I’m sometimes here to recount facts about Stanley Kubrick’s films and share some observations. Forgive me, it’s been a while.
After rekindling my interest in his work, I found it hard not to go back in time and review his oeuvre. I’m missing plenty in my collection, so these essays will keep coming. Here we are at 1960’s Spartacus, winner of 4 Academy Awards and was the highest-grossing box office for Universal Studios to date.
The previous installment of this series was inspired by Stanley Kubrick and Me: Thirty Years at His Side Audible Audiobook – Unabridged by his driver Emilio D'Alessandro. Emilio avoided seeing Stanley’s films, though likely had seen most of them in pieces. Later in life, after the two men reconnected, Stanley asked if Emilio had seen any of his films yet. Emilio had, and admitted that his favorite was Spartacus. But this wasn’t something Kubrick really wanted to talk about with his old friend. This wasn’t really his movie, it was Kirk Douglas’ movie.
Don’t be extra.
Douglas was gunning for the lead in Ben-Hur but didn’t get it. My family always made it a point to watch Ben-Hur and in my memory, it was always shown on Easter? That and/or Ten Commandments. I don’t remember why, I will ask Dad about that. Were they just big Charlton Heston fans?
If you haven’t seen Bryan Cranston as screenwriter Dalton Trumbo in 2015’s Trumbo, I highly recommend that movie as well. Trumbo adapted Howard Fast’s novel Spartacus for the screen when Fast himself could not adapt to Hollywood’s screenplay format. Trumbo was literally blacklisted and chose “Sam Jackson” as a pseudonym until Douglas insisted he uses his name in the credits for this movie. Doing so, and President Kennedy breaking an American Legion demonstration to see the film nixed the blacklist. There’s a lot I am leaving out here, check out this review of Douglas’s book, I Am Spartacus (free on Amazon Prime/Kindle) for more.
I didn’t mind the soundstage parts.
The cast here is amazing, Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, Jean Simmons as Verinia and so many more. What sets this movie apart from other Kubrick movies is perhaps why he didn’t want to speak with Emilio about it. This was Douglas’ vision, not his. He was asked to direct only after Douglas got into creative differences with the original director, Anthony Mann. Kubrick wasn’t allowed to change the script to his vision and never made that mistake in his career, exerting full control over his films. He essentially “disowned the movie and did not include it as part of his canon”.
I will say, not for nothin’, but this movie is 3 hours and 17 minutes long. Not that I can’t handle that but I watched this in 3 sittings over the course of two weeks. I didn’t consistently take any notes, so this review is a bit of fact mixed in with my own nonsense.
Barney Rubble made the map.
Spartacus, a slave, is sold to Gladiator trainer Batiatus where he turns on his owners and leads the rebellion as a leader. Hell yeah! This is Star Wars shit, man right on! Escaped slaves join his army as they take up arms against the Roman Republic.
“When 'Spartacus' was first released in 1960, it included a bath scene featuring the Roman patrician dictator Crassus (Laurence Olivier) and his body-servant Antoninus (Tony Curtis). In this scene, Crassus made veiled references to Snails and Oysters, implying that he was bisexual. Certain religious groups in America objected to this episode, so it was cut out.
However, it was reinstated in the 1991 'restoration,' though the soundtrack for that single-take bath scene had been lost. Olivier had meanwhile died, so Anthony Hopkins was brought in to dub his lines, though Curtis was able to re-voice his own words. “
The action in this movie is awesome, the scrappy Spartacus army sending flaming logs downhill into the Romans. Brutal and bloody. In fact, I couldn’t help but be reminded of Alex reading the Bible parts of A Clockwork Orange.
Without this movie, we don’t get 300, Gladiator, or Braveheart. The reaction to the Ben-Hur craze must have made it more acceptable to make audiences sit through a three-hour movie. I bought a digital copy and it still included an intermission (don’t worry, I didn’t wait that long to take a break).
Don’t.
Spartacus is everything you might expect it to be. I was always a fan of HBO’s Rome, and these types of sand and sandal stories. I like knowing what a standard-bearer is, watching warriors drink wine as they talk over deerskin maps and battle strategy.
🔱
The Varinia love story is quite sweet, and her being captured really raises the stake for the drama in the story. The costumes are amazing from the Senators to the Romans and hey, the Roman ladies looked great too!
I recommend finding three hours in your life to watch Spartacus as a fan of historical fiction, or to relive this special time in Hollywood’s history. This movie is guaranteed entertainment, classic film making with true Hollywood stars. I appreciate both Douglas’s intention and passion for making this film and for Kubrick for his cinematography and direction. He may not have loved it but I bet he would never begrudge Emilio or his fans now for enjoying it. This movie coming out now would be the equivalent of a Christopher Nolan movie or Marvel Studios movie, right? I don’t know what to compare it to. A new Tarantino flick? Why did I bother going down this rabbit hole?
