“And maybe there's no peace in this world, for us or for
anyone else, I don't know. But I do know that, as long as we live, we must
remain true to ourselves.”
Spartacus is a story of a man who is
simple yet proud. He’s a gladiator who desires to be free and will stand up for
freedom. So a slave revolt happens and some political factions use this revolt
to get what they want out of the Roman Empire. The cast of characters were
great, but I just couldn’t find myself to like Kirk Douglas as Spartacus. Maybe
it’s because I knew the backstory of how this film was made. I did like
the statement that screenwriter Dalton Trumbo was trying to portray. I also found
it intriguing about the homoerotic nature of the Roman bath scene when Crassus
and Antoninus discuss their mutual appetites for “snails and oysters”. At the
time it was taken out and later put back in during the restoration.
The initial director scheduled for
Spartacus was Anthony Mann, but was fired by Kirk Douglas after shooting one
scene. So then Stanley Kubrick was set to direct the film. He and Douglas
worked together in the film Paths of Glory. Kubrick had little artistic
freedom with this film, which is sad because it makes one think how it could
have turned out with him in full control. Every time he tried to direct the
Kubrick way Douglas would fight with him. Kirk Douglas wanted Spartacus
to be all about Douglas, that’s why he was a producer. He needed it to be his
Ben Hur.
Spartacus is a
Kubrick film and yet it is not a Kubrick film. If you ask a Kubrick fan if they
like the film they’d usually say that they’re disappointed with it because it
was too Hollywood for a Kubrick film compared to the rest of his filmography.
Then ask someone who is not a fan of Kubrick, probably a Michael Bay fan, and
they’d most likely say that they enjoyed it. So is it a bad film? I don’t
consider it a bad film it’s still a better film than most of the junk Hollywood
makes nowadays. It’s a respectable film. Fairly good, but it’s no masterpiece
or a great film. Kubrick deserves a whole lot of credit for making this film
work.
4.2 out of 5
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