SPARTACUS (1960)

THE FILM

FILM DIRECTOR: Stanley Kubrick

SCREENWRITER: Dalton Trumbo

FILM STARS: Kirk Douglas, Tony Curtis, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, John Gavin, John Dall, Nina Foch, John Ireland, Herbert Lom, Charles McGraw, Joanna Barnes, Harold J. Stone, Woody Strode, Robert J. Wilke

COUNTRY: USA

THIS BOOK

AUTHOR: Howard Fast

TYPE: Novel

PUBLISHER: Panther

THIS EDITION PUBLISHED: 1959

COUNTRY: Great Britain

COVER: Paperback

THE ORIGINAL BOOK

ORIGINAL AUTHOR: As Above

YEAR FIRST PUBLISHED: 1951

ORIGINAL BOOK TITLE: The film title

NOTES

GENRE: Historical

WORDS: Spartacus is highly regarded. And, by that, I mean, the novel, the film, and the historical character. Much has been written on all three.

Spartacus (c. 103–71 BC) was a Thracian former Roman gladiator and slave who became one of the escaped slave leaders in the Third Servile War, a major slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Little is known about him outside the events of the war, and surviving historical accounts are sometimes contradictory. He has become hero to many the symbol of a stand against oppression and politically oppressive regimes. Christians, Communists generally (starting with Karl Marx who called him a personal hero), and many individuals, like the novelist Howard Fast, have held him high as a symbol of freedom from tyranny of government, nations, or political systems. Interestingly, historians are divided as to the motives of Spartacus. Freedom, wealth, philosophy? None of Spartacus’s actions overtly suggest that he aimed at reforming Roman society, creating a new society or even abolishing slavery.

Howard Fast, the novelist used Spartacus as an analogy for his (and others) experience during the anti-communist McCarthyist witch-hunt in the early 1950s in the US. Fast had been in the American Communist Party in the 1940s and was imprisoned for three months in 1950 for contempt of Congress for refusing to disclose to Congress the names of contributors to a fund for a home for orphans of American veterans of the Spanish Civil War. (Yup, the more times change the more they remain the same). He commenced writing (apparently) the novel whilst in prison. What sources he relied on (whilst in prison) I don’t know. His novel is not the first on Spartacus. There have been a few including “Spartacus” (1931) by Scottish writer Lewis Grassic Gibbon and “The Gladiators” (1939) by Arthur Koestler. Whether they influenced him I don’t know though Koestler had been in the (English) Communist party in the 1930s and was quite well known in leftist circles (he had written an account of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War, “Spanish Testament ” in 1937). Koestler had left the Party in 1938. His novel, unlike Fast’s is a little more cynical about whether the end justifies the means. Koestler went on to write much more and become a fervent anti- communist. Fast, in 1951, was not. He places his hero up front, relatively uncomplicated and Jesus like. The book is narrated by a narrator/s outside the timeframe of the book and with knowledge of  subsequent events . So, it’s a sort of a historical book, without much history, disguised as a novel, about a person who represents an ideal, which is a statement on contemporary (1950) society.

Author Howard Fast (1914-2003), born in NYC, was the son of Jewish immigrants (his mother a British Jewish immigrant and his father a Ukrainian Jewish immigrant (who shortened his name from Fastovsky)). He wrote many novels, many with historical settings which comment on contemporary events. He was well known by the time of writing “Spartacus” having written some 20 novels and many short stories, essays and non fiction. He was certainly prolific for a non pulp writer. Or perhaps, he is historical pulp, though pulp of literary quality. He was the champion of the “progressive novel” in the US and the heir to Jack London and Upton Sinclair. Genre was second to message and he wrote crime, historical, family drama, western, and sci fi novels. He eventually (as many of his contemporaries did) broke with the communist party in the mid 1950s. He didn’t become as anti communist as John Dos Passos and Koestler though he denounced the same and “freedom” remained central to most of his novels. He is easy to read though his heroes are, often, noble and with message. Perhaps, propaganda disguised as historical novel.

Kirk Douglas, brilliant and with ego (“ego is not a dirty word” – Greg Macainsh), was of the centre left politically. He loved the novel (and was miffed (apparently) he didn’t get the lead in Ben-Hur (1959)) and what it represented. His production company produced the film and he used that to push his specific ideas about the film and what it was to say. He had blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo write the script (Otto Preminger had used (and credited) Trumbo was for the screenplay of the film Exodus (1960), and then Kirk announced Trumbo had written the screenplay for film Spartacus. These two actions by Preminger and Douglas helped end the power of the blacklist).  At the same time, Yul Brynner was planning his own version of Spartacus so time of the essence and Trumbo apparently wrote the script in two weeks. meaning Douglas won the Spartacus “race”. Trumbo as a screenwriter in much like Fast as a novelist. The message is everything and there aren’t many shades of grey. There is nothing wrong with that especially when you are as smart as Trumbo. And Trumbo was smart enough to bookend the film with references to Jesus. It made the target audience bigger. People liked historical epics, but hey liked historical biblical epics more. Then Douglas assembled a stellar cast (to secure funding) and (eventually) hired Stanley Kubrick (who he had worked with before on “Paths of Glory” (1957)) to direct.

I’m no great Kubrick fan (yes, he has made some fine films) but when people refer to this as a Kubrick film they reach too far. There are Kubrick touches but this is the only film (I think) where Kubrick did not have total artistic control. So, it’s a film directed by Kubrick rather than being a Kubrick film And, accordingly, it is perhaps one of his best films. For all its Hollywood epic-ness it dates a lot better than other Kubrick. And, generally, audiences that aren’t highbrow enjoy it more than other Kubrick films. Certainly the characters aren’t as alienated or as marionette like as others in the Kubrick film world. Kubrick, unsurprisingly, battled with Douglas on set as well as with veteran photographer Russell Metty and Dalton Trumbo. He didn’t always win or win very often (he apparently didn’t like the now pop culture famous “I’m Spartacus” moment and wanted it taken out) which led him to later dismiss the film.  The real vision of the film remained with Douglas who had also argued with the original director, Anthony Mann, who, I think, would have been an even better better director for this film and is a better director generally.

The cast is magnificent. They look contemporary with all sorts of accents but who cares, Douglas, Tony Curtis, Woody Strode, John Ireland, Charles McGraw, Jean Simmons, Laurence Olivier, Peter Ustinov, Charles Laughton, John Gavin. (Robert Fuller, Aron Kincaid, and Gordon Mitchell are extras also). And, the film is Epic with a capital “E”.

The film was picketed at the time by various right wing and centre right organisations but entertainment counts more than politics (as it should) and after JFK crossed a picket line to see the movie it became a big (big) box office hit. Oddly, the film was partially made in Franco’s fascist (small f) Spain (I’m not sure what Fast and Trumbo made of that). The big battle scenes were filmed there and the production paid the government directly for the uses of the Army. So Spartacus is one of those symbolically-upholding-freedom-while-paying-cash-money-to not so free regimes (and there were many filmed in Spain). History would suggest that it seems if you are going to make an epic it’s easiest to make them in totalitarian  (or centralised) regimes (left or right) where you can have cheap (er) access to extras, soldiers, landscapes and hardware if necessary. Well, at least until CGI came along.

The famous phrase “I’m Spartacus!” is not in the book from what I recall and it sounds like something specifically Dalton Trumbo. He like the big dramatic moment with relevance to contemporary events . Trumbo and the other writers and directors who refused to testify HUAC in the early 1950s about their or anyone else’s political affiliations were affectively saying “I’m Spartacus”.

We could use more Spartacus now.

LINKS

TRAILER

BLOGS

Spartacus: Hollywood fact or fiction?

https://biblefilms.blogspot.com/search?q=spartacus

https://www.express.co.uk/entertainment/films/1604184/Kirk-Douglas-attacked-Spartacus-director-Stanley-Kubrick-with-a-chair-Hollywood-feud

60 years of Spartacus