Film Review - Spartacus Film Review

A | B | C | D | E | F | G | H | I | J | K | L | M | N | O | P | Q | R | S | T | U | V | W | X | Y | Z | All

House review of Spartacus (1960)

Spartacus
1960
PG-13
Directed by Stanley Kubrick

Film time can be extremely relative. A 90-minute straight-to-DVD movie can seem like it will never end, and before you’re done you find yourself making lists of all the things you could have done with that time. But a film that lasts over three hours can be so riveting that you’re breathless and tense the whole time, and when it’s done, you want to run out and buy another ticket to see it again (or push play on your DVD player one more time, as the case may be).

Spartacus is one of those latter types. It begins with a slave, middle aged Spartacus, played by Kirk Douglas, who is spending his life in back-breaking labor in the quarries of Rome. Slavery doesn’t sit well with Spartacus, and he is punished repeatedly for insubordination. This spirited quality commends him to Batiatus, played with long-suffering humor by Peter Ustinov, who buys strong, spirited men and trains them as gladiators. At the gladiatorial school, two important things happen to Spartacus: he learns to fight, and he falls in love with the beautiful Varinia, played by Jean Simmons. He eventually rallies his fellow gladiators in a rebellion which breaks its bounds and turns into a rebellion of all the slaves in Italy.

Spartacus, the illiterate Roman slave, is pitted against the manipulative, power-hungry, but utterly loyal Roman General Crassus, played by Lawrence Olivier. Crassus not only pledges to defeat the slave army, but makes sure that he will personally benefit from doing so. He plays every scene with a smooth and charming menace, and such matter-of-fact intimidation that you get the sense that most opponents would be dead before they knew they were in danger.

Olivier and Douglas could hardly be more different types of men, or different types of actors. Yet, it’s this very contrast that makes the film work. It’s the difference between the nobleman and the rebel, the ship’s captain and the pirate, that drives the film and creates the tension that propels every scene. In each scene, the viewer looks at the strength and drive of the character on the screen, either Spartacus or Crassus, and is convinced that he is invincible. Nobody can defeat that kind of power and commitment.

But of course, they can’t both win.

The plot is complex, circles within circles of politics and cause-and-effect, but it is never hard to follow. It serves, instead to illustrate the characters of the people involved, leading ultimately to an ending which is paradoxically hopeful, rather than nihilistic.

The supporting cast is led by strong performances by Charles Laughton as Crassus’ primary political opponent, the crafty old Gracchus, along with Ustinov and Simmons. John Gavin plays Crassus’ protégé, Marcus Glabrus, as though he were reading a sitcom teleprompter, and always seems confused to find himself standing there in a skirt and sandals.

Possibly the strangest casting choice in the film, the only one besides Gavin that isn’t perfect, is Tony Curtis as Antoninus, an indoor slave that Crassus takes as his personal attendant…and tries to take as his lover. The “oysters and snails” scene where Antoninus bathes Crassus while Crassus informs him that he enjoys both men and women is both erotic and threatening. The threat increases in the next moment when Antoninus robes Crassus’ naked body, and Crassus informs him that the only way to survive in Rome is to abase oneself before her. A split second later, Antoninus is out of there, joined up with the rebel slave army, where nobody requires him to abase himself at all.

That scene (fully restored in the DVD) works, because Antoninus is pretty and he’s buff—who wouldn’t want him? But I think those are the very reasons he doesn’t seem to fit in in any other scene. I can’t decide if he’s supposed to not fit in, or if he’s just miscast. I do know that in a later scene, when Spartacus and Antoninus share an intimate moment, when Antoninus whispers, “I love you, Spartacus,” it’s not so much moving as kind of creepy.

Nevertheless, there’s not a minute of the 3 hours and 16 minutes that can be spared. The action and tension are perfectly balanced, the character development is deep and full, and the stakes are high. This is one of those movies that can, and should, be watched once a month or more. The timeless themes of love, loyalty, freedom and choice are always compelling, and the performances are some of the best ever captured on film.