Over the past few decades, film has developed as probably the largest window for the general public on the world of ancient Greece and Rome. This development and others in popular culture should be welcomed by anyone interested in these civilizations because it is another manifestation of the classical tradition’s ongoing vitality. And it can be a useful springboard for deepening the public’s understanding of these civilizations; an analogous example is the helpful scholarship literary bestsellers about the ancient world, such as Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code, have attracted. In other words, the study of the classical world in cinema is a legitimate, and important, part of classical scholarship today. At this point (late 2006), it can be said that a good start has been made in this new area, but universal acceptance is still lagging. To wit: whenever a new adaptation of a classical subject - most recently, for example, Gladiator, Troy, and Alexander the Great - appears on the screen, the response of most professional classicists to whom the general public might turn is still to recite a catalogue of ‘‘inaccuracies’’ and engage in a general plaint that the meaning of the original work has been robbed of its grandeur and profundity, with no or little respect for its ‘‘authenticity.’’ The underlying assumption seems to be that only documentaries can do ancient subjects justice.
Such notions and others, especially when they are asserted sweepingly in lieu of the consideration of individual merits, are far too limited. Before I proceed, then, it will be useful to lay out the framework of information and perspectives for this chapter.
I will give a condensed, interpretive chronological overview; detailed and good treatments, notably Jon Solomon’s (2001), are readily available. Before and after, a few perspectives. One is that the development of the genre, its variegated manifestations, its high points, and its hiatuses can be viewed usefully from the aspect of reception and reception theory - in that regard, once more, film is no different than the reception of classical themes in art, literature, and architecture. Projecting the
Past, to use the title of Maria Wyke’s book (1997b), tells us something not only about the past but also, and sometimes even more, about the present and contemporary milieu of reception. Gladiatorial combat, for instance, was only one of many forms of entertainment in ancient Rome and certainly not the key to Roman civilization; as J. E. Lendon has observed, our fascination with it ‘‘tells us more about ourselves’’ (Lendon 2000: 404). Reception in film is affected by many of the same factors as reception in other cultural genres, such as political and personal agendas (Spartacusis a paradigm), contemporary sensibilities (an audience today will not spend three hours and $10 to watch the egomania of the ‘‘authentically’’ Homeric Achilles), and reinvention.
What is authenticity, then? There are parameters, and it would be too facile to resort to reception aesthetics that are blithely relativizing - do with the subject whatever you want, it’s all a construct anyway. Mainly, as for authenticity, movies should not be judged by standards different from those we use for Shakespeare’s historical plays or Derek Walcott’s Odyssey. The adaptation of historical material has its limits: we would not condone Caesar killing Brutus, for instance, unless, perhaps, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern would stay alive, too. While it is simply a given that box office films are not PBS or BBC documentaries and should not be expected to behave as such, a continuing characteristic, especially of movies about Rome, is the uneasy negotiation of creative liberties and authentic historical setting. Many movies are trying to have it both ways with the more-than-occasional result of falling between two stools; HBO’s series Rome (2005) is a good recent example.
The case is different for mythological subjects. We should remind ourselves that myths in antiquity were in constant flux and thrived on retelling, embroidering, and adaptation; the canonization in compendia and textbooks came about only in late antiquity and did not stop literary adaptors in the following centuries from making creative additions (cf. Stanford 1963, and Galinsky 1972 and forthcoming). In fact, ‘‘ignorance,’’ as Stanford put it so nicely, ‘‘can be the mother of mythopoeia’’ - Dante’s treatment of Ulysses, who sails past the straits of Gibraltar and after three days falls into a very deep pit in hell, is a sterling example (Stanford 1963: 178-82). And would ancient readers really have considered it outlandish that Hercules, one of the most traveled heroes, would wind up in the new world of the Incas ( Hercules Against the Sons of the Sun, 1964) or in New York (1970)? And that his English had to be dubbed in, as Arnold Schwarzenegger’s (a. k.a. Arnold Strong) was, because at the time it was even more heavily accented than it is now? To be sure, such versions are not textbook illustrations. Some are inventive (in various ways: take Ray Harryhausen) and some are a silly mess - just like myths in antiquity. Like these, however, they continue the tradition of creative vitality, for better or for worse.
Benedetto Croce’s distinction (1949: 50-65) between the life of the myth and the life of its interpretation is apropos here. Due to the ancient Renaissance allegorizers and Freud, Jung, Campbell, and Levi-Strauss, we tend to look at myths mostly for their deep meaning rather than consider them for their entertainment value. But, as Geoffrey Kirk (1971: esp. 253ff.) has rightly emphasized, the narrative and entertainment aspects of myth are among its principal functions. The same is true of Homer’s epics. No doubt, as Werner Jaeger (1965) articulated this commonplace, they were part of the Greek formation of character (paideia), but the Odyssey in particular could also be enjoyed as a pure adventure story. Again, this may not be the focus that tenure-minded academics would choose for investigation, but Ovid’s Metamorphoses, for one, is an outstanding example of reviving myth by enabling different levels of reading and being none too heavy-handed about conveying myth’s serious aspects. The emphasis on entertainment, then, of myths and other ancient subjects in film needs to be viewed not as a deviation, but as part of the same panorama of reader, viewer, and general cultural reception that applies to many other areas, including Roman art (Elsner 1995) and opera production.1
Since ancient times, the mix of prodesse (to be useful) and delectare (to entertain; Horace Art of Poetry 333) has been a matter of individual choice. The best movies on classical subjects have been successful because of the combination of action/adventure and a compelling human interest story to which a modern audience can relate while enjoying the escape into an ancient setting. It is, in the end, not so much a matter of delivering historical authenticity as of creating resonances, which need not be anachronistic, with both timeless and contemporary themes, sensibilities, and concerns. This was a major reason, to cite two paradigms, for the enormous success of Ben Hur (1959) and Gladiator (2000). Take the latter: themes of empire, individual integrity versus public corruption, vengeance, struggle against injustice, violence in sports and in battle, dedication to family, thoughts about the next life - to name just a few (extended discussion by Cyrino 2005). It is, of course, the same formula as for historical novels and plays and it underlies, more subtly, even phenomena like classicism in postmodern architecture: witness Charles Moore’s rationale for choosing the facades of three churches on the Celian Hill in Rome to embellish some drab campus architecture at the University of California at Irvine (Moore and Attoe 1986: 123-4). And:
It seems to me (of course) that the fact that our building started life as a copy does not rob it of passion, or of legitimacy, or of authenticity. Our building has a new life for new people in a new place for a new function. It is a safe bet that few, if any, of the inhabitants have ever seen Ponzio’s chapels on the Celian Hill, so the new buildings will have to stir up their own connections with the inhabitants’ memories. I was delighted to be told (without asking) that, at least for some, they do. (Galinsky 1992: 33-4)
To sum up: the cinematic treatments of Greek and Roman subjects are part of the continuing vitality of the classical tradition. They don’t stand in isolation from that tradition; rather, they need to be viewed within its context and with the approaches and criteria we use for other aspects of reception.
World History
