Customer Reviews

Spartacus

5 star:		(51)
4 star:		(31)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(6)

 

 

I've seen Spartacus many times over the years, but it's nice to have the DVD finally, and that of a good print. The effort to rerelease this film appears to have been monumental although one can't help but be surprised that it was necessary since, if nothing else, the film is of significant historical (film) value. The film is the economical spring board for Kubrick. True, it lacks the Kubrick flavour, displaying more of Douglas' tastes, but it is none the less masterfully done. Never a deep film, but full of drama and grandeur. Anyone who enjoys the grande style without the computer generated gore of contemporary epics will not be disappointed. The performances of the impressive supporting cast (especially LO, PU and CL) steal the show.

A must for any movie buff. superb acting,sets,costumes. They don't make movies like this anymore. Kirk Douglas
at his best, as usual.

In action he becomes a gladiator and helps free the slaves made into gladiators. It was a good movie but it did not end. We are left wondering what happened to them and where they went.

It should be noted that the reviews on this page refer to two different versions of the Spartacus DVD. This review refers to the Universal single disc edition, not the Criterion two-disc release.

While both versions of the film are the same, this version is devastated by a bad transer: both sound and picture quality are seriously lacking - even as far as a blue edge to blacks, including the widescreen matting, and blue fades in parts of the film. The sound is poorly balanced - voices are too quiet, music too loud. I was contantly turning the volume up and down throughout. So much for "fully restored."

If you are interested in quality and really like this movie I would skip this version and go for the Criterion release, which many other people own and have approved.

Kubrick replaced Tony Mann on directing duties for this brave, but lumbering costume epic which is ultimately propped up by three beautiful performances. Peter Ustinov(won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his work here), Charles Laughton(should have been similarly nominated)& Laurence Olivier all do incredible work under the guidance of a very young Kubrick & all deliver what comes very close to their best work. Their presence is notable chiefly for the fact that without them, SPARTACUS would never have been the extraordinary spectacle it surely is. Kirk Douglas gives a brooding(& lifeless)performance in the title role, ultimately undermining any sequence not containing the three aforementioned thespians. Jean Simmons, as the love interest, is similarly uninteresting & while undeniably beautiful, fails to evoke for the viewer the love & devotion she receives from Douglas & ultimately Olivier. Pre CGI, it comes armed with some beautifully choreographed & violent battle sequences, but for those looking for an earlier version of Ridley Scott's GLADIATOR, this one may come off a little old-fashioned. It is worth noting(& you'll learn this from the wonderfully insightful 1992 Ustinov interview[his impersonation of Laughton is a riot]contained in the bonus material)that Ustinov rewrote all the scenes he plays with Laughton. It should come as no surprise to the discerning viewer, they are easily the best moments in the film.....

1960 was the "official" end of the Blacklist. A young director named Stanley Kubrick had made a brilliant movie about military justice, "Paths to Glory", starring Kirk Douglas in 1958. In 1960, he directed the classic, "Spartacus". "Spartacus" starred Douglas as a slave of the Roman Empire, depicting his deadly rivalry with the Roman General Crassus (played to perfection by Laurence Olivier). The film was rife with social message. The slaves who rise up against their Roman oppressors are metaphors for the working class, especially minorities, rising up against white oppression. One black slave, played by ex-football star Woody Strode, gives his life so Spartacus can live. The fact that he was black was well calculated. Dalton Trumbo, a former Communist, wrote "Spartacus". He penned it under an assumed name because he was still Blacklisted. When it came time to edit the film for release, Douglas, a huge star and its producer, made the decision to list Trumbo as the writer. His power and the film's success combined with this act ended the Blacklist. In a notorious scene that was cut from the original but has since been restored, a slave named Antoninus (Tony Curtis) bathes Crassus/Olivier. Strange wordplay about a preference between snails and oysters at first seems irrelevant until one realizes it is Trumbo's effort to introduce a homosexual theme to the story, using snails and oysters as metaphors for straight and gay love. Isn't that special?

STEVEN TRAVERS
Author of "Barry Bonds: Baseball's Superman
STWRITESaol.com

"Those who are about to die salute you!" was the traditional gladiator salute to audiences prior to commencing their spectacle of death. The movie successfully brings the audience into another epoch were life was nasty, brutish, and short for virtually everyone: especially for slaves and gladiators.

The all-star cast of Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, and Peter Ustinov, more than makes up for Kirk Douglas' frequent forced acting. The love story with Jean Simmons could have been much shorter and perhaps would have been more interesting if they had based it on Spartacus' actual historic lover; a wild woman who claimed to be a prophetess and practiced sorcery.

The movie takes great poetic licence in recounting the social and cultural norms of ancient Rome by presenting a class conflict theme and plot structure; the Romans being like McCarthyists/capitalists and the slaves as Bolsheviks sacrificing all their labor for their commarades. The truth is that most of Spartacus' followers were exactly the gang of thieves and brigands that Kirk Douglass doesn't want them to be in the movie; more interested in quick plunder and mayhem than fighting for a desperate cause that no one at the time cared for anyway. Spartacus himself, given his overwhelming familiarity with legionary tactics, was (as historical sources suggest) probably a former auxillary or legionnaire who was condemned to slavery. The movie also wants to suggest that slavery was a product of pagan ignorance that needed the salvation of Christianity to see its cruelty. The legitimacy of slavery (spoils of war mostly) was the dominant world view in antiquity. Actually, early Christians were even more ardent believers of slavery than their pagan counterparts: believing that it was an immutable condition imposed by God. The truth is that slavery was mainly a product of agrarian economics and its end had more to do with the politics of capitalist industrialism than religious beliefs alone: the U.S. Civil War perfectly demonstrates that fact.

Much of the dialogue in the movie is exquisite; following exactly the type of intellectual wit and humor that the Romans cherished. The worst dialogue and acting seems to come from the method actors in the movie (Douglass, Curtis, and Simmons.) It's hard to make an epic movie on antiquity where the m.o. of acting is how the character would be like you instead of how you would be as the character. The truth is that people who lived 2000 years ago simply had completely different views on life or death and what was important in between.

Kubrick's rendition of the battle is extremely well done and the movie is worth watching or owning for that scene alone. The legionary formations and tactics were meticulously researched even though the campaign against Spartacus depicted in the movie wasn't accurate. Actually, contrary to what is depicted in the movie, Crassus had confined the gladiator army near Rhegium by building a pallisade of several miles from north to south, sea to sea. It was only by desperation and attrition that Spartacus was able to break through and attempt a final push back north. Unlike the movie, there's no historical reference to suggest that the "I'm Spartacus!" event ever occurred. All historical sources conclude that Spartacus was cut to pieces in the heat of battle.

In some ways the character of Marcus Licinius Crassus played by Olivier reflects the true historical figure but the movie again takes great poetic license to support its theme of class conflict. A patrician noble, Crassus was richest man in Rome who boasted that no man was rich unless he could maintain his own legions. Although he was extremely ambitious, there's nothing to suggest his pursuits were demagogic or dictatorial as suggested in the movie. Crassus was a traditional republican politician and his politics were much more like those of his nemesis in the movie, Graccus, played by Charles Laughton. The movie falsely portrays Crassus as a hard-line optimate to the likes of Cato Uticensis or Sulla which he was not. Crassus was quite the opposite; using his vast wealth to advance populist causes in favor of commoners (plebeans) and the lower orders (pedari and equites) to outwit his arch-rival, Pompey the Great. There's also no indication that he was enamoured to slave boys as the film suggests in the bath scene; indeed, Crassus was one of the few Romans of his day who remained faithfully married to his wife until his ignoble death at the hands of the Parthians in his failed Persian campaign.

The gladiator combat scenes and training are much more accurate than what was shown in "Gladiator." The retieri/fishermen vs. the Thracian fighters were common pairs matched for gladiatorial spectacles: especially in the later republic as such spectacles were not quite yet the mass entertainment that they came to be during the empire. Caesar and Pompey were actually the first public figures to turn these usually private ancestor worship ceremonies into mass entertainment. Unlike "Gladiator", you don't have amazons wielding fancy crossbows (a weapon that didn't even exist until the Middle Ages.)

If you can sit through or fast forward the over-extended love scenes, you will probably enjoy this movie. Definitely a movie for anyone who loves Roman history.

Poor Stanley Kubrick. It is my understanding he disowned this Hollywood epic and was deeply ashamed of it. For good reason.

Perhaps the most absurd part of the movie was the role given to Tony Curtis: a youthful "singer of songs" as he was called (and as Tony frequently referred to himself throughout the movie). Though this signer of songs was supposed to be a mere boy, he was obvioulsy a thirty-something actor that could not sing. [No offense to Tony Curtis, a good actor when properly cast.] But back to the story: since Tony could not sing, he recited (laughs) poetry! He never sang, not even once, not even to the character played by Olivier who takes the "singer of songs" into slavery as his houseboy. Reacting with disgust to the sexual advances made by Olivier, Tony escapes his slavery to join the gladiator group lead by Spartacus. Then, he becomes a singer of songs for Spartacus and his group of gladiators, former slaves and highly skilled professional killers.

The real Spartacus story is fascinating and quite incredible; it inspired me to rent the movie. The gladiators were tough, absolutely brutal men with nothing to lose. They took on and defeated the Roman army. They could have escaped into the Alps, but overruling their leader, chose to return and face the fully mobilized Roman army. When they were finally defeated, the gladiators--thousands of them--were crucified and left for display along the Roman highways. What a great story. The movie, however, conveys little of this dramatic story but, instead, focuses on the sappy love story between Kirk Dougals and his leading lady. The movie is simply ridiculous, with Spartacus being portrayed as an earnest, somewhat sensitive, 1950-60's style man, not the brutal miliary genius he apparently was.

Kubrick was a great director. He was quite yong when he made the movie and apparently lost control of the film. The movie was totally Hollywoodized. Unfortunate.

I agree with the reviewer immediately below, but I should point out that after arguing that race and gender were not significant issues in ancient Rome, the reviewer says that the Romans found issues of race and gender "squelchable." How could these issues be squelchable if they did not exist? Perhaps the reviewer is referring to the Romans as depicted in this film, in which case the reviewer makes an interesting point: Trumbo and Kubrik write a script that trumpets liberal virtues only to have the trumpeters of those virtues squelched by a power (Crassus) who does not appear at all evil. What IS the message here Hollywood? If Kubrik and Trumbo made Crassus a villain, Spartacus and friends would be martyrs (murdering martyrs, but what the help [sic]). Instead, Crassus is a well-intentioned, if egotistical, and loyal Roman citizen. A true patrician. Is this just another example of boisterous but empty scripting or what?

By the way, I apologize to true Liberals (i.e., in the tradition of Burke) for the title of this review. The liberalism found in SPARTACUS is the liberalism of Jane Fonda, Warren Beatty, THE NATION, Oliver Stone, etc.

I remember loving this film as a child: the fight scenes are vivid; the costumes are convincing enough (although perhaps not as good as those in Ben Hur); and Douglas, Olivier, Simmons, and Ustinov are superb. Watching this film now, however, (I am 21) I find that the historical inaccuracies and political messages (which, when younger and unaware, I doubtless absorbed) are despicable.

We might, perhaps, forgive the historical inaccuracies (e.g., Virinia [Simmons] claims to be from "Britannia" [c. 73-71BC] long before the Roman invasion of Britain [54BC and later]). Kubrik and Trumbo probably did not consider historical accuracy to be of first importance.

The political messages in this film, however, seem to me much more disturbing. Spartacus (Douglas) mixes the arguments of the French-revolution with 1960s civil-rights rhetoric, both of which did not exist in ancient Rome. Spartacus trumpets "liberty," "equality," and "brotherhood" (his younger viewers would probably have to ask their mothers what fraternity means) for all regardless of race and creed--and gender too, if we consider Virinia's feminist quips (which seem more plausible in the context of the script). In ancient Rome, however, race and gender did not signify inequality, division, and hatred as they did in the U.S. at the time this film was made. This film, therefore, tries to make the liberal principles of the last 250 years appear timeless (and thus somehow more credible), when in fact they are modern--and, perhaps, failing constructs.

So, I cannot conclude that this film is a "timeless epic." Issues of race and gender are not timeless, though they may be troublesome, and, as the Romans found, squelchable.