101. Titanic (1997)

Stars:  Leonardo DiCaprio (Jack Dawson), Kate Winslet (Rose DeWitt Bukater), Gloria Stuart (Rose Dawson Calvert), Billy Zane (Cal Nathan Hockley), Kathy Bates (The Unsinkable Molly Brown), Bill Paxton (Brock Lovett)

Director:  James Cameron  

Awards / Honors

• 11 Oscar Wins - Best Bicture, Best Director, Best Cinematography, Best Costume Design, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Mixing, Best Sound Editing, Best Original Score, Best Film Editing, Best Original Song ("My Heart Will Go On"), Best Art Direction
• 3 Additional Oscar Nominations - Best Actress (Kate Winslet), Best Supporting Actress (Gloria Stuart), Best Makeup
• #25 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills list (2001)
• #37 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Passions list (2002)
• #14 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Songs list - "My Heart Will Go On" (2004) 
• #100 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movie Quotes list - "I'm king of the world!" (2005)
• # 83 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (2007)
• #6 on AFI's 10 Top 10 list - Epic Films (2008)
• Titanic is approximately the 6th highest grossing movie of all time, accounting for inflation (see Box Office Mojo)

Genre:  Historical / Romantic Drama

Running Time:  3 Hours, 14 Minutes

Format:  DVD (Not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  3 Stars (John - 3 Stars, Beth - 3Stars)

John's Take

Of the 20 or so films on this list that I hadn’t seen before starting our little film Odyssey, this was the only film that I was actively dreading.  I really expected to hate this movie, and part of me really wanted to hate this movie.  I recognize that there is a certain level of irony in a situation where I write a review that focuses on how “backlash” can have an adverse effect on how we perceive a film (Dances with Wolves below) and that it ends up getting posted between two reviews where my perception of the films and / or its fans have been clearly affected by backlash (this one and Pulp Fiction).  So, I promise to try to not let any of the preconceived notions that have been become firmly entrenched in my mind over the years affect my review of this movie.

As I said, I really didn’t want to like this movie.  In fact, over the years, I have has actively tried to avoid this movie like it was a plague carrying rodent.  Why?  Well because I felt betrayed by James Cameron.  Here was a man that made great “guy movies” like The Terminator, Rambo, First Blood Part II, Aliens and True Lies and he goes and makes a giant chic flix?  I was appalled.  I strongly suspected that James Cameron had been replaced some sort of alien shape-shifter that was secretly trying to emasculate all men as part of a plot to take over the planet.  Part of me was certain that if I watched the movie that it would somehow suck all of my testosterone out of my body in much the same way a vampire might suck out all my blood.  Side Note: Speaking of blood-sucking, I currently feel the same way about the Twilight movies as well, but at a level about ten-fold of what I felt about Titanic. 

Having now watched it, I must reluctantly admit that Titanic wasn’t all that bad.  It wasn’t the greatest movie I had ever seen but it was certainly better than films like A Place in the Sun or All the President’s Men.  Also, I haven’t noticed any drop in my testosterone level, but the jury is still out on the vampiric properties of the film.  Until those test results come in, I am giving the movie a ranking of 3 Stars.

Having said all that, one important question remains – how did this movie become one of the highest grossing movies of all times?  Look, I realize I am a male so maybe it is just biologically impossible for me to understand, but can some woman out in the Inter-verse please try to explain this to me?  Unfortunately Beth is no help in this case.  She kind of feels the same way about the movie as I do (she hadn’t seen the movie either).  While I am certainly not a fan of chic flixs in general, I am not without a certain level of appreciation for some of them. I like Steel Magnolias, Pretty Woman, Dirty Dancing, and the Mother-Of-All-Chic-Flixs Gone with the Wind, for example.  Still, I don’t understand why did women go and see this movie over and over again?  At the time of the film’s release my friend Rob explained it as “some sort of bizarre mother / daughter rite of passage”. Is that it?  Because really, I just don’t understand.

So, again, women of the Internet, please, please tell me why you all spent so much money on Titanic?  I really want to know, because there is got to be some way to use that information to my advantage. 

I won’t even discuss all the Oscars, other than I believe part of the reason why The Hurt Locker beat out Avatar for Best Picture was The Academy’s way of making up for all the awards that it heaped on Titanic.  Like an NBA or NFL ref calling a ticky-tack foul later in a game to make up for a bad call they made earlier in the game.

OK, some of my preconceptions are starting to reemerge, so let’s just end this post before it starts to get out of control.  Again, the movie was far better than I thought it was going to be.  In fact, I would go on to say that I actually kind of enjoyed it.  That being said, I truly don’t understand how Titanic became one of the highest grossing; most award winning movies of all time.  It is good, but it is not that good.  I also wouldn’t include it as one of the all-time best.  The only explanation I can come up with is that James Cameron has indeed been replaced by an alien – we will just have to wait and see.

John

BETH'S TAKE:

When this movie first came out in 1997 I said that I wouldn't see it...everyone knows what happens...the ship sinks.

But now that I have seen it, I am glad that I did.

The side story with Jack and Rose is very sweet. Kate Winslet did an awesome job on the part of Rose. I am not a huge fan of Leo, but he was pretty good also. I must say, the movie made me think of all of those families that were less fortunate and were made to stay on the boat until the more fortunates were rescued. Just horrible!

102. Dances with Wolves (1990)

Stars:  Kevin Costner (Lt. John J. Dunbar), Mary McDonnell (Stands With A Fist ), Graham Greene (Kicking Bird), Rodney A. Grant (Wind In His Hair), Floyd Red Crow Westerman (Ten Bears)

Director:  Kevin Costner

Awards / Honors

• 7 Oscars Wins - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Writing (Adapted Screenplay), Best Cinematography, Best Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Original Score
• 5 Additional Oscar Nominations - Best Actor (Kevin Costner), Best Supporting Actor (Graham Greene), Best Supporting Actress (Mary McDonnell), Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design
• #75 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (1998)
• #59 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers list (2006)
• In 2007, Dances with Wolves was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant."
• Dances with Wolves is approximately the 112th highest grossing movie of all time, accounting for inflation (see Box Office Mojo)

Genre:  Historical Drama

Running Time:  3 Hours, 54 Minutes (Director's Cut)

Format:  DVD (not yest available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  4 1/2 Stars (John - 5 Stars, Beth 4- Stars)

John's Take

As I have mentioned in previous posts, sometimes movies don’t age well.  Usually this is taken to mean that one or more elements of the movie seems wrong or odd to a modern audience – say, something like showing a husband and a wife sleeping in separate beds, antiquated special effects, or even something more serious like racial stereotypes.  Despite how critically acclaimed a movie may have been at the time, it always runs the risk of eventually becoming irrelevant.  On a rare occasion, however, it is not any particular element of the movie, but the success and accolades that the movie receives that have a negative impact on its shelf-life.  In other words, it becomes the victim of backlash.  It seems like Dances with Wolves is becoming one of those films.  As the years have past since the movie’s release, it seems like there is a growing desire among people who write about movies to take this movie "down a few pegs" for some reason.  In other words, the film’s reputation is starting to be affected by the backlash it has been subjected to over the years.  That backlash has come in many forms.

First, there is the fact that Dances with Wolves was Kevin Costner’s directorial debut, and a great number of people thought he was certain to fail.  This is because, as the stories go, Kevin refused to play it safe.  Instead, Costner consciously chose to break all the “rules” that first time directors are supposed to follow: 

• Don’t work with animals – this film is full of difficult to train animals like wolves that needed to perform on cue, not to mention Costner nearly breaking his back during the buffalo hunt.
• Don’t work outside – the entire film takes place outside and South Dakota is not known for predictable weather.
• Don’t work with children – there were several supporting characters that were minors.
• Don’t get too attached to your “vision” – A director can’t always include everything they want in a movie.  The theatrical release of Dances with Wolves is just over 3 hours long.  The Director’s Cut, which seems to be the default home video version, is just under 4 hours long.  Your movie better be really good if you want an audience to sit still for that long.

With information like that in mind, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the film was dubbed “Kevin’s Gate” as the production began to spiral over budget.  Costner even ended up throwing in a few million dollars of his own money to get the movie completed.  There were plenty of Hollywood insiders and pundits that were convinced that film was doomed. I am sure that many of were extremely disappointed that in the end the movie was a huge success.  

Now had Costner taken a step back, thanked his lucky stars, and made a vow to himself not to make the same sort of mistakes again, he probably could have prevented some backlash.  Unfortunately, he didn’t do that.  It seems like the success of Dances with Wolves seem to simply just convince him that he knew precisely what he was doing and he preceded to handle his next two directorial projects – Waterworld and The Postman – more or less the same way.  History has shown that was a mistake.  The critical and / or commercial failure of both those films gave those Hollywood naysayers the ammunition they needed to write off Dances with Wolves as simply a fluke.

A second thing contributing to the backlash is how often Dances with Wolves has been copied or parodied.  In Hollywood, success brings on imitation, and having been very successful, Dances with Wolves has been imitated many times.  There was The Last Samurai (Dances with Katanas), FernGully: The Last Rainforest (Dances with Fairies), and  Avatar (Dances with Smurfs) just to name a few.  A host of movies such as Hot Shots! (“Now I am called Tukachinchilla. -What does it mean? - Fluffy Bunny Feet.” “Dances with Bikers got this for you…”) parody the movie as well.  While imitation may be the sincerest form of flattery, it can also diminish the thing being imitated – especially when those imitators are of lesser quality.  People forget how good the original was because they have grown bored with all the copies.

A third thing that people like to pick on is that Dances with Wolves tends to be a preachy.  The Native Americans are portrayed perhaps just a little too idyllically while the white Calvary men are portrayed perhaps just a little overly cruel.  Is that a bad thing?  Considering how badly America has treated the nation’s indigenous peoples – not to mention how they have traditionally been portrayed in film – I don’t think really think so, however, as a general rule, people don’t go to the movies to be made to feel bad, whether or not it is justified.  Thus, people feel the need to point out inaccuracies in an attempt to feel better.  If you are really successful, like Dances, or say Avatar, eventually the focus on inaccuracies transform into accusations of indirect racism; that the film is nothing but a fantasy where a white guy becomes an irreplaceable member / leader of a culture that is not his own.

Lastly, but related the third point, you have the fact that Dances with Wolves beat out Goodfellas for the Best Picture Oscar because it was a “cause film”.  In fact, Goodfellas never had a chance to win Best Picture.  There was no way that a movie about violent gangsters was going to be beat about a film that tells the story of how white Americans cruelly treated the Sioux because the white-man is too ignorant to see how brave and noble the Sioux are.  Hollywood and the Oscars live for movies like that – at least until another cause-of-day comes along.  Unfortunately it has been quite a few years since Dances was the cause-of-day, and just on its own merit Dances with Wolves was better than Awakenings, or Ghost, or The Godfather, Part III, but it clearly wasn’t better than Goodfellas.

As I said earlier in the post I really don’t agree with a lot of the backlash concerning this movie.  Not that I think that some of it isn’t completely without merit.  The film was indeed a vanity project for Costner.  The film (or it is copies / parodies) was everywhere for a while and it is understandable that people got sick of it.  The film is a little preachy and the fact that it was more “socially conscious” than its competition was ultimately how it ended-up winning the Best Picture Oscar.  All of that is more or less true; however, that is why it is important to re-visit movies from time to time.  It had been about 5 years or so since I had last seen this film, and I had probably seen it maybe 10 or 15 times since it had been released, so I am fairly familiar with it and could have easily written about it without watching it again.  Had I done that, however, my ranking for the film would have been different. I would have probably given the movie 4 Stars.  However, after watching it again, it reminded me that it is still a really great film and deserves to be included on the list of all-time greats and am somewhat confused on why it was excluded from the AFI 2007 list.

Despite that how long it is, and how legitimate some of the other criticisms may be, this movie is beautiful to look at, tells an engaging story, and has a good heart.  I give it a ranking of 5 Stars.

John 

 

 

Movie List for April, 2010

Well, we are not gining that much ground when comparing real life to the blog.  That is partially my fault since I didn't blog as much this month as I should have.  Keeping the illusion going. however, the movies will watching in "April" are:

102. Dances with Wolves (1990)
101. Titanic (1997)
100. In the Heat of the Night (1967)
  99. Bringing Up Baby (1938)

John

Bonus Film: El Dorado (1967)

Stars:  John Wayne (Cole Thornton), Robert Mitchum (Sheriff J.P. Harrah), James Caan (Mississippi), Ed Asner (Bart Jason), Charlene Holt (Maudie), Paul Fix (Dr. Miller), Michele Carey (Josephine 'Joey' MacDonald), Arthur Hunnicutt (Bull Harris)

Director:  Howard Hawks

Awards / Honors

• None of any note

Genre:  Western

Running Time:  2 Hours, 6 minutes

Format:  DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  3 1/4 Stars (John - 3 Stars, Beth - 2 Stars, Jeff - 4 Stars, TJ - 4 Stars)

John's Take

From the movie Get Shorty:

[Bo Catlett is pointing a gun at Chili Palmer’s head]

Bo Catlett:  This time there ain’t any John Wayne and Dean Martin shootin' bad guys in El Dorado...

Chili Palmer:  That was Rio Bravo.  Robert Mitchum played the drunk in El Dorado; Dean Martin played the drunk in Rio Bravo.  Basically, it was the same part.  Now John Wayne played the same part in both movies, he played John Wayne...

Bo Catlett:  Man, I just can't wait for you to be dead!

And that ladies and gentlemen pretty much sums up everything you need to know about the movie El Dorado.  Just take the movie Rio Bravo, replace all of the cast members except for John Wayne, and you are finished:

          El Dorado (1967)                           Rio Bravo (1959)

Robert Mitchum (Harrah)  replaces  Dean Martin (Dude)

James Caan (Mississippi)  replaces  Ricky Nelson (Colorado)

Charlene Holt (Maudie)     replaces  Angie Dickinson (Feathers)

Arthur Hunnicutt (Bull)      replaces  Walter Brennan (Stumpy)

Ed Asner (Jason)              replaces  John Russell (Burdette)  

The plots are basically the same – a sheriff needs to defend his jailhouse from a well financed group of criminals.  Just certain elements of the story get mixed around.  For example, Mitchum is the drunken sheriff while Martin was the drunken deputy.  Ricky Nelson is high proficient gunfighter where James Caan is a horrible shot (but very good with a knife), etc.

By just looking at the actors involved in the films, you might assume that El Dorado is the superior movie.  I mean, Mitchum, Caan, Asner – those are pretty good actors, so it is probably the better of the two movies, right?  Nope, you would be wrong.  El Dorado isn’t nearly as good as Rio Bravo.  That is not to say that Rio Bravo is necessarily a cinematic masterpiece, but of the two, Rio Bravo is clearly the better film.  

Supposedly director Howard Hawks purposely planned a “trilogy” of movies all based around the same basic premise of a besieged sheriff (Rio Bravo, El Dorado, Rio Lobo).  While that may be partially true, I personally there is a little bit of film history retcon going on as well (i.e., it was basically just easier to keep remaking the same movie).  I mean, this is the same guy that directed films like Bringing Up Baby, His Girl Friday, Sergeant York and The Big Sleep.  El Dorado and Rio Lobo were the best “re-makes” he could come up with?

Is El Dorado a terrible movie?  No, it has its moments, and it can be fairly funny at times.  Some of that comedy is unintentional, but hey, it works so why knock it.  It is just one of many examples of a movie that would have failed horribly without John Wayne’s involvement.  Granted, as Chili says, he just spends the whole movie being John Wayne, but as is often the case in his movies, that John Wayne mystique is usually sufficient to make the occasionally ridiculous dialog and plot elements just a tad bit more palatable.

So how did this movie end up on this blog?  Well, Official Friends of Beth and John’s Movie Odyssey, Jeff and TJ, are big fans of this movie (or more accurately put, fans of some of the ridiculous dialog in this movie – “He was limping when he left…” “He was limping when he got here!!”), and they were coming over to watch Pulp Fiction with Beth and I.  They had no interest in watching All the Presidents Men, however, and TJ wanted to take the opportunity to see El Dorado on my 65 inch HD television.  So we delayed our viewing of All the of President’s Men until the next day, and watched El Dorado instead.  Was it a good trade off?  Not really, but hey at least it was funny…

And it gets a ranking of 3 (weak) Stars from me.

John

103. Pulp Fiction (1994)

Stars:  John Travolta (Vincent Vega), Samuel L. Jackson (Jules Winnfield), Uma Thurman (Mia Wallace), Ving Rhames (Marsellus Wallace), Bruce Willis (Butch Coolidge), Harvey Keitel (Winston Wolf), Christopher Walken (Captain Koons)

Director:  Quentin Tarantino 

Awards / Honors

• 1 Oscar win - Best Writing (Original Screenplay)
• 6 Additional Oscar Nominations - Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor (John Travolta), Best Supporting Actor (Samuel L. Jackson), Best Supporting Actress (Uma Thurman), Best Film Editing
• #95 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (1998)
• #53 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills list (2001)
• #94 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (2007)
• #  6 on AFI's 10 Top 10 list - Gangster movies (2008) 

Genre:  Drama

Running Time:  2 Hours, 34 Minutes

Format:  DVD (not yet available on Blu-ray)

Odyssey Rating:  5 Stars (John - 5 Stars, Beth - 5 Stars, Jeff - 5 Stars, TJ - 5 Stars)

  

John's Take

Back when I first started this blog, I sort of imagined that upon reaching Pulp Fiction I would write a post that didn’t run in chronological order in an attempt to be cute.  After writing a couple of different drafts I decided to bail on that approach and just write a normal post.  Expressing coherent thoughts out of sequence and having it not seem lame is a great deal harder than one might expect which makes Quentin Tarantino and Rodger Avary’s work on this film all the more impressive.

While I had seen parts of this film many times on cable, I had never actually watched it from beginning to end before now.  In addition, Beth and I were joined by Official Friends of Beth and John’s Movie Odyssey, Jeff and TJ in this viewing and it is always nice to watch these movies with friends.

There are many, many, many good things to say about this movie.  I love this movie.  It is a great movie.  However, all of the nice things, I could think of saying had all been said somewhere else before.  I guess you could say that most of my posts, but for some reason, I everything wrote felt REALLY like I was just cutting and pasting someone else’s comments.  I had already used the “is this a noir film or not” angle on Fargo post and had already discussed my belief that Bruce Willis is an under-appreciated national treasure in The Sixth Sense post – and it felt way too soon to revisit those subjects – so it was turning out to be surprisingly difficult to write about a movie that I enjoyed so much.  Thus, I finally decided to stop trying to write about the things I loved about Pulp Fiction, and instead write about the stuff I didn’t like about the movie.  Or more to the point, the things that die-hard fans of this movie do that bug me because the rantings of Tarantino fanboys played a part in me not wanting to make the effort to see its movie in its entirety.

First, why oh why, must die-hard fans of this movie feel the need to tell you what they think is in the briefcase?  It doesn’t matter.  It is a just a Macguffin.  It has no relevance to anything that happens in the movie.  Whatever significance you think it has – is just your imagination.  It isn’t Marsellus’ soul or any other meta-physical nonsense.  It is just a plot device!!!  It is no different than the statue in The Maltese Falcon or the secret government papers in North by Northwest.  Even Tarantino says that it has no meaning!  So please fanboys, get over the stupid briefcase already.

Second, while I like non-linear way the story is presented in this film, it doesn’t seem to be just a stylistic choice, as in say Kill Bill.  It is almost as if Tarantino uses the non-linear approach to help hide the fact that there is no clear narrative in this film.  I am perfectly OK that the movie is really just a bunch very entertaining stretches of dialogue all tied together with a vague story arch, but please lets just all acknowledge it for what it is.  Fanboys – there is no deep meaning or message to this movie! It is simply just a couple days in the life of some interesting characters that are just as likely to spout long series of monologues at each other as they are of actually conversing.  Is it all very cool?  Yes, it is very cool, but the non-linear nature of the film isn’t being used express any particular theme.  It is being in used, at least in part, to hide the fact that it would be a pretty weak, front-loaded story if you told it linearly.  Aside from the fact that doing too many drugs may require you be stabbed with an adrenaline needle, there is no wisdom to be gained from this movie – no matter how badly you want there to be.

Side Note:  I can’t watch the adrenaline needle scene.  I just can’t.  In fact, while watching the film with Jeff, TJ and Beth I had to get up and leave the room once that scene approached.  I have no reason as to why I find Uma Thurman flopping around so disturbing, but I do.  Not sure if that has any relevance to anything or not, but there you go.

Lastly, I get really tired of hearing how “original” this movie is.  Listen, fanboys, there is in fact very little that is actually original in this film.  Quentin Tarantino films are all just big homages to other films. Is this a bad thing?  No, not at all. Tarantino is a master at homage. It seems like he makes movies just so that he can share with the audience his favorite scenes from other movies – but does it in such a way that it doesn’t feel like he is simply cutting and pasting.  He certainly puts his own unique spin on things, so in that sense he is original, but that isn’t really what it seems like the fanboys are talking about.  They seem to think that things like the aforementioned briefcase are original – it isn’t. It is homage to the movie Kiss Me Deadly.  Maynard and Zed are straight out of Deliverance.  Ving Raimes seeing Bruce Willis on the street could have been lifted right out of Psycho.  Christopher Walken plays a traumatized Vietnam vet just like in The Deer Hunter.  And of course Travolta dances ala Saturday Night Fever.  Again, all of this is done with care and skill and makes for a wonderful film.  Just please get what is original and what isn’t straight – all the better, let us all just shut up about it and enjoy the movie.

There, I have gotten that all out of my system. I feel better now.  I think I have picked on Tarantino fanboys enough.  Pulp Fiction gets a ranking of 5 Stars from me and joins Toy Story and A Night at the Opera as the only movies to have gotten a perfect ranking of 5 Stars.

John

104. All the President's Men (1976)

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105. Spartacus (1960)

Stars:  Kirk Douglas (Spartacus), Laurence Olivier (Crassus), Jean Simmons (Varinia), Peter Ustinov (Lentulus Batiatus), Charles Laughton (Gracchus), Tony Curtis (Antoninus), John Gavin (Julius Caesar)

Director:  Stanley Kubrick

Awards / Honors

• 4 Oscar Wins - Best Supporting Actor (Peter Ustinov), Best Cinematography (Color), Best Art Direction (Set Decoration, Color), Best Costume Design (Color)
• 2 Additional Nominations - Best Film Editing, Best Music (Score)
• #62 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Thrills list (2001)
• #22 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Heroes and Villains list (2003)
• #44 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Cheers list (2006)
• #81 on AFI's 100 Years... 100 Movies list (2007)
• #  5 on AFI's 10 Top 10 lists (Epic films, 2008)

Genre:  Historical Drama

Running Time:  3 Hours, 4 minutes

Format:  DVD, Blu-ray

Odyssey Rating:  4 Stars (John - 4 Stars, Beth - 4 Stars)

John's Take

I have seen Spartacus a number of times, and I never get tired of it.  But then again, I am a sucker for big “sand and sandal” epics.  Spartacus, Ben-Hur, El Cid, The Ten Commandments, Troy, 300, etc. – I love them all.  All of those British and American actors running around portraying people that were most certainly not British or American, and trying to hide that fact by reciting their lines as if they were performing Shakespeare.  Apparently everyone in the ancient world spoke some sort of very formal English.  There is just something wonderfully cheesy, and over-done about that.  Add in the ridiculously dramatic staging of the battle scenes and you can easily see why nothing produced in Hollywood should ever be taken as historically accurate.  Doesn’t matter though, I still love them, and Spartacus is one of the quintessential examples of this style of film.  For example, eight thousand Spanish soldiers were used as the Roman army in the final battle scene which was filmed outside of Madrid, Spain.  That is the kind of over-the-top excess you usually don’t see in films outside this genre.  Do they even attempt that kind of location shooting anymore? 

I have, however, traditionally found it difficult to reconcile that all of this wonderful Hollywood cheesiness (did all the woman of ancient Rome all have such well manicured finger nails?) was directed by Stanley Kubrick.  Spartacus never really “felt” like a Kubrick film to me.  I had always just assumed that this was due simply to some combination of:

1.  His lack of control of the project, which he traditionally had in the films that he worked on.  Spartacus was more Kirk Douglas’ baby.  Kirk was mad that he was didn’t get the lead in Ben-Hur, so decided to make his own epic.

2.  The fact that he was still coming into his own as a director.  While he directed three full-length movies previously (including Paths of Glory which also starred Kirk Douglas), this was Kubrick’s first big-budget motion picture.

So, I always just sort of dismissed Kubrick’s participation in the film and basked in the pomp and grandeur of it all.  However, having now watched it for the maybe the seventh or eighth time now, I finally start to see his influence on the film.  These “Kubrick-esque” touches, as light as they might be, are what in fact set this film apart from the other films in this same vein.

Kubrick always seemed to gravitate to stories where the main characters were flawed – A Clockwork Orange (# 54 on our list), Dr. Strangelove (#30 on our list), 2001: A Space Odyssey (#18 on our list), and Full Metal Jacket are just some examples.  I get the feeling that Kubrick found the classic “white-hat” hero fairly boring and he had a certain way that he liked to protray his characters.  Spartacus is most definitely not the traditional Kubrick protagonist and he is presented in a more tradional Hollywood manner than one would normally expect in a Kubrick film.  Throughout the entire movie, Spartacus is noble, brave, and intelligent.  He doesn’t betray anyone.  He doesn’t struggle with self-doubt.  He is a natural leader that turns a small gladiator revolt into a full-scale slave rebellion.  His charisma is such that even after all is lost, his fellow slaves are more than willing to lay down their lives for him (“I am Spartacus!”).  Does this sound like any character from any other Kubrick film?  Nope, not to me either.  Is there anything wrong with that?  Certainly not, in fact, it is the heroics of Spartacus that help to make this movie great.  But this is, no doubt, an example of Douglas’ influence more than an example of something that Kubrick would have come up with.  To get that "Kubrick feel", one has to turn to the ancillary characters and villains.  While Spartacus and the rest of the “heroes” were all above reproach, everyone else seemed perfectly happy to wallow in corruption.

For example, there is most definitely a sophisticated, if understated, sexual motivation to may of the characters.  Olivier's character, the villain of the story, is surprisingly complex in this sense.  In the scene in which he and Tony Curtis share a bath together, and he confesses, "I like both oysters and snails," he leaves little doubt that he is bi-sexual and that he considers his choice of sex partners to be of no more consequence than what he will choose to eat for dinner.  Knowing that brings additional meaning to his desire to win the love of Varinia, the wife of Spartacus.  He doesn’t want her merely to possess her, or because that is the thing that stereotypical Hollywood villains do.  He wants her because having her – especially if she does so willingly – represents the ultimate form of victory over Spartacus.  Now that is the kind of motivation you expect from a character in a Stanley Kubrick film. 

It is through the backdrop of Roman decadence that we can see the faint fingerprints of Kubrick.  Laurence Olivier’s character Crassus, hopes to become the emperor of Rome at the expense of the elder senator Gracchus (Charles Laughton).  But Laughton’s character isn’t just some wise elder statesmen, but is an unapologetic corrupt womanizer that ends up committing suicide, but not before he aids the heroes – not because he agrees with their cause, but just to spite Crassus.  Perhaps, the most entertaining performance in the movie is by Peter Ustinov.  He is consistently funny, and ends up upstaging everybody when he is onscreen.  His character, Batiatus, is just an opportunist that wants to live as comfortably as he can – caring nothing about the motivations of others.  Again, these are the kinds of behavior that one expects from a Kubrick film character.

The very end of the film is also very Kubrick-esque. In the final scene, Varinia stands beneath Spartacus, who has just been crucified, and holds up their child, saying "He will live as a free man, Spartacus."  But it isn’t though the brave and noble acts of the hero that makes the child’s freedom possible.  The baby's freedom is due to the scheming of Gracchus and Batiatus.  The two of them care nothing for Spartacus’ dreams of freedom.  They just want to spite Crassus.  If that isn’t a Kubrick film ending I don’t know what is – sort of happy, but not quite.

Ultimately, it is probably safer to say that Kubrick did a better job of bringing Kirk Douglas’ and screenwriter Dalton Trumbo’s vision to screen than making the type of film that he is usually known for. However, after seeing the film a few times now, I think that it would have been a slightly different film had Kubrick not directed it.  There is just this slight sophistication in how the film ebbs and flows that you just wouldn't see with a different director, and I am quite certain that the character portrayals would be quite different.  Oddly enough, many of those Kubrick touches wouldn’t have been seen by the original 1960’s audience.  Approximately 14 minutes of the film was edited out prior to release – most notably the Olivier / Curtis bathing scene and some of the more violent battle scenes – they were just consider too much for the time.  Those 14 minutes would be reinstated in 1991 due to the film being re-released and the popularity of home video market.  Thus, the film we see today is a bit different than the original release.  That may have something to do with the fact that film is reviewed better today than it was in the past (in addition to our sensibilities having improved as well).

A side note, however, is that some other four minutes of film was supposedly lost due to Universal mishandling the film prints in the 1970’s.  This sort of occurrence isn’t unusual.  How is that movie studios are willing to invest millions and millions of dollars into making a film and yet repeatedly treat the end results so poorly?  It seems stupid to me, but that is a subject for another post. 

Spartacus is an epic film and it seems to have gotten better with age.  I may not be Spartacus, but I give the film a ranking of 4 Stars none the less.

John