Just lately, it was my birthday! And to add to all the real life goals and challenges that that brings, I’ve created at least one as it relates to movies and this blog–watch a film I’ve never seen before which came out in each year of the fifty years before I was born, and then write a bit about it. This is Post #3.
Spoilers ahead.
Spartacus
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Release Year: 1960 (10 years before I was born)
What it is about: Spartacus, a Thracian slave in Rome in the first century BC is trained to be a gladiator, but ends up leading a revolt and escape. He becomes the leader of a movement of slaves who attempt to flee the Roman Empire. Brokering a deal with pirates, he leads his band to the sea, on to find that they have been betrayed. This forces Spartacus to lead his men in a battle against Rome itself. All the while, Spartacus marries and has a child with Varinia, a fellow escaped slave. Her former master is Marcus Crassus, an ambitious man charged with bringing the revolt to an end, and thus the slaves’ main adversary in their bid to find freedom.
Starring Kirk Douglas as Spartacus, Laurence Olivier as Crassus, Jean Simmons as Varinia, Tony Curtis as Antoninus (another former slave of Crassus who becomes like a son to Spartacus), Charles Laughton as Gracchus (Crassus’ political rival), John Gavin as a young Julius Caesar, and Peter Ustinov as Batiatus (a slave trader). Herbert Lom also turns up as an envoy of the pirates Spartacus hopes will help them.
My impressions of this movie before I watched it: I’ve been aware of this movie in the most general of terms, but really didn’t know anything about it specifically.
Reality: Spartacus is a film with a fascinating history. It was a project that Kirk Douglas got interested in after failing to gain the title role of Ben-Hur (a film with similar subject matter). It was written by Dalton Trumbo, a black-listed screenwriter–the recognition that was given to him on this project was one of the major steps for him to regain his ability to work in Hollywood. It is the only movie that director Stanley Kubrick worked for which he did not have complete creative control.
And it’s a film we can only watch in its current form thanks to an expensive and complex restoration that took place in the 1990’s, which involved Anthony Hopkins dubbing Laurence Olivier’s voice (the actor having died a couple of years earlier) for a scene that was being restored to the film.
The end result is a powerful and effective effort. Even though it does not have the Kubrickian feel that pretty much everything else by the director has, it’s a powerful story of a struggle for freedom, told with a wide angle view of how things were effecting peoples and nations, but never losing the intimate story of a small handful of individuals. Indeed, one of the film’s greatest strengths is its ability to develop its characters–though there are thousands of people on screen, there is actually quite a small group of central characters who are brought to life with impressive vibrancy. This is done through the acting and the script, of course, but also through the film’s camera, which is never in a hurry, often lingering over people just looking or responding to others, allowing us to connect with the emotions of the moment.
The movie does a great job with its tone as well, striking an excellent balance between hope and tragedy. The horrors of slavery are clear, as is the exhilaration of risking everything to throw off its shackles. When Spartacus suddenly seizes his opportunity to fight back, I was leaning forward in my proverbial seat, thrilling to every blow he landed on his captors.
As his movement grew, I was with him in the desperation that maybe this could somehow succeed, and that these people really could escape from crushing grip of the Roman Empire. And as his forces are inevitably overwhelmed by both treachery and superior numbers, I felt the bitterness of the defeat, as well as the honor that was shown in the loyalty that he received from his men.
The ending perfectly captures the rightness of this tone: Spartacus has been forced to kill one of his closest friends, and is then executed via crucifixion. But in the moments before his death, he is privileged to learn that his wife is alive and to see his son for the first time before they escape with Batiatus.
It gives Spartacus his ultimate victory over his arch-enemy, the vile and insecure Crassus, and gives the end of the film the inspirational kick it needs to keep it from being just completely depressing.
The movie’s cast is very strong. A surprising amount of attention is given to the politics of Rome, and the actors involved in that–Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton and Peter Ustinov–are particularly good. And of course Kirk Douglas is great: he brings a lot of humility into his performance which tempers all of the machismo that is sort of built in with the subject matter. This meant that I didn’t just admire Spartacus, I actually liked him, which tied me into his story all the more strongly.
So…when you get down to it, what did I think? Sparticus is surprisingly moving and powerful, with a strong visual style which is not just sumptuous, but evocative and emotional. It’s a long film, so I watched it more like a streaming series than a single film, but it held up very well as a richly enjoyable entertainment experience.
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