Over time, Rome has held greater appeal than Greece for America. That is one reason for the prevalence of Roman themes in the box office cynosures; another mighty factor was the convergence of Rome and early Christianity. Greek-themed films, while plentiful - witness the several dozen cinematic sons of Hercules (typically enough, he retained his Latin name) and Harryhausen’s creations - were mostly the escapist fare of mythology. The same is basically true of the movie versions connected with Troy, including the 1954 Italian production of Ulysses with Kirk Douglas (it had its moments, such as Polyphemus’ exclamation at his repast, ‘‘Uh, those Greeks are tough,’’ a line not found in Homer) and the vivacious 1997 animated version by Disney. Greek historical fare has been few and far between; besides The 300 Spartans (a new version, 300, is currently in production by Warner Brothers), there is the 1956 version of Alexander the Great with Richard Burton as Alexander, but Alexander never conquered film like Julius Caesar, Giulio Cesare, or Jules Cesar.
The reasons for this American preference of Rome, which now is playing out in popular culture (cf. Bondanella 1987: 207-52; Joshel, Malamud, and McGuire 2001), are deep-rooted. Nor were they ever static, as Rome offered an infinite palette of identifications with the changing times. Like Rome, America had declared itself free from a monarch it had perceived as bad. The slave-holding, landed aristocracy that shaped the destiny of the early US saw its equivalent in that of Rome and adopted a constitution of checks and balances. America, as noted before, looked in its Roman mirror again when it became an imperial nation and liked what it saw: the pax Americana (American peace). An ensuing global phenomenon was that Americanization, just like Romanization, was a matter not of cultural imperialism but of a culture, and especially popular culture, that people everywhere could readily adopt, and did. The underlying reason, in both the Roman Empire and the world today, is that both Rome and America are fundamentally hybrid cultures due to the many ethnicities, traditions, religions, and so on they incorporate and take inspirations from. Being multicultural, these cultures are inherently cosmopolitan rather than narrowly national and therefore hold worldwide appeal (cf. Galinsky 1992; Appiah 2006; Pells 2006).
The portrayal of Romans in the movies has been evolving in this context. Bad Rome could be imperial Britain; hence the demarcation of accents to which I alluded earlier. But there could also be double coding: while in Spartacus, for instance, the slave-holding Roman rulers (who, moreover, are into decadence of the snails and oysters type) are of the British tongue, they were also meant to represent McCarthyist America. Often, of course, stereotypes have come in handy: there is the cruel Roman
Figure 26.2 It’s never lonely in the arena: Maximus (Russell Crowe) and friends in Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000). Photo: Kobal Archive
Villain like Messala, Caligula, Nero, and Commodus; add to the parade the Roman soldier in the animated Christmas special The Little Drummer Boy (1968; revised 1996), who runs the boy’s pet lamb over in his chariot (the revival of the animal in the manger becomes Baby Jesus’ first miracle), thus leaving an indelible first impression of Roman brutality and Amazing Grace on young minds. And where would Quo Vadis go, literally, absent the Roman decadence without which many movies of the genre, including HBO’s Rome, would be very dull indeed? Besides these staples, however, a few good Romans showed up occasionally, such as the consul Arrius in Ben Hur, although they, too, did not aim to transcend stereotypes (Shakespeare’s Antony and Brutus, of course, are another matter; for good reason, the 1953 black-and-white version of Julius Caesar, with a superb performance by Marlon Brando, was nominated for several Academy Awards). Finally, in the Life of Brian (1979), the Romans in the not-so-Holy Land are heartily spoofed along with everything else.
One of the many factors in Gladiator’s success was that it stayed away from the orgies and presented a Roman that audiences could cheer for. He was not a stereotype, but he was not too complex, either. As in Shakespeare, it was Roman against Roman, and not Roman against Jew or Thracian slave. Similarly, Commodus is a sadly warped character rather than a caricature. A most interesting example, however, of increasing nuance is the changing portrayal of Pontius Pilate. Among the many criticisms of Mel Gibson's Passion was that his characterization of Pilate was altogether too friendly - after all, Pilate had been demonized for centuries, starting with his mention in the Nicene Creed. The departure, however, already came in Zeffirelli’s Jesus of Nazareth, which cast the undersized and pudgy Rod Steiger as a
Figure 26.3 Roman soldiers just doing their job: with a bloodied Jesus (James Cavaziel) and Joseph of Arimathea (Giacinto Ferro) in Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ (2004). Photo: Kobal Archive
Small and merely human cog in the machinery of history and, more immediately, Roman administration on the margins of the Empire. Steiger’s Pilate is a humanly believable, harassed functionary whose plans for a quiet weekend are interrupted by yet one more instance of obduracy of the natives whose mentality exasperates him: ‘‘How can you govern such people?’’ he sighs at one point. True to all four Gospels, Zeffirelli’s and Gibson’s Pilate is far from hell-bent on crucifying Jesus, but tries to avert it several times. In Gibson’s Passion, this humane portrayal, along with that of Pilate’s wife, establishes some counterpoise to the otherwise relentless masochistic mayhem of the Roman soldiery who reduce Christ to a zombied pulp early on. No chance for character development here, and that may be another reason why Pilate’s role absorbed most of that aspect. But while The Passion tapped, sickeningly, into the cinematic and literary tradition of Roman brutality, it did so not simply for its own sake but in order to introduce a realistic departure, even if by overcompensation, from the tradition of passion plays and artistic representations that tended to be conspicuously bloodless. A comparandum is the 20 minutes of utter carnage with which Steven Spielberg chose to begin Saving Private Ryan (1998). It stood in deliberate contrast to previous versions of the Normandy landing in which John Wayne & Co., while encountering some resistance, had basically stridden ashore and one could start hearing the dominoes fall all the way to Berlin. Reality was different.
What contributes to the greater success of Roman-themed movies with their audiences, then, is both longstanding cultural identification and the greater variety of characters who reinforce this identification with compelling human interest that an audience can relate to; HBO’s Rome smartly extended the tradition by viewing the events through the eyes of two protagonists that are ordinary people. By comparison, films centering on Greek historical characters are far fewer and held to different standards precisely because they are rarer. The overly critical reception of Oliver Stone’s Alexander is a case in point, and one of the dominant issues was the narrow construction of ‘‘authenticity.’’ Others have taken up this issue well (see my suggestions for further reading, below) and therefore I can limit myself to the obvious comparative perspective: it is not an issue, in my opinion, that would have played a significant role in the assessment of a ‘‘Roman’’ film. Because of the prevalence of Rome in cinema, moviegoers and critics are used to a far longer tradition of creative liberties and, with the exception of the usual academic guild, have stopped beating a dead horse. The rest of the world has learned how to live with Joseph Mankiewicz’ classic answer to such concerns. For, when it was pointed out to him that the arch through which his Cleopatra entered Rome was not around at the time, he replied: ‘‘Who would know?’’ Transpositions of this kind, and others, are what we expect to see in movies that are based on history, but clearly are not meant to be documentaries. It is the same creative allowance that characterizes literary and artistic adaptations from early on; a typical example, dating to the middle of the sixth century bc, is a black-figure vase from Etruria that shows Achilles fighting Aeneas (Iliad 20) - with the addition of Paris, who is pointing his arrow at Achilles’ heel. This ‘‘unhistorical’’ collocation makes excellent sense. And you don’t have to be Lessing to see that the artist simply used the distinctive possibilities of the visual medium. Filmmakers today do the same - and should.
Such allowances, however, were not granted to Alexander (at the same time, the reception of the movie suffered, in the wake of the US electoral campaign, for being too authentic about Alexander’s sexual orientation). That is a pity, because ‘‘Stone’s ‘Alexander’ is certainly not a loosely-constructed film: it is the result of fifteen years’ thinking and refining’’ (Fox 2004: 168) and solidly grounded in the historical sources. Its transpositions overwhelmingly are those required by the medium for reasons of space and drama. In the end, the superficiality was not that of the
Figure 26.4 Coming together in Rome: the Sphinx, Constantine’s Arch, Cleopatra (Elizabeth Taylor), and hosts in Cleopatra (1963). Photo: Kobal Archive
Figure 26.5 Early telescoping technique: Achilles (center) fights against Aeneas (left) while Paris (right) prepares to shoot him in the heel. Pontic amphora, mid-sixth cent. bc. Source: K. Galinsky, Aeneas, Sicily, and Rome (Princeton, 1969) Fig. 99
Movie, but of many of the critics (cf. Solomon 2005). But there is no point beating those dead horses either. Instead, I want to conclude, on the positive note that befits the entire subject of this chapter, by pointing out, with the example of Alexander, the useful and welcome dimension ‘‘classical’’ cinema can add to courses about the ancient world at our colleges and universities - courses that in effect constitute the classical tradition for many people today.
Alexander can be incorporated into a variety of courses, whether Greek civilization, Hellenistic history, Greece and Rome in film, (multi)cultural studies, or even military history. It is an excellent way to acquaint students with the variety of traditions, the conflicting nature of the sources, and the controversies about a character who changed the world and the way he did it. Imagine you wanted to make a movie about Alexander. What do we know about him, and how do we know it? What is the nature of the evidence? Do we have anything written by him? What did he look like, and again, how do we know? What about bisexuality in Greece? Is a psychohistorical approach warranted, given Alexander’s relationship with his parents and the relationships of many of our students with theirs? (Many college students are at the end of their teens, and these issues are anything but academic to them.) Was that dimension overdone in Alexander with Stone’s technique of parallel-cutting? Does Olympias (Angelina Jolie) really have to carry on with all those snakes, evoking a tradition from the Minoan snake goddess to Cleopatra? And finally, after we have looked at some material on all this in the lectures and readings, the big question: if you had three hours for an Alexander movie, how would you do it? What episodes would you select and why? Would you telescope some of the events? How would you convey
Alexander’s complexity, or would you? And would you cast him as a conquistador or a visionary of the unity of all mankind? Should the movie have a message, and what would be the right balance between action/entertainment and such a message?
I cannot think of a better way to get students involved in exploring these basic issues, and I know from experience that it works. For they can see firsthand not only the relevant information (instead of textbook distillations) but also the way we try to arrive at it. As always, the journey is more rewarding than the arrival (see Cavafy’s Ithaca, which I regularly use in connection with my teaching of the Odyssey). The adaptations of the classical world in the cinema have not been on as long a journey as their counterparts in literature, art, and architecture, but they already have made a tremendous impact. With Cavafy, I can only hope that their journey be long, and I have no doubt that it will.3
FURTHER READING
The study of ancient Greece and Rome in film is an incipient field, but several good treatments are available. Solomon (2001) is the second and updated edition of his standard work, first published in 1978. Martin Winkler has been another pioneer; see especially the chapter collections he edited in 1991 and 2001. Wyke (1997b) offers a perceptive case study of some major Hollywood movies. Margaret Malamud is making unique contributions by situating film in the context of America’s reception of Rome; see her chapters in Joshel, Malamud, and McGuire (2001). Winkler (2005) offers a variety of perspectives on Gladiator; cf. Robin Lane Fox’s thorough discussion of Stone’s Alexander (2004). Monica Cyrino’s Big Screen Rome (2005) is an excellent treatment of the major Roman cinemepics. The ‘‘authenticity’’ question, really a red herring, is discussed incisively by Winkler (2005: 21-3) and by Solomon in Winkler’s forthcoming volume on Troy (Blackwell, 2006). Finally, my course website is Http://www. utexas. edu/courses/ancientfilmCC304.
NOTES
I recall with pleasure Daniel Barenboim’s first production as the new music director of the Staatsoper in Berlin in 1993: an outdoor staging of The Magic Flute that struck the local critics as far too entertaining at the expense of Tiefsinn.
Besides DeMille's Cleopatra, mention should be made ofthe reprise (not the last, as it turned out) of The Last Days of Pompeii (1935), which featured some superb technical effects, and the problem-plagued Caesar and Cleopatra (1945), which was adapted - none too successfully - for the screen by George Bernard Shaw himself.
My thanks to Jon Solomon for critiquing an earlier version of this chapter.
A Companion to the Classical Tradition Edited by Craig W. Kallendorf Copyright © 2007 by Blackwell Publishing Ltd
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