Spartacus (1960)
“We’re marching south to the sea. And we’ll smash everything they put against us.”
There are epics and there are epics. Some movies get that title because they are long. Some because they attempt (often poorly) to cover a rich story that sweeps across time and space. Some claim it because of the raw star power of their cast. And some because of the impact they had on society and culture.
Whichever of those you want to apply, Spartacus was and is an epic.
The story, directed by Stanley Kubrick (2001: A Space Odyssey…and much more), is a fictionalized - ‘though largely accurate in its broad strokes - story of a real event in Roman history, the Third Servile War. The war began in 73 B.C., when a group of about 70 slaves at a gladiator school decided that freedom sounded like a better deal than a job where you had a 50% chance of dying each time you went to work. Over the course of two years, they drew at least 120,000 slaves - men, women, and children - into their camp, defeated Roman Legions, and made a desperate race to the coast in the hope of fleeing Italy.
This army of escaped slaves was led by a man named Spartacus.
The film included some first class talent, including Kirk Douglas (The Juggler) in the title role, Lawrence Olivier (Hamlet), as the über rich - and creepy - Crassus, Charles Laughton as Gracchus, Tony Curtis (Antoninus), and Peter Ustinov (Batiatus) - who steals every scene he is in. The background characters are often pretty bad…but wow…the main cast brought their A-Game. The only criticism I can offer on this front is that Douglas, at least in this movie, is a much better actor when he doesn’t speak. When the movie begins he says very little but communicates enormous emotion through his eyes and expressions. He is good later, but it loses something. Then again, Spartacus would have probably been a less effective leader if he was a mime.
A quick word on versions…
Kubrick wasn’t shy about pushing the envelope. The studios were a bit less adventurous. The version we watched was not the 1960 theater release but the 1991 recut, which included a number of scenes that the were pulled from the original. The most memorable one is a really disturbing bath scene in which Crassus (Olivier) makes a hard play on his new slave boy, Tony Curtis. Watching it I kept thinking “What…what? Is he talking about….? Ohhhhh my……” I’ll leave you to watch it. Look for a conversation about “Do you prefer to eat oysters…or snails….I like to eat both.”
Whether your version includes snails or oysters, you’ll enjoy this epic.
You can catch Spartacus HERE.
Five out of Five Spartaci.
⚔⚔⚔⚔⚔
Post Credit Bonus #1
You can’t do a review of Spartacus without this…
Post Credit Spoiler Bonus#2
Spartacus was based on historical events, but they did take a few liberties. The role of Julius Caesar was one, but perhaps the most important was the fate of the slave general.
In the movie, he is captured by the Romans and left to a fairly gruesome fate.
Many Roman accounts of the time report that he was killed in the final battle with the Legions…but his body was never found. We will never know his true end but it is, at least remotely possible, that the real Spartacus had the happy ending that was denied the Hollywood one.
Do you like movies with gladiators in them? You might want to test out one of these.
