Can you really describe Stanley Kubrick as a misanthropic filmmaker if he made something like Spartacus—a heroic paean to the goodness that lies within the human heart, even in the face of slavery and empire? Well, the auteur of the film might better be identified as Kirk Douglas, who served as executive producer and starred as the title character, an enslaved gladiator who leads a revolt against Rome. Douglas starred in Kubrick’s Paths of Glory three years earlier; when the original director of Spartacus, Anthony Mann, had creative differences with the producer-star, Kubrick was called in to take his place. The screenplay, meanwhile, is by Dalton Trumbo, adapting a novel by Howard Fast. That’s a lot of creative hands, befitting a massive movie. Well over three hours, with hundreds of extras to fill its massive frames (the lengthy amassing of Roman legionnaires in one scene is a geometric spectacle), Spartacus lives up to its epic reputation. And yet, the performances might be its most compelling element. Douglas radiates integrity, in scenes both militaristic and romantic (Jean Simmons plays the enslaved woman who becomes Spartacus’ wife), but it’s the conniving politicians who make Spartacus more fun than it has any right to be: Laurence Olivier as Crassus, Charles Laughton as Gracchus, and Peter Ustinov as Batiatus, all circling each other, double-crossing and making deals. Even Spartacus can’t outwit them all, which marks the film as a noble tragedy. The movie ends with the empire still well-established, its roads lined with crosses, on which Spartacus’ soldiers hang. Now that feels like a Kubrick touch to me.
(6/28/2022)
