“I Am Spartacus!”
Are you a fan of epic movies? I love a good historical film in wide-screen technicolor that goes for long enough to include an interval.
Today, I thought I’d talk about the 1960 Roman epic Spartacus, starring Kirk Douglas, amongst a galaxy of other stars, and directed by Kirk D and Stanley Kubrick. In fact, while I admit that SK WAS a genius, to my taste, he never made a movie as good as this one, largely because it’s such a powerful emotional experience and his later work isn’t really concerned with evoking a strong emotional reaction from an audience. Me? I like a punch to the heart when I watch a good movie!
Spartacus is significant in Hollywood history for a number of reasons. Firstly, it’s one of the few Roman epics that doesn’t feature the Christian story. My other favorite epics of this era, The Robe and Ben-Hur, are very much tales of early Christianity and the characters’ interaction with the Gospel story.
Spartacus is also a product of the McCarthy era and in many ways it helped to bring that shabby, tragic episode to an end.
The film is based on a book by Howard Fast who wrote it when he was in jail for refusing to name names at the House Un-American Activities Committee hearings. The script is the work of Dalton Trumbo, who had been blacklisted since he, too, refused to name names. Since 1947, he’d survived his years in the wilderness writing screenplays under assumed names, including the classic Roman Holiday. Kirk Douglas insisted that Dalton Trumbo received full credit as the writer under his own name, laying the foundations for the end of the Hollywood blacklist.
I first saw this film when I was in high school in the 1970s when it had an enormous effect on me. And that was on TV with ads! It was many years (1991) before I caught the restored version on a 70mm screen the way it was intended to be seen. I still remember how magnificent that was!
It’s a pity that the whole “I am Spartacus!” routine has become such a joke, because I’ve always found the rebel slaves’ willingness to stand by Spartacus to the end really moving.
The casting is amazing, if a little light on significant female characters. But then, the principal figures of the historical story are male, so I don’t suppose I can be too whiny about that. And well, Jean Simmons is Jean Simmons!
Kirk Douglas makes a wonderfully stalwart hero/leader, and he forms a touching father/son relationship with Tony Curtis who looks pretty good in a skirt! Peter Ustinov won an Oscar for his portrayal of the cowardly, rascally, self-interested Batiatus, the owner of the gladiator school where Spartacus trains. In fact, it’s rather nice to have someone overflowing with human frailties on the screen to contrast with the relentless heroism of the central character.
Laurence Olivier is a wonderfully determined Crassus, who leads the Roman army that eventually defeats our hero. Charles Laughton is marvelously world-weary as the wise and prescient but doomed Gracchus. John Gavin makes a brilliantly oily Julius Caesar, who is just starting out on his rise to power. And Jean Simmons is exquisitely vulnerable as Spartacus’s wife Varinia (more on her to come).
The battle scenes are astonishing and when I watched Braveheart many years later, I immediately knew where Mel Gibson had found his inspiration for the action scenes in that film (another good epic!). There are also heart-stopping scenes of single combat, including a really harrowing encounter between Spartacus and his best friend Draba at the gladiator school, and an even more emotional encounter when Spartacus and Antoninus (Tony Curtis) fight to the death after the rebellion’s inevitable defeat. Sob.
Here I’d like to mention Alex North’s score which I have always adored. One of the joys of watching epic movies is that they always go for broke when it comes to the music, and Spartacus is one of the best.
The main theme is angular and discordant and strident and perfectly fits the movie’s depiction of Rome as a civilization out of joint with itself. My favorite music in the film, however, is the tender, poignant love theme. I won’t link to YouTube because I’ve found Australia has different urls from the rest of the world on that site, but do a search on “Love theme” Spartacus if you’d like to hear something of divine beauty.
Which brings me to the thing that lifts Spartacus into a class of its own when it comes to Hollywood epics. It’s a big movie with a big story to tell and it works in big scenes, but it’s also a movie that never loses sight of the human level of the drama. These epic events have consequences for real people with real emotions. Most of all, this is true about the love story that forms the beating heart of Spartacus.
There’s a beautiful chemistry between Kirk Douglas and Jean Simmons right from their first, difficult, frustrating encounter. It’s so touching to watch the way their love grows as they’re both swept up in world-shaking events. And it’s fitting that the moving finale to this love story forms the finale to the film. It’s a sad ending – history is often cruel – but also inspiring.
In fact, inspiring is my best description for this wonderful movie from the golden age of Hollywood. They sure don’t make ’em like this anymore. Now this piece has inspired me to hunt it down and watch it again!