <\/span>House of Cards <\/span><\/i>(2013-2018), the one with the now fallen star, Kevin Spacey, in it. But there was a <\/span>House of Cards<\/span><\/i> (1990) before that, the British original, on which the American <\/span>House of Cards<\/span><\/i> is based.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Budget aside, the original <\/span>House of Cards<\/span><\/i> is the much better show and that is for one major reason: the portrayal of the main character is much more believable. You see, in both shows the viewer is the confidant of the main character and witness to his ambitions and plots. Often, the main character, be it Francis Underwood (Kevin Spacey) or Francis Urquhart (Ian Richardson), turns directly to the viewer and lays out his own reasoning. This stylistic device is supposed to give the viewer the impression of actually understanding a politician\u2019s motives – something I wish we could do in real life.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Here is the problem though: both Francises do a lot of shady things to make their ends meet; they coerce, forge and murder, but only the character development of Francis Urquhart is affected by these acts of moral corruption. Machiavellianism, not considering the mental disorder, does not mean you are not affected by what you do. Machiavellianism means, you do it anyways. Francis Urquhart has flashbacks and suffers for his deeds, yet he does everything he can to ultimately consolidate his power as prime minister. Moreover, he has multiple affairs with women. Some of them even selected by his wife – a dynamic that we cannot unpack here. Despite his wife\u2019s blessing he doesn\u2019t fully enjoy himself. The baggage from his previous affair influences his behaviour in the next one. Conversely, with Francis Underwood you think: \u201cYay, yet another skeleton in the closet that doesn\u2019t seem to bother him\u201d. Francis Underwood stays the same and that gets old after two seasons.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the end, Ian Richardson\u2019s performance and the writing of his character are much more convincing. So, if you can catch <\/span>House of Cards <\/span><\/i>(1990) on television or on your preferred streaming service, do give it a try.<\/span><\/p>\n

by Kai M\u00fcller<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When we speak of House of Cards, we usually speak of the American House of Cards (2013-2018), the one with the now fallen star, Kevin Spacey, in it. But there was a House of Cards (1990) before that, the British original, on which the American House of Cards is based.\u00a0 Budget aside, the original House […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13752,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[977089],"tags":[986749,384451,987548,987025,987408,590954],"class_list":["post-58","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-20th-century-history","tag-drama","tag-history","tag-house-of-cards","tag-ian-richardson","tag-kevin-spacey","tag-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-bremen.de\/filmblogesc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-bremen.de\/filmblogesc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-bremen.de\/filmblogesc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-bremen.de\/filmblogesc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/13752"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-bremen.de\/filmblogesc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-bremen.de\/filmblogesc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-bremen.de\/filmblogesc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58\/revisions\/59"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-bremen.de\/filmblogesc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-bremen.de\/filmblogesc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.uni-bremen.de\/filmblogesc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}