Review of Spartacus (1960) by James B — 13 Nov 2010

Probably the best cinematography and direction I've ever seen. You can definitely see Kubrick's style beginning to take shape, especially the colorful contrasted visuals and expert camerawork.

The tale of Spartacus is an underdog cliche, but blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo lifts the story with realistic smart dialogue and full scale epic drama that ends tragically but powerfully. The ending seemed to drag on a little past its welcome though, I thought the film ended with "I am Spartacus!" but there's about a half hour after that with a sub-plot involving Jean Simmons having Kirk Douglas's baby and Laurence Olivier threatening to kill it.

The performances are all top-notch, seeing as it's an all star cast. Laurence Olivier is my personal favorite, next the always likable Charles Laughton, and then the beautiful Jean Simmons. And of course the hero: Kirk Douglas. I wasn't expecting to see Laughton, Woody Strode (the black guy from Once Upon a Time in the West), Tony Curtis and John Ireland, and they all excelled in their roles. Peter Ustinov was the one who surprised me the most seeing as I hadn't heard of him before, but he did a magnificent job and establishes himself as a talented character actor. That guy from Alfred Hitchcock's Rope... John Dall, isn't that great.

Spartacus reminded me a lot of Ben-Hur, but I found that Ben-Hur's cinematography was much more condensed: in that every camera shot had as much as money could buy in it, where in Spartacus Kubrick expertly manipulates light and set pieces to invoke a specific mood or create tension. Another difference is the overall feel to the two films: Ben-Hur was extremely melodramatic and bombastic and consisted of slim drama and overwhelming entertainment, and Spartacus showed more honest emotions and included some sexual references and gore that I wasn't expecting from such an early film. They're both great films, so I won't choose one over the other.

I'm biased about very few things in cinema, which is why I believe that I give many films a fair rating. But one thing that I genuinely love are epics. I'm just a sucker for epics! Patton, Deer Hunter, Ben-Hur, Apocalypse Now, The Godfather Part II, you name it. So if you'll excuse me so that I may rant for the rest of this paragraph: The battle scenes were awesome! Kubrick used his massive budget to his full advantage, and both the war scenes and scenes of people traveling were epic beyond comprehension and cinematically genius. Even the opening shot when you first meet Spartacus at the mines is breathtaking. One that stood out the most was a camera shot of Douglas and Simmons riding horses across a hill covered by the orange sunset strewn sky. The moment when the giant battle begins, when some of the slaves are running with giant rolls of flames, shows Kubrick at his highest potential.

With Laurence Olivier, Kirk Douglas, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, Tony Curtis, John Ireland, a screenplay written by Dalton Trumbo, and Stanley Kubrick in full control of the cinematography and with millions of dollars at his disposal, you have to ask yourself: "How could this be any better?". 100/100.