Spartacus

[Octavia]

Hi all. There is a really good movie about the life of Sparticus.Has anyone seen it? What do you all think?

[M. Porcius Cato]

I enjoyed it. You might want to check out this thread on Spartacus. (For some reason, these threads always devolve into "I'm Spartacus!")

 

PS No, I'm Spartacus!

[Primus Pilus]

PS No, I'm Spartacus!

 

I'm Spartacus

[Nephele]

PS No, I'm Spartacus!

 

I'm Spartacus

 

 

-- Nephele

[Ursus]

Expect a full length review of the Douglas-Kubrick version of Spartacus to come to a Romanophile site near you!

 

Short version: bad on history, good on acting.

[Nephele]

Expect a full length review of the Douglas-Kubrick version of Spartacus to come to a Romanophile site near you!

 

Short version: bad on history, good on acting.

 

 

I'm currently reading Howard Fast's original novel, and finding it much better than the moobie. Fast's descriptiveness is deliciously sensual. And... Tony Curtis's character of Antoninus appears to be absent from the novel.

 

-- Nephele

[M. Porcius Cato]

And... Tony Curtis's character of Antoninus appears to be absent from the novel.

 

Really?? Who gets the credit for him then?

[Nephele]

And... Tony Curtis's character of Antoninus appears to be absent from the novel.

 

Really?? Who gets the credit for him then?

 

Search me. In the novel, Spartacus has a Jewish friend named David. I'm getting paranoid thinking: "Why did they cut the Jew from the movie?"

 

-- Nephele

[Gaius Paulinus Maximus]

NO! I'M SPARTACUS (sorry couldn't resist)

 

 

[Ursus]

Search me. In the novel, Spartacus has a Jewish friend named David. I'm getting paranoid thinking: "Why did they cut the Jew from the movie?"

-- Nephele

 

 

I think it was because Ben-Hur, whose title character was a Jewish noble, came out the year previous to Spartacus. Everything I've read about the movie suggests Douglas was mad he lost the title role in Ben-Hur to Heston, and he made Spartacus as his little revenge. So, to place as much distance between Ben-Hur and Spartacus as possible, the Jewish character was probably cut.

 

Also, I have no idea what the Jewish character was like, but Curtis' educated Greek slave did provide a nice foil to Douglas' illiterate character.

[Ursus]

Seriously, I recommend the movie, especially to a younger audience (I have no idea how old Claudia Octavia is, I'm just saying). The acting is generally superb, and the action is engrossing. I'm not a military buff, but the site of the Spanish army mimicking a Roman legion as they descend into battle was mesmerizing.

 

But historically there are many things dead wrong. The moralizing of the movie is also over-the-top at best. It's another entry in Pagan Rome as an Evil Empire, which Judeo-Christian morality shall happily remedy.

[Pertinax]

I echo Ursus' sentiments and add that the "full" version should be purchased (the then risque "oysters/snails" interlude now looks very naff). The cinematography is wonderful, if you "step back" and look at the shot composition (just letting the story get on with itself) it is masterful. Laughton and Ustinov are a joy to watch.

 

 

I am Lentulus!

[Nephele]

Search me. In the novel, Spartacus has a Jewish friend named David. I'm getting paranoid thinking: "Why did they cut the Jew from the movie?"

-- Nephele

 

 

I think it was because Ben-Hur, whose title character was a Jewish noble, came out the year previous to Spartacus. Everything I've read about the movie suggests Douglas was mad he lost the title role in Ben-Hur to Heston, and he made Spartacus as his little revenge. So, to place as much distance between Ben-Hur and Spartacus as possible, the Jewish character was probably cut.

 

Also, I have no idea what the Jewish character was like, but Curtis' educated Greek slave did provide a nice foil to Douglas' illiterate character.

 

Ah, that makes sense. Thanks! What with author Howard Fast having himself been a Jew, and under suspicion during the McCarthy era, I was wondering whether the deletion of the novel's Jewish character in the translation of the novel to the screen might have had some darker purpose behind it.

 

I really am enjoying the novel Spartacus that I'm reading right now. Fast appears to have done quite a bit of research into Roman food and dining, military dress, travel on the Appian Way, etc., and his vivid descriptiveness in his novel is a real treat for the senses.

 

The only area in which Fast's research appears (thus far in my reading of his novel) to be appallingly lacking, is in his construction of Roman names. He doesn't seem to have had the faintest grasp of praenomina, nomina gentilicia, and cognomina, as he uses them interchangeably. One of his characters has the implausible name of "Gaius Marcus Senvius", another is named "Antonius Caius" -- and a woman is named "Claudia Marius"!

 

Have to say, that's bugging me.

 

-- Nephele the Nomenclature Nut

[Ursus]

The only area in which Fast's research appears (thus far in my reading of his novel) to be appallingly lacking, is in his construction of Roman names.

 

 

What about his sense of history, though? If the movie follows the novel, than Fast either ignored or embellished several things:

• Spartacus was not born into a life of slavery, but attained it after deserting the Roman armies
  
• Spartacus was not crucified, but presumed dead in battle.
  
• Spartacus was not an idealist, merely a capable brigand
  
• The Gracchi were dead by this time
  
• The Gracchi served as Tribunes, not Senators
  
• Crassus was not an arch conservative
  
• Caesar could not have commanded the Urban Cohors, as they did not exist until Augustus
  
• Pompei did not participate in the major battle that defeated Spartacus, he merely mopped up some survivors
  

[Nephele]

The only area in which Fast's research appears (thus far in my reading of his novel) to be appallingly lacking, is in his construction of Roman names.

 

 

What about his sense of history, though? If the movie follows the novel, than Fast either ignored or embellished several things:

• Spartacus was not born into a life of slavery, but attained it after deserting the Roman armies
  
• Spartacus was not crucified, but presumed dead in battle.
  
• Spartacus was not an idealist, merely a capable brigand
  
• The Gracchi were dead by this time
  
• The Gracchi served as Tribunes, not Senators
  
• Crassus was not an arch conservative
  
• Caesar could not have commanded the Urban Cohors, as they did not exist until Augustus
  
• Pompei did not participate in the major battle that defeated Spartacus, he merely mopped up some survivors
  

 

Well, I'm still reading the novel but, so far, it's made pretty clear that Spartacus, rather than having been crucified, was thought to have been "cut to pieces" during battle. (The story is told in flashback, and actually begins with the sight of thousands of crucified slaves lining the Appian Way.)

 

General Crassus says of Spartacus in battle: "He must have killed at least ten or eleven men in that last wild rush of his, and he wasn't stopped until we cut him to pieces." The character Caius asks: "Then it's true that his body was never found?" Crassus replies: "That's right. He was cut to pieces, and there was just nothing left to find. Do you know how a battlefield is? There is meat and blood, and whose meat and whose blood, it is very hard to say."

 

As for the Gracchi being dead by this time... There is a character in the novel named Gracchus ("...a big man with a deep booming voice, his head sunk in collars of fat, his huge hands fat and puffy, with rings on almost every finger."). But there's also a reference made to the famous Gracchi brothers of earlier times ("...she was the very picture of a Roman matron, comely and calm and dignified; and if she had not been so obviously and childishly posed, she would have quite naturally recalled to Caius every painting of the mother of the Gracchi he had ever seen.").

 

I'll let you know how else the novel compares with the movie, as I read on.

 

-- Nephele

Edited July 29, 2007 by Nephele