Spartacus (film)

Spartacus (Spartacus) is a 1960 American film directed by Stanley Kubrick and based on the novel Howard Fast's historic namesake. It featured performances by Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, John Gavin, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, Herbert Lom, Woody Strode, and Tony Curtis. The script, written by Dalton Trumbo, portrays the figure of Spartacus and the events that occurred during the third servile war. The film was awarded 4 Oscars, and 4 other awards.

It is part of the AFI's 10 Top 10 in the "Epic Films" category. In 2017, the film was deemed "culturally, historically, and aesthetically significant" by the Library of Congress of the United States and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.

Plot

In a Thracian quarry, a slave named Spartacus tries to help an old man who falls exhausted from the weight of his load; for this, Spartacus is whipped by the guards. Then Lentulus Batiatus, a slave trader and leader of a gladiator school in Capua, arrives and decides to take Spartacus with him.

Already in Capua, Spartacus begins to fight trained by the provocateur Marcelo, a retired gladiator turned doctor. Over time, Spartacus falls in love with a slave named Varinia, whom he decides not to touch when she is forced to spend a night with him. Two Romans, Crassus and Glabrus, accompanied by two patrician ladies, arrive at Batiatus' school to demand a show of fighting to the death by two pairs of gladiators, a fight that is generously paid for by Crassus, who also, as a wedding gift, hands over command of the garrison of Rome to Glabro. Spartacus fights with the retiarius Draba, but this, after defeating Spartacus, refuses to kill him and instead attacks the patricians, and is killed by Crassus. Dissatisfied with these abuses and with the sale of Varinia, which Crassus has bought at a high price asking to be sent to his villa in Rome, Spartacus leads a rebellion after killing Marcellus, and the gladiators flee Capua after reducing it to ashes.

The events in Capua are discussed in the senate, and some of its members clamor for Pompey's help, but another senator, Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus, suggests that the Roman garrison at Glabro kill off the slaves, and the senate accepts. Soon after, the wealthy Crassus arrives at his ostentatious villa and, after speaking with Glabro, learns of Gracchus's true plans.

Meanwhile, the slaves have fun pitting the Romans against each other. Espartaco manages to reunite with Varinia. With each passing day, Spartacus gathers more men and women in his ranks. In order to ship his people to freedom, Spartacus talks in his camp with some Cilician pirates and tries to reach an agreement with them. Suddenly, he attacks Glabro's slave troop, who has been too reckless and has not even fortified his camp, so he is easily defeated and humiliated in front of everyone.

Glabro arrives in Rome and tells his story in the senate. Crassus, after reprimanding Glabro for his incompetence and condemning him to exile, decides to retire from politics, and is mocked by the Senate and Gracchus.

Meanwhile, the slaves continue their exodus to the city of Brundisium. Along the way, Spartacus receives the news that Varinia is expecting a child.

In the senate, they discuss whether to let the slaves go. the optimates are in favor, but the populares, led by Gracchus's young pupil, Gaius Julius Caesar, are opposed. Graco sends two legions against the slaves, but they are defeated. Crassus tries to convince Caesar to abandon the populares and go over to the optimates, but Caesar refuses. Gracchus offers Crassus the command of 8 legions against Spartacus, and Crassus sets a price: to be named dictator. Graco does not want to give it to Crassus, and has an agreement with the Cilician pirates so that they let Spartacus go. Arriving in Brindisi, the pirates' envoy Tigranes tells Spartacus that the ships are unavailable (as Crassus has bribed them) and that Pompey has landed in Rome. Furthermore, Lucius Licinius Lucullus is expected to disembark in a short time. Spartacus is forced to flee north. Meanwhile, in Rome, Crassus gets command of the legions.

Both armies face each other in the Battle of the Silario River, in which Spartacus and his men are crushingly defeated, and those who do not die are imprisoned. In the middle of the battlefield, Crassus, with the help of Batiatus, locates Varinia and her newborn son. Faced with the defeated slaves, Crassus proposes a deal:

They will not be crucified if Spartacus surrenders to the Roman legions.

Then each slave stands up and says he is Spartacus, in honor of the person who made them feel free for a while. Many slaves are crucified along the Appian Way to Rome, but Spartacus has managed to survive. Meanwhile, at Gracchus' house, Caesar goes before him, but this time as an ally of Crassus, and takes him into custody. In the middle of the Senate, Crassus condemns Gracchus to exile, but only to use him as a possible puppet. Already in her villa, Crassus seems to be in love with Varinia, but she rejects him, arguing that he is a very different man from Spartacus.

To cap off his triumph, Crassus has the surviving slaves fight each other to the death. Spartacus fights against Antoninus, who was a slave to Crassus. Antonino tries to kill Spartacus to avoid being crucified, but Spartacus manages to finish off Antonino. Crassus then orders Spartacus to be crucified at dawn. The next day, Gracchus plans to take revenge on Crassus before committing suicide, and frees Varinia and her son, then sends her with Batiatus to Aquitaine. Once outside of Rome, Varinia sees Spartacus on the cross and, after showing her her newborn son, she leaves with the child and Batiatus and they are lost on the horizon. Spartacus's son is now free, thus highlighting the success of the revolution, something that Spartacus realizes before dying, seeing them march as free people.

Cast

Production

Script

Kirk Douglas chose Dalton Trumbo to write the script for Spartacus because he was one of the most capable screenwriters around even though he was out of favor in Hollywood because of McCarthyism and had to write screenplays under pseudonyms.

Pre-production

The film was originally going to be directed by Anthony Mann. However, he fell out with Kirk Douglas, so Kubrick finally took his place, which he almost abandoned as well. It should also be noted that Jean Simmons agreed to play the role of Varinia after it had been rejected by other actresses such as Elsa Martinelli, Ingrid Bergman and Jeanne Moreau.

Once that was settled, Kubrick planned to shoot the movie near Rome, while Edward Muho, who was the president of Universal Pictures at the time, wanted to shoot it in Hollywood at Universal Studios. This led to a dispute between the two, which ended with an agreement to film the exterior scenes of the film in Spain and the interior scenes in Hollywood.

Peña del Cerro (Colmenar Viejo)
In it one of the battles of the film was filmed.

Shooting

The filming of the film began on January 27, 1959 and ended at the end of 1959. It was shot in various locations in Spain, including: the Spanish city of Alcalá de Henares (specifically at Puerta de Madrid, the Paseo de los Curas and the Cerros de Alcalá); or the Peña del Cerro in Colmenar Viejo. It was also filmed as agreed at Universal studios.

To make the great battle in the film, 8,000 Spanish soldiers were recruited to play the Roman soldiers. Several towers were also built to be able to direct the entire battle. Ultimately, to fully make the film, up to 10,500 extras were hired. To imitate the crowds both among Spartacus. as between Crassus, the ambient sound of 76,000 spectators was recorded shouting between that sound Hail Crassus! or I am Spartacus!.

It should be noted that the shoot itself was very problematic because of the constant arguments between Kirk Douglas and the rest of the crew, which lengthened the shoot. Finally the film, which had an initial budget of 5 million dollars, finally cost 12 million dollars for it.

Post Production

Once filming was finished, the film was shown to a limited audience, who criticized the high level of violence in it, so much of the battle scenes in the final footage were removed.

Finally, in post-production, Douglas was also aware that Kubrick intended to take credit for the film's script, even though it had been adapted from Howard Fast's novel by Dalton Trumbo, blacklisted from Hollywood during McCarthyism. The publicly powerful Douglas opposed Trumbo's exclusion, and when Trumbo's name appeared in the credits, Hollywood's blacklist was definitively removed.

Premiere

Once ready to be released and having the summer very close, something considered a bad time to release a film, it was decided to postpone its release until autumn. In this way the cinematographic work was released on October 10, 1960.

Reception

Spartacus was a huge box office success. It was also received with jubilation in communist countries. The critics also saw it well at that time. Thanks to this, Stanley Kubrick had the long-awaited freedom of the artist, while he also received numerous awards that made everyone else happy.

Awards

Roman armor and tunic used by Laurence Olivier in his role as Marco Licinio Craso in the film Spartacus. The artists Arlington Valles and Bill Thomas shared the Oscar for the best costume design in the 33rd award.

Censorship

After its premiere in 1960, it was premiered again in 1967, with 23 minutes less than the original version, and again, in 1991, in which those 23 minutes were restored plus another 14 that had been censored before the first premiere. The addition included several violent battle sequences, as well as a bath scene in which Crassus, a Roman general and patrician, in an attempt to seduce his slave Antoninus, uses the analogy of "eating oysters" and "eating snails" to express their opinion that carnal affection is more a matter of taste than morality. When the film was re-released two years after Olivier's death, the original audio of the dialogue for this scene was missing, so it had to be redubbed. Tony Curtis was able to double the role of him, but Laurence Olivier's voice had to be imitated by Anthony Hopkins.