The previous installment of the Stanley Kubrick (1928-1999) retrospective discusses “2001: A Space Odyssey.”
Betrayed by pirates and trapped between three Roman armies Spartacus has little choice but to march on Rome itself. At 31, Stanley Kubrick was in a similarly tricky position. Hired to replace director Anthony Mann on “Spartacus,” he found himself cornered by a script he didn’t like, a jealous Kirk Douglas and a power struggle between Laurence Olivier and Charles Laughton. After conquering all three, he would abandon the eternal city of Hollywood forever and make films on his own terms.
Kirk Douglas used Spartacus as the ultimate vanity project. Seething at missing out on the part of Ben-Hur to Charlton Heston a couple of years before, Douglas wanted his sword and sandal saga to eclipse the success of William Wyler’s movie. “Spartacus” appealed to the rebel in Douglas who had broken his studio contract to gain control over his projects early in his career to form Bryna Productions, though casting off the comfortable shackles of Hollywood tyranny could hardly be comparable to the hardships faced by Roman slaves.
Adapted from Howard Fast’s novel by the blacklisted Dalton Trumbo, “Spartacus” is an uneven mixture of Roman epic and contemporary politics. Trumbo’s thinly veiled attacks on Joseph McCarthy and the House of Un-American Activities Committee add allegorical bite. When Batiatus (Peter Ustinov) ask Gracchus (Charles Laughton) “ See to it I don’t misuse the money, ” the latter replies sardonically – “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m a Senator.”
Kubrick had directed Douglas in “Paths of Glory” and it was rumoured that the actor/producer had wanted Kubrick to direct the film from the start but the studio was worried that a relative newcomer like Kubrick couldn’t handle a project of the scale of “Spartacus.” Douglas may then have engineered a feud with Mann so that he could finally get his first choice. However, the young Kubrick quickly alienated Douglas by offering to rewrite the script, one he had inherited and deeply disliked.
Douglas backed Trumbo’s script but soon realised that he was very far from having the malleable protégé he thought he was going to get. The relationship between Kubrick and Douglas was tempestuous to say the least. As a consequence, “Spartacus” is the one film we never truly associate with Kubrick, who famously wanted to erase it from his cannon of films. “I don’t know what to say to people who tell me ‘Boy, I really loved Spartacus.’
The audience are permitted a few glimpses into Kubrick’s true style. The long take of the infamous ‘Snails and Oysters’ scene between Olivier and Curtis as Crassus tries to seduce Antoninus would later be played out to comic effect in “A Clockwork Orange” between Mr. Deltoid and Alex. The symmetrical formation of Crassus’ army observed from the slave army’s perspective has the same air of perfection as the parade of Captain Quin’s unit in “Barry Lyndon.”
Just like Alex in “A Clockwork Orange,” Kubrick seems happier when his camera is with the Romans and the British actors playing them. He extracts faultless performances from Olivier and Laughton who replay their antipathy towards each other in real life up on the screen as warring Senators. The spectacular Roman sets, circular and ordered, reflect where Kubrick’s interests really lay: with the power games of the ruling class just as in “Paths of Glory” and later still in “Barry Lyndon.”
By contrast, Kubrick never seems comfortable with the chaotic slave camp presided over by Douglas’ Spartacus. The bonding, poetry and love scenes seem false and forced. Kubrick doesn’t seem to have anything to get his teeth into and, like him, we wish to be back amongst the glorious scenery chewing of Olivier, Laughton, and Peter Ustinov’s Oscar-winning turn as Batiatus.
The real problem with “Spartacus” is the glaring lack of action that drags down the film once the gladiator school is destroyed. We wait for battles that never come. When they do they happen, they are off screen, like a 1970s BBC play. Most frustrating is the confrontation between Glabrus and Spartacus. Instead of a grand spectacle with thousands of extras we are left with a few riders burning the Roman camp at the tail end of what we presume was a battle. All tension is completely lost from this point onwards.
“Spartacus” is no different from many other Hollywood epics, the memory of them is often better than the reality. We remember our favourite scenes and block out the more tedious ones. This is the sort of genre one ought to dip into sporadically over Easter or Christmas, if only to remind oneself of the best parts.
“Spartacus” confirmed Kubrick’s suspicions of Hollywood. Rather than embrace its riches like a conquering Crassus he embarked for England where he would have complete artistic control over the rest of his films. He had good reason. “Spartacus” comes very close to lifting the lid on Kubrick’s auteur status; if he couldn’t impose himself on that film then surely moviemaking is a collaborative process? In response, Kubrick would point to his subsequent movies as his argument to the contrary. For him, “Spartacus” is the exception that proves the auteur rule.
“Kirk Douglas used Spartacus as the ultimate vanity project”
So… When a director is able to produce his own films and/or choosing his own projects, that is someone conquering his freedom, but when an actor does likewise, he’s a vain, egotist jerk.
Hum…
Thanks for your comment. I don’t think I was trying to make that argument but if it isn’t clear I’ll quote Douglas in his own words-(showing up Wyler) “that was what spurred me to do it, in a childish way-the I’ll-show-them sort of thing.”
Both Kubrick and Douglas made films outside the system but I would argue that Kubrick above anyone-even Spielberg today had the most control of any American film maker.
I would have thought to be a movie star both then and now that vanity and a huge ego are a prerequisite to success. I would also think that they would be pretty high on the list of most directors.
I mean in basic terms Douglas is like the kid who writes the school play so he can play the lead and I’m sure Kubrick purchased his material so he could direct it himself. If we’re honest wouldn’t we do the same Gloria?
Thanks for your comment, Mark. It’s only that I often come accross comments upon actors who yearn to play a good part as a negative example of how egotistic they are, when, well… if they preferred fishing to a good part they wouldn’t have become actors but fishermen, probably. However, you needed something beyond ego, you needed talent as well: Spartacus is brimming with acting talent of different schools and I think it’s all the better picture for that. I’d pick Douglas as a leading man over Tom Cruise, anyway.
I think that directors also like to be independent about the movies they make and like the films to, “belong” to them, and that this is ego-driven, as well, but, contrarely to what I usually read about actors, it is presented as something positive.
To me, an actor’s ego is as legitimate as a director’s ego, and if these agos help bringing good performances and good pictures that is fine for me (I regard egos as negative if they produce the contrary), and many Kubrick’s filma are enhanced by good acting work (apart from Spartacus, think of James Mason or Peter Sellers).
IMHO, one of the best example of a director controlling his films (in their overall filmography) is Hitchcock. Or Stroheim! In spite of most of his films surviving in non-director cuts, his style mightily survives the imposed editing.
OK. Anyone see Charlton Heston as Col. Dax. Didn’t think so. (Not that there is anything wrong with Charlton Heston.)
Kirk as Ben H? Tres interessant. Well, that means as Moshe rabbeinu, too. (Ten Commandments. Perhaps that movie shoulda been called “Exodus?”)
How about this? Kirk in those movies and Charlton in, say,
Last Train from Gun Hill.
I am no cineaste. Proof: Will never understand what
“2001: A Space Odyssey” (yikes, already eight years past in
real time) is all about.
Never saw Barry London — will never cease being enthralled by “Paths of Glory.” Hmm. Filmed black/white.
Did Quentin think he would seem a tad too much under the Kubrick influence if he did IB in b/w? Is there a Stanley/Quentin book out, yet?
Learned about Field Marshal Milch in the course of my post-IB googling. He had Jewish ancestry and served as a top Luftwaffe aide to Goering. There is a book claiming some 150,000 part-Jews in Hitler’s military.
Wow, we coulda had Bear about to club a Wehrmacht soldaten and just before Bear moves in the guy says:
“Shema Yisroel…: (Hear O Israel, the Lord, our G-d, the Lord is One.” ) Bear pauses. Asks German what he is doing?. German says (with another IBer translating) “I’m saying the Shema before I die.”
Bear: You’re (bleeping) doing what?
German. Saying the Shema before you kill me.
Bear. How the (bleep) do you know about the Shema ?
German.( Hesitating, trembling, and then, as he weeps) “Ich bin Jude.”
Bear. (No need to wait for translation of that) You are WHAT?
German. Please don’t tell anyone — I’m a Jew. My mother was Jewish. Before Hitler, I learned trhe “Shema” in “cheder.”
Bear. Lieutenant, didja u hear that? This sumbitch not only says he’s a Yid, says he went to Hebrew school. Now what the (bleep) what?
Lieutenant. Bear? Your call. But he did — if I understand it right — say the words he needed to, to meet his Maker….
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Wasn’t there a scene in “Sands of Iwo Jima” where a marine says the Shema before he dies?
All right. Here’s the rest of the scene just submitted as comment.
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Next we see the IBers engaged in their post-mortem work.
We see Bear, staring at a stripped corpse, whose back is turned to the camera.
Suddenly Bear stands up. puts his cap on and says:
Yiskadal,ve- yiskadash, shmay rabo. (He is reciting the Jewish prayer for the dead. The Kaddish.)
Raines: He really was one of you guys,, wasn’t he??
Bear. Continuing the prayer, nods yes, Tears begin to emerge. He finishes the prayer. Stands over the body a moment. Picks up his rifle — then his club, and moves out .