Dr Rad pays tribute to the late and unmistakable force to be reckoned with, Kirk Douglas. His role in Spartacus and his legacy for Rome on film and Hollywood are legendary.
Tag: Rome on Film
The episode in which Drs R and G explore the Coen Brothers take on the Golden Age of Hollywood with Hail, Caesar!
We may have been enticed by the prospect of George Clooney as a Roman general, but we stayed for the tribute to the big studio days of American cinema.
As you know, Dr R specialises in Rome on film. In this episode, let us take on a journey through the film Trumbo (2015), which is a bio-pic of the life of screenwriter Dalton Trumbo.
Trumbo broke the blacklist when he was given screen-credit for Spartacus (1960). Herein an examination of the politics of Hollywood post Second World War, the film Trumbo, and liberal sprinklings of Rome.
Spice up your ears with a foray into the historical and creative elements of Ridley Scott’s 2000 epic Gladiator. Touted as the return of the sword-and-sandal genre, this film is an interesting mélange of historical plausibility and blatant deviation from the primary source material!
We’re taking a step back in time to examine the classic Rome on film presented in Ben-Hur, the 1959 epic extravaganza! The film builds on the novel Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ published by Lee Wallace in 1880. This means that there are many layers to parse from the perspective of historians!
We take our last turn about the room with the enigma, the charisma, that is Spartacus. The final season of the Starz series Spartacus: War of the Damned, follows the final confrontation between the slave rebels and the might of Rome.
The Doctors tackle the sources and speculation that arise from an examination of the Starz series Spartacus Vengeance.
Spartacus: Vengeance follows the nascent slave rebellion in their journey from Capua and the challenges they face along the way. You may well ask what is up with Glaber and Spartacus – find out here!
In this episode, your intrepid Doctors continue to explore Spartacus and modern incarnations of his story. In 2010 the Starz series Spartacus Blood and Sand hit our television screens.
This season functions as a origin story, as our primary sources for pick up the story at the moment of Spartacus leading the slave revolt in 73 CE. With an eye for the historical sources, we consider how this series tackles the details of Spartacus’ life and the blurring of history and drama.
Dr Radford’s is a specialist in the history of Rome on film. And where better to start than with Spartacus, the 1960 epic directed (eventually) by Stanley Kubrick and starring the one, the only, Kirk Douglas.
This film has a highly complicated array of relationships to explore. There’s the 1951 novel that inspired the screenplay by Howard Fast. There’s the screenplay itself, where major credit is given to Dalton Trumbo. And there’s the complications that arise from the challenges of finding a director who could stick with the project. This is all before we even cut to the chase on the primary source material!
So what relationship does the film bear to the historical sources?