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Something about the Kirk Douglas scenes in Spartacus made me feel as if I was watching an old Star Trek script blown up to fit a big screen epic. But as Spartacus preceded Star Trek by a few years, then I should instead perhaps say that some of the Star Trek episodes feel like a downsized Spartacus. What is supposed to be a film of mega proportions, the full bull as opposed to a hamburger pattie, has the resonance of a shoebox-sized television production. It's flat, compact and tidy, especially in scenes involving the slave messiah Spartacus. Don't stretch your arms too wide or you're likely to hit a wall.
Now, thing is, I like the old Star Trek. When I was in my late teens and the series already worn thin with syndication, a daily dose of William Shatner grandiosity and Leonard Nimoy's countering lack of enthusiasm was a great diversion. Consistently fun candy, when I was a bit younger it was the bit of gum on my shoes that each afternoon was my virtual television mom gluing me down to earth with a boiled-down recipe of safe boundaries, sci fi soap opera-washed dish in each hand filled with the appropriate cookies of melodrama, comedy, sex and violence. Wash down with the milk of idealistic justice, equality, and fair play. When I was older it was a mac and cheese dinner reassuring with compact beginnings, middles and ends. At least once a day everything was all right with the world because there was Kirk again swashbuckling his way through another moral dilemma, the Marvel comic book hero without the muscles bulging his clingy second-skin uniform (velour). Kirk's head always followed his heart (or groin), Spock's heart always followed his head, and one could be assured of a little humor, a little pop clash. The psychological body of man stripped down to no frills essentials, the characters were little more than lightweight cardboard built to move in only so many directions, each geared to compliment and augment the incomplete other, which is how it is with most video, film and book-bound fantasies, the plot steams its way along on smooth rollers, and no one ever opens their mouth to have out pop an asymmetrical thought unless an identifiable puppet master is to be unveiled within the next hour. Every adventure comes packaged with the aforementioned clear beginning, end and definitive stepping stones that take you from here to there, because all hands involved have been taught to eschew whatever doesn't help synthesize the plot. Red herrings are thrown back into the ocean to grow into their own neat and orderly episodes.
I understand and appreciate that Spartacus was a bit of a groundbreaker for its time; ditto with Startrek. The problem remains that Spartacus, for all its bluster, is a comic book that doesn't want to be a comic book. Wash off a little of the technicolor and up pops the storyboard.
If Spartacus was in Star Trek land, Kirk would be hit on the head and stumble through a time portal to find himself an amnesiac in another world that somehow paralleled Earth, but wasn't Earth, despite it looking and sounding just like Earth and having something in its history like a Rome. In Star Trek land the whole planet is divided between the toga-clad and those in sackcloth bondage, nothing but, because one big city-state is enough for any planet if you think about it.
Captain Kirk, immediately identified as a fine, physicial speciman by Lentulus Batiatus (played by Peter Ustinov in the movie), is purchased to be trained as a gladiator. We already know he's feisty because we've watched him sink his teeth into the ankle of a Roman guard. At gladiator school though, he's just another potential gladiator for now, but it's promised if he manages to stay alive he may secure his freedom eventually.
Enter the love interest, Varinia (played by Jean Simmons in the film). A sadistic "I own you" voyeurism escorts slave ladies to the cells of the gladiators. A "Hey, you get some tonight!" morale builder. This is perfect Star Trek, Kirk falling in love at first sight, and yet manifesting the control and dignity to yell, "I'm not an animal!", refusing to satisfy the desire of the voyeurs to watch as the slaves mate. No, not-an-animal Kirk knows the finer emotions of love better than his elite captors, is more human than the zookeepers. If Kirk is going to get the girl, he's going to have to win her.
Decadent female aliens who appreciate a fine physique visit the school with Crassus, an up-and-coming Senator. The decadent female aliens want to see a fight. Good television fodder, Kirk is compelled to battle with a fellow gladiator at the school, a black man by the name of Draba (Woody Strode). Draba pins Kirk with his trident and could kill him, but instead turns upon the voyeurs and is himself killed.
The black man of the 60's may struggle for Civil Rights, but it is the white Kirk who will carry on the fight in the big way. After all, it's one thing to be a tethered black fighting for dignity, and another to be white and go against the white boy network for the lowly slave. Despite the story being supposedly without color, Kirk himself being a slave, that's what we have here. White man is inspired by noble, self-sacrificing black man to stand up and buck the system, for the casting of the self-sacrificing Draba as black, this Draba who spurs the other gladiators to action, is certainly a comment on the 50's and racial inequality in America (even the film's narration comments that Spartacus' rebellion against slavery wouldn't be fulfilled until nearly two thousand years later). Spartacus does star Kirk rather than Woody Strode. It was Kirk (Douglas') idea to make the film. But I don't recollect there being any black faces among the freed slaves who went on to cause Rome great consternation. Which cements my point that the black Darba could be the footstool but have no role as a battling victor.
A lot will have to be trimmed in order to fit Spartacus into a one hour Star Trek episode, but it can easily be done--and was, I believe, several times. The initial rebellion of the gladiators, spurred by the slain black man's body being hung up to dry in full view, will be followed up by a bit of rambunctious but honorable rampaging through the countryside as the gladiators free other slaves, but rather than going to the sea where they will not find the ships that are supposed to export them from Italy to freedom, they'll go straight to Rome. Kirk and his love interest will get together as free individuals. She will even, this being a season-ending episode, become pregnant! Which means she'll have to die, doesn't it? When it comes to serious love interests, Death is Kirk's Best Man.
A cursory nod will be given the subplot of Crassus using the slave rebellion as his stepping stone to a dictatorship, mowing under the top-gun Gracchus. Charles Laughton as Gracchus and Lawrence Olivier as Crassus had fine moments in their struggle to add more depth to their characters than the dry cinemetography and sterile, dull settings allowed. And, yes, though this film won an Oscar for cinematography, and I understand Kubrick choreographed the shots, with the exception of a very few interesting points of view (such as the facade of Lentulus' compound in the scene where Kirk Douglas arrives--for some reason that shot caught my attention as different) the framing (and editing) is either lackluster or overblown and manipulative in the manner of a Spielburg spoonfeeding his audience, albeit brilliantly, how they will feel. At the film's worst, I felt all around the hot Hollywood lights bathing the scene.
Following after the genius exhibited in Paths of Glory, Spartacus reads like a deliberate "See, I can do exactly what is required to win an Academy award. Maybe now that I've proven how middle-brow I can be, you'll expect the same of me next and grant me the kind of leash I want to run with."
Lawrence Olivier did his best to communicate the message of his being Spartacus' alter-ego of a sort, the un-Spartacus who wanted to meld with and be Spartacus--never mind his supposed fascination with Spartacus' "woman." Tony Curtis as Antonius, Crassus' boy-toy, slave poet turned gladiator, did nothing to help get this across. Neither did Kirk Douglas. In the Star Trek version of Spartacus, the dynamic will probably be even further confused by Crassus being portrayed as simpering and effeminate. But after the slaves are defeated, we will have Crassus commanding Kirk to fight Antonius, as happens in the film. Kirk will even slay Antonius in what amounts to a mercy killing to save him from the humiliation and slow death of the cross.
Oh, but see now, if one doesn't know the story then a few names and sub-plots piled upon each other begin to get confusing and if one at any point in time reading a Star Trek script would ever have cause to say, "Wait, who is this?" then throw the plot into a Reader's Digest condenser, chop and consolidate.
There being multiple dimensions in our Star Trek version of Spartacus we'll have no problem with a parallel ending in which Kirk's love interest survives, at least for a little while.
At the end, Kirk will suffer himself to be crucified alongside all the other slaves, each man a Christ figure nailed to his own cross, each having declared himself a Spartacus, a warrior-messiah. Kirk's love interest, who Gracchus helps, will again be permitted to flee the country and will stop to stand at Kirk's feet and show Kirk their son who will grow up free and she will declare to Kirk how she will tell the boy all about his father. Then after she has ridden away on her cart, Kirk will finally be beamed back to the ship by Spock and McCoy ("Son of Jupiter!" cry the Roman soldiers, falling to their knees), engineer Scottie having dealt with whatever force field had prevented their rescuing him earlier. Kirk will spend a few days in the infirmary recuperating. But, as McCoy will point out, only time will fix his heart, if ever. End another episode of Kirk exploring the galaxy and failing to not interfere with life on other planets, freedom of thought following him wherever he goes.
A few years later, a movie will be done in which Kirk accidentally meets his son. Maybe it will involve another war of some kind. Star Trek was both pro civil rights and anti war but it was one of those anti war shows that needed some good fight scenes around which to fit the anti war vibe. The flowers of peace were usually watered with bloody conflict, though more sweat than blood was involved in Star Trek, where when things turned gory the elixer of life turned green. Battle and fight scenes were confused with good old exercise.
Spartacus is effectively anti-war. The march of the gladiators through Italy is not portrayed with battles, rather by families. Paths of Glory was concerned with soldiers, though we are continually reminded they were once civilians. Spartacus is the campaign of the people. A spartan, no-nonsense people of earthy sensibility in contrast with the Roman taste for luxury. Non-militant men cart laughing children on their shoulders (we are on our way to freedom), smiling children carry babes, old women spin and cook, young men and women dance and romance. Images of hopeful children so dominate that after the battle (preceded by a rather awesome scene of the Roman shoulders marching in varying, superlatively organized formations that nevertheless made me think of a half-time band exhibition at a football game) when we see the children lying slaughtered on the field, body piled upon body, we are startled and ashamed, and feel even the horror of Crassus who isn't immune to the spectacle, even though many of the dead look bizarrely peaceful. On the other hand, we are never treated to the delightful antics of a single Roman child, for Rome is only the Senate, the baths, and nonprocreative sex. Gracchus keeps a harem of slave women while refusing to marry for he honors the institution too much to dishonor it. Crassus is bisexual. Honestly, if Spartacus had just bided his time, the negative population growth factor would have taken care of the problem of the Empire.
Similar folk images were used in The Ten Commandments, and a certain amount of the same sensibility will be revisited in The Sound of Music a few years down the road. The biblical Exodus of Moses and the Jews somehow morphs into a Christian persecution complex, a rather kingly and militant tribal figure freeing his followers from slavery. Run a thumbnail over the surface and what one comes up with are Gauls and their tribal leader sun gods. The poetry of peace and the philosophy of love comes with loads of qualifiers, as evidenced by the history of Euro-Anglo-American civilization. Spartacus did confront some latent hypocrisies with the images of slaughtered children.
There are other bright spots. Peter Ustinov won an academy award for his supporting role as one of those bright spots. He is wonderful as the owner of the gladiator school who plays a key role in unleashing Kirk upon the world through finding Kirk and taking him into the school, Ustinov's importance further cemented by his being the individual who Gracchus gives charge of seeing to it that Kirk's son and his mother are safely delivered from Rome to Aquitaine. He makes his character human. He invests it with unspoken doubts, contradictions and sometimes convictions. He knows a mind irritated by a bad stomach can make for tragedy. His role in history however is only as the one who presides over the gladiator school from which Spartacus and the other slaves escapes, for there was no Varinia, no Antoninus, no Gracchus, no Draba.
As an afterthought, Spartacus, the Thracian slave, gladiator and insurrectionist, is an historical individual, but he also brings to mind the Sparti, the story of a race of warriors springing fully armed from dragon's teeth sown by Cadmus, founder of the city of Thebes. The dragon's teeth men fought among themselves until only five survivors remained to form the base of Theban nobility.
The story of Cadmus (a name of Semetic origin meaning "Eastern") is that he killed the serpent guarding the Spring of Ares by crushing its head with a rock, which is reminiscent of the biblical promise to the serpent of enmity between its seed and the seed of the woman, "it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel." After offering a calf in honor of Athene, she appeared and directed him to sow said serpent's teeth. He obeyed and the armed Sparti, or Sown Men, sprang up. Cadmus tosses a stone among them and the Sown Men accused each other of throwing it and fought furiously until only five remained, who offered Cadmus their services. I read that Ares didn't let Cadmus off scott free for killing the dragon. He was ordered to become his bondman for a time.
This inclines me to wonder if the myth of the sown teeth isn't referenced when Kirk Douglas buries his teeth in a Roman ankle. Or perhaps I read too much into it. I probably do.
In real history it was under the command of the praetor, Publius Varinius, that the Roman Army was defeated several times by Spartacus and his compatriots. Curiously, in the movie we have Spartacus' woman named as Varinia. It would seem that Publius Varinius, who was defeated by Spartacus, has been for some reason preserved and remade as Varinia, his lover and mother of his child. In the film, there is even a clash between Varinia and the leader of the Roman troops, under whose direction will be defeated by Spartacus. During the critical gladiator fight at the school, she disdains the leader of the Roman troops (indeed Crassus has just made him leader) and pours the contents of the jug she's carrying on him. Thus Crassus' initial interest in her gumption, and he purchases her for a large sum, but when Lentulus sets out to deliver her personally to Crassus, she leaps from the cart and runs off. She and Spartacus later share much laughter over how slow Lentulus is, because of his size, for which reason he was unable to catch her (Lentulus, by the way, means "slow").
There's a scene in which the free Varinia asks Spartacus to command her never to leave him, making her a slave of him, but a slave of love. During Spartacus' association with Varinia he becomes progressively more refined and less strictly the warrior, the feminine influencing the masculine. When she is first brought to Spartacus, her femininity and dignity awe Spartacus (read, the warrior barbarian) who says he's never had a woman before. He says something about his being a human being. She says she is as well. Thus he refuses to "take" her and proclaims he is not an animal. His refusal however leads the instructor (a former slave, now Roman citizen) to taunt Spartacus as being a coward.
How many movies and television shows have offered the plea, "I am not an animal!"
Varinia is the one slave who manages to become a Roman citizen in the film. So, yes, she in some way ends up representing Rome (though she is also represented as British), a side of Rome as if in slavery to itself that is freed as the slaves are freed. I guess. Maybe.
Oddly, as Gracchus prepares to commit suicide toward the end of the film, one of his attending slave women, Julia, weeps. It is also the one scene of the entire film in which I really felt Kubrick's hand. In the room where Gracchus gives Varinia her freedom, there is a mural on the wall. Here, the set is striving to take part, to speak as much as do the characters, but the camera doesn't seem to quite get it. Is the mural of winged Victory? We have only a passing glimpse. Indeed, we are teased with that passing glimpse.
Though Kubrick was called in after Kirk Douglas fired the first director, it's said that with the exception of the script, which he thought was needlessly moralizing, the majority of the film was under his control. Yet it so little reads like Kubrick that I don't think of it as a Kubrick film.
When I think of Spartacus I don't think of Kubrick, I think of Star Trek and consider how Star Trek wouldn't have been the show it was if not for Spartacus.
Copyright © 2000 Idyllopus
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