Spartacus - Criterion Collection

Amazon.com essential video

Stanley Kubrick was only 31 years old when Kirk Douglas (star of Kubrick's classic Paths of Glory) recruited the young director to pilot this epic saga, in which the rebellious slave Spartacus (played by Douglas) leads a freedom revolt against the decadent Roman Empire. Kubrick would later disown the film because it was not a personal project--he was merely a director-for-hire--but Spartacus remains one of the best of Hollywood's grand historical epics. With an intelligent screenplay by then-blacklisted writer Dalton Trumbo (from a novel by Howard Fast), its message of moral integrity and courageous conviction is still quite powerful, and the all-star cast (including Charles Laughton in full toga) is full of entertaining surprises. Fully restored in 1991 to include scenes deleted from the original 1960 release, the full-length Spartacus is a grand-scale cinematic marvel, offering some of the most awesome battles ever filmed and a central performance by Douglas that's as sensitively emotional as it is intensely heroic. Jean Simmons plays the slave woman who becomes Spartacus's wife, and Peter Ustinov steals the show with his frequently hilarious, Oscar-winning performance as a slave trader who shamelessly curries favor with his Roman superiors. The restored version also includes a formerly deleted bathhouse scene in which Laurence Olivier plays a bisexual Roman senator (with restored dialogue dubbed by Anthony Hopkins) who gets hot and bothered over a slave servant played by Tony Curtis. These and other restored scenes expand the film to just over three hours in length. Despite some forgivable lulls, this is a rousing and substantial drama that grabs and holds your attention. Breaking tradition with sophisticated themes and a downbeat (yet eminently noble) conclusion, Spartacus is a thinking person's epic, rising above mere spectacle with a story as impressive as its widescreen action and Oscar-winning sets. --Jeff Shannon

Description

Stanley Kubrick directed a cast of screen legends-including Kirk Douglas as the indomitable gladiator that led a Roman slave revolt-in the sweeping epic that defined a genre and ushered in a new Hollywood era. The assured acting, lush Technicolor cinematography, bold costumes and visceral fight sequences won Spartacus four Oscars©; the blend of politics and sexual suggestion scandalized audiences. Today Kubrick's controversial classic, the first film to openly defy Hollywood's blacklist, remains a landmark of cinematic artistry and history.

Customer Reviews:

One of the best stories about the Roman Empire.......2007-09-07

A classic of epic porportions! Kirk Douglas fighting the Romans. What more do you want? A gem of a movie, far surpassing today's digital products, and an excellent print with an excellent cast. Well written story! Another classic they don't make anymore, with great battle scenes! "A CAST OF THOUSANDS"
You won't be disappointed!

Sometimes too many cooks _don't_ spoil the broth.......2007-07-24

This film is perhaps the only one where Kubrick did not have his oh-so-important "absolute control" and it is the better for it. Don't get me wrong, Kubrick was an outstanding director and his films from the 1960s and 1970s are all excellent, but in case of "Spartacus", the vivacity of the film is largely due to the fact that behind the scenes there was a similar clash of egos, talents, and opinions. While this might sound like a recipe for disaster, the wonderful script somehow gives this movie coherence.

It cannot be said that this film is particularly historically accurate, but then again the purpose of art is to create something beautiful out of the fragments of a flawed reality, and this is certainly achieved here. Artistic truth can trump historical truth sometimes, if the artistic truth has something important to say about the human condition.

What the artistic truth seems to say here is that Spartacus, as valid as his struggle was, simply came at a very unfortunate time for his quest and that his Hamlet-esque inner turmoil doomed him in the end. He simply should have taken Rome when his military power was at its peak and in many ways history might have been quite different (or not). But he did not, and at least in this film, those political power struggles in Rome are what did him in.

Besides, the end of the movie -- if there is anything modern directors can learn from these old epics is how important it is to wrap the plot up in a way that does justice to the scale of the film. If you watch a three-hour movie, you expect a momentous denouement. And in Spartacus, the denouement fills the last 30 minutes or more (everything after the "I'm Spartacus" scene is basically part of it). It is the mother of all endings, an unrelenting tear jerker that manipulates you as hard as possible, and that is a very good thing in this case, for if this ending were not there, the whole movie that had gone before would have been cheapened.

And yes, that spitting-and-punching scene (you will know what I mean) works, because it shows how powerless both Spartacus and Crassus are in a way. They can fight the other side, yet it will never go away, because their conflict mirrors an eternal conflict between the powerful few and the powerless many that has been going on throughout history, or at least since Roman times. And that enrages them enough that they fly off the handle in (almost) private.

I also find the self-important opening narration about how slavery was "abolished" two thousand years later fairly funny. Oh really? I think there are plenty of people in third-world countries working without any safety precautions, exposed to harmful chemicals, with low pay, under horrible conditions on plantations etc. who would mightily object to that assertion. Not even to mention "wage slaves", those who may be free in theory to do what they want but have only the exciting career path of burger-flipping open to them in practice. Slavery by any other name indeed.

But as far as Roman epics go, this is still my favorite. "Gladiator" was the slightly demented version of this (where "oooh, look at the suggested incest" replaced the "ooh, look at the suggested homosexuality" in this version), but generally the dumbing-down of the intellectual level of movie scripts since then has made it impossible for a similar effort to surface. Besides, today it would be very difficult to find actors like Laughton and Olivier who can carry this kind of movie. And maybe that's a good thing, because some things cannot be improved upon. Like this movie.

An old fashioned Hollywood Spectacular with more substance than many of them.......2007-07-10

My youngest son had never seen this old fashioned Hollywood spectacular, so we got it out and watched it together. I enjoyed watching it more than I had remembered. Yes, its Cold War / McCarthy Black List sentiments are displayed a little heavily, but only if you remember that period. My son hadn't a clue and took it as a straight human dignity story and I took it that way through his eyes.

What he was most amazed about was that all those people marching around were actually people instead of computer programs. And when the Roman armies are arrayed against Spartacus and his slave army, it is really amazing to behold. And the bigger screen you can watch it on, the better it would be. As my son noted, if you saw an army moving with that kind of precision and size against you, it wouldn't make sense to not be frightened. And that was a big part of the point, wasn't it.

This movie really does mix in the personal relationships with the spectacular scenes quite well. And the performances of leads are very fine. I particularly loved Peter Ustinov's Batiutus and Charles Laughton's Gracchus. Laurence Olivier is thoroughly patrician and sinister as Crassus and Kirk Douglass hits all the right notes as Spartacus. Jean Simmons has always been lovely, but never more than as Varinia in this movie. And I always get a kick out of Tony Curtis as Antoninus hightailing it out of Crassus' palace after Crassus makes the none too subtle comment about enjoying both oysters and snails. A funny moment in a movie without a lot of laughs.

So, if you haven't seen it, take a look. Remember this is 1960. If you have seen it, get your children or grand children around you and watch it with them. You will enjoy hearing what they see and explaining to them what they are seeing, who the actors were, and maybe a bit about the historical Spartacus (look it up before you watch the film).

Very good.

Spartacus.......2007-06-28

This rousing epic was disowned by Kubrick after a contentious, difficult production, but "Spartacus" still offers grand-scale entertainment, thanks to bold, sure-handed direction and a powerhouse cast. The brawny, clench-jawed Douglas shines in his signature role, while Olivier is suitably poisonous as the cold-blooded Crassus. Other notables include the rotund Peter Ustinov providing comic relief as a cowardly slave-trader, and Charles Laughton, who lends gravitas as a senior Roman senator. If you're craving generous portions of spectacle and sweep, here's your movie.

Excellent movie, excellent price.......2007-06-28

I bought this as a gift for my husband. Received promptly,pleased with packaging. The movie is a definite classic, must have for the DVD collector.

DVD:

DVD

DVD