I am...

...not going to finish this quote.

Epic adventure on the way to finish the AFI Top 100 (10th Anniversary Edition) before March.

On with it...

Film 56

56.  "Spartacus" (AFI Rank #81)

Stanley Kubrick.  The name, to those of us who watch a lot of film, is associated with great attention to detail, to frank depictions of absurd situations, to moral questions, to a maniacal desire for control.

Stanley Kubrick directed "Spartacus," and it is, to this viewer, the least Kubrickian thing I've ever seen.  Kubrick, in every frame, always felt as if everything that you were looking at had been planned.  This doesn't feel that way.  This is a sumptuous film, at times, and the above shot...is one of those times.  That shot feels like Kubrick.  The ridiculousness of it.  Two men, fighting to the death, in front of a ridiculously uninterested Crassus and Marcus Glabrus, their female companions intensely interested in the entertainment they ordered (but for purely puerile reasons).  A lot of statement in that photo, and that is usually the trademark of Kubrick.  This film, however, isn't a Kubrick film.  It's a garish, enormous studio epic with Stanley Kubrick along for the ride.  It's really the ego project of Kirk Douglas, and Kubrick was hired because Douglas liked working with him on "Paths of Glory."  I'm setting a bleak picture.  This film is important, for a number of reasons, but if you're looking for "Jesus, what could Kubrick do with a slave revolution for a plot?" kind of revelation, it ain't this film.

No, what we get is a fairly boiler-plate production that doesn't feel all that different from "Ben-Hur," or "The Ten Commandments," or any number of epic films of the late 50s/early 60s.  This all feels familiar.  Nothing particularly jumps off the screen, as compared to those films.  Except a few things.

Acting.  With some major forces occupying the screen, "Spartacus" contains all manners of acting style, whether withering ingenue (Jean Simmons as Varinia), miscast hero (Douglas in the title role), old school classicism (Laurence Olivier as Crassus), talentless pretty boy (Tony Curtis as Antoninus)...and then we get two powerhouse performances (in this reviewer's opinion) - Charles Laughton as Gracchus and Peter Ustinov as Batiatus.

First, Olivier.  Portraying a cold, calculating, wealthy man, Olivier is a natural fit for Crassus.  Always somewhat disconnected from the emotion of any scene, Olivier is a master of playing the aloof pretty boy, above the fray.  That's what Crassus is.  Even in defeat (and he has a pretty brutally defeatist scene), Olivier seems to portray a steely determination to get what he wants.  Research on my part has shown that the real Crassus is likely the wealthiest man to have ever walked the Earth.  Olivier fits that, and comports himself thus in the film.

Simmons and Curtis both feel decidedly overmatched in this film, even though Simmons was capable of holding her own with most of the Hollywood elite (including Olivier in "Hamlet").  This film, however, doesn't make her feel like she has any real place in what happens.  She feels like an accessory, and not in the manner of actually helping anything along, but in the sense of a bracelet or a necklace.  She makes things look better, but doesn't add much.  Of course, the outfit would be ruined without her presence, so there is a purpose...but it doesn't feel...vital.  I suppose I could make some pithy and pseudo-intellectual comment about her character representing all that a free man can have to Spartacus, and I'd be right, but it doesn't help explain her acting in this.  Curtis...well.  Tony Curtis didn't belong in this film.  He is simply overmatched by all the actors around him.  I never feel like he belongs in the era he's portraying...he seems like a New York Italian guy (and a not very butch one at that)...thrust into 73 BC Rome.  His vocal tone is wrong, his accent is wrong...and he is wrong.  Bah.

Kirk Douglas made this film, reportedly, to show Hollywood why it was wrong to pass him over for the role of Judah Ben-Hur in 1959's "Ben-Hur."  And Kirk Douglas was the kind of movie star that could get away with such a thing.  Note that my language was specific.  I called Douglas a movie star, not an actor.  Yes, Kirk Douglas can act.  Yes, he's capable, at times, of sucking us into a character, even this one, in a way that only a skilled actor can.  However.  Douglas, through nearly the entirety of this, presents us with a movie star performance.  It's not very subtle, it's not full of depth.  It's "I'm the good guy...get it?"  More on that.  He is stunningly beautiful, however.  That's a man, right there.

The real acting, the absolutely wonderful portrayals, belong to Charles Laughton and Peter Ustinov.  Yes, one could make the argument, and it would be supported by a lot of hearsay evidence, that Charles Laughton phoned in his performance as Gracchus.  I saw that.  I also saw a wonderfully natural actor playing a real person and not putting on a fancy toga and posing.  Laughton is so sympathetic, yet so delightfully corrupt, that one is fixed on him whenever he appears on the screen.  We want to know what he has to say, I believe, because what he says seems so real.  He plays the exhausted warrior to the hilt.  Great thing about an exhausted warrior, though, is that warrior part is still there.  Laughton's eyes, at times, reveal a tenacity that is palpable.  It's terrific work.

Which leaves Ustinov.  I've included a photo of Ustinov here that explains, visually, why I was so taken by his performance.  Look at his mannerisms.  There's nothing forced about that.  There's nothing that says "ACTING" in that moment, yet...as a veteran actor myself, I can see nothing but "ACTING" in it.  It's the choice to feel the moment, and Ustinov is full of that in this film.  We love his character, we love his delivery, we love him.  And he's a scoundrel, whom we shouldn't love.  He won the Oscar for this performance, and it's worthy.  I hadn't seen his work previously, except like on "The Muppet Show," or some snippet of some film here or there.  He always seemed stilted to me.  I was so pleased I was wrong while watching this.  It's a masterful performance.

What else is great?  Landscapes.  Vistas.  Scale.  The gladiator battle is well shot, especially the first.  The escape from slavery is really, really cool.  The Roman sets are stunning.  Olivier's "oysters/snails" speech is tremendous.  You'll get what it means, quickly.  Unfortunately, the comedic exit of Curtis kind of ruins it.  There's a lot in this movie to love.

SO.  Big question.  Why is this film on the list?  Good question.  I think the scale of it certainly helps.  There is a narrative that compels it, and compels us towards it.  Look, it's a great film.  There's no doubt about that.  Its biggest flaw, and one that I have a tough time rationalizing, is that it's too simplistic in its approach to its heroes/villains.  The good guys are really good, and the bad guys are really bad.  There's no subtlety, no room for ambiguity.  And that, my friends, is what makes Kubrick films so great.  He consistently studies the outer limits of a character's humanity, whether in a hero or a bad guy.  That's missing here.  What we get is a great white hat/black hat film, with an ending that has the black hat win (I suppose that's unique)...with some stunning visual artistry by a master of visual artistry.  The final battle sequence, and the way the Roman army moved...wowsa.  Amazing.

I haven't mentioned the most famous moment of the film, when the defeated slave army is rounded up and instructed to give up Spartacus, or they all will die.  You know the scene.  It's...well...it's a little corny.  Rumor has it that Kubrick hated it, and that Douglas, his boss, screamed at him on set, for expressing his opinion.  I side with Kubrick on this one, even though it is an iconic film moment.  I think it's meant for 99% of the film audience.  I prefer the things meant for the other 1%.  There's some of that in this film, but most of it feels...populist.

My biggest complaint about this film...is how much more it might have been.  There seems to be so much more left to explore.  If this film had been made 15 years later, I have no doubt we'd have seen those things.
Watch this film.  It's a great movie.  I'm not sure it's TOP 100 worthy, but it's a great film, and I'm glad it's part of my experience on this planet.

Ebert's review here.  I swear, I don't read these.