Watching a restored digital print of Stanley Kubrick's sword-and-sandals epic Spartacus (1960) this evening at Phoenix Square. A few odd things about this film. Firstly, it has a musical overture that plays to a blank screen. That might have been commonplace for films of the period, but I haven't seen it (or rather, heard it) before. Secondly, I can hardly remember the last time I saw a film that had a fifteen-minute intermission (I think it might have been 2001: A Space Odyssey when I saw it in Glasgow on its 1978 reissue - another one of Stanley Kubrick's classics, of course).
Spartacus has a lot to say about the impossibility of obtaining and securing freedom and happiness in a society that is based on oppression, where accidents of birth make one person master over another. It says a lot about what choices are left to us in such constraints, and about the redemptive power of love and sacrifice. Anything about ancient Rome can't help but allude to its opposition to (and eventually being overtaken by) primitive Christianity. Indeed, Spartacus has a short opening piece of narration that looks forward to that significant turn of events. But the story is set before the appearance of Christianity and its impact on Rome. It doesn't allow itself that lazy narrative elision into redemptive allusion. Yes, there is crucifixion (and plenty of it) most notably of Spartacus himself. But if we are supposed to see him as a Christlike figure, he is one who kills, who fathers a child without the union being sanctified by the state and one who does not look to a supreme God but who appears to accept the pantheon of gods - domestic and foreign - as being literally true, as much any other part of the world around him. Perhaps it has more to say about communalism, depicting a people's revolt. But even that angle becomes unclear when considered against the inspiration of the individual. there can be no simple answer to whatever "message" we want to take from Spartacus.
Among the Roman nobility, matters of belief seem more straightforward, at least when we take the characters' own words. They disbelief in the gods in private, but venerate them in public because it's a civic necessity and obligation. Among these characters, one of the most troubling (and consequently interesting and satisfying) is Lentulus Batiatus, owner of the gladiator school where Spartacus is trained and where the slave revolt breaks out. Batiatus is played by Sir Peter Ustinov (1921-2004), whose photo is at the top of this blog entry. And he's the real reason why I thought I'd write this one.
I met Sir Peter once, toward the end of his life. He spoke at a conference of the World Federalist Movement (of which he was President from 1991 till his death). I can't recall now whether this conference was in 2002 or 2003. The Friday night before the conference opened, there was a reception for him at the Bahá'í National Centre in Knighstbridge. Sir Peter spent most of the evening immobile in a large chair in the corner of the downstairs reception room, leaning on his walking stick under his chin, looking fairly content but detached. He didn't stay all that long. there was a respectful atmosphere, but not much interaction with the great man.
The next day, however, he addressed those gathered at the conference venue for between two and three hours without a break - and held us all in rapt attention. No one could be in any doubt that here was one of the great raconteurs who, though frail in is body, was still noble, engaged, powerful and persuasive in spirit. He had us laughing uproariously one moment, then distraught with tears the next. Not the kind of thing that can be captured here by someone of my comparatively weak abilities. You had to be there really - and I'll always be glad I was.
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