Stanley Kubrick [e Anthony Mann]
Spartacus

A few years before the "death of Hollywood," costume epics, the offspring of "Quo Vadis?," were on top of the world. And, since a movie about Spartacus, the first rebel history remembers, hadn’t been made yet, why miss the opportunity? The role of Spartacus was given to Kirk Douglas, not exactly an easygoing type. Rather, tough, unyielding. On set, he quarreled with everyone (which would happen to him many times): with the screenwriter, Dalton Trumbo, and with the director, Anthony Mann (who Kirk claimed couldn’t properly mold the character of Spartacus to his physique and personality). When there was protesting to be done, Douglas never backed down, clashing, here and there, with Vincente Minnelli on the set of "The Bad and the Beautiful" (a wonderful film, by the way), with John Sturges and Mario Camerini, during the filming of "Ulysses." But with Anthony Mann, things went differently. Between the two, there weren’t only fights, heated exchanges of opinions, artistic misunderstandings. Also, because in "Spartacus," Douglas was not only a protagonist but also a producer. Disappointed and profoundly angry, Anthony Mann left the set without a second thought. He was replaced by Stanley Kubrick.

The Douglas-Kubrick relationship was complex and tumultuous but far less acrimonious than with the previous director. Kubrick faced a crossroad: either re-edit and re-shoot all the previously filmed scenes or adapt and yield to the will of the handsome star. He wisely decided to take the middle road. Shoot a bit more (not everything), and find a sort of common thread that would tie together his ambitions with those of Douglas. What remained tense, however, were the relations between the actor and Dalton Trumbo.

The result of these continuous disputes inevitably spills over into the final outcome of the film. To an excessively grandiose length (more than three hours) corresponds a script that calling frayed would be an understatement, stretched, monotonous, almost always struggling to keep up. Some sequences could easily be skipped forward with the VCR’s button without changing the movie's meaning, such as the long, agonizing finale. Certainly, here and there, Kubrick’s art shines through, especially in the mass scenes or sequences, so to speak, almost "documentary-like" (Spartacus training with the slaves), and, undoubtedly, Kirk Douglas's performance is of great caliber, one of his best.

What’s missing is the cohesiveness that has almost always marked Kubrick’s films (with "Lolita" being a partial exception), the lack of homogeneity, the lofty themes proposed by Dalton Trumbo (who aimed to create not just an epic but an almost philosophical narrative on the power of righteous rebellion) versus the simpler, more commercial choices of Douglas as actor and producer. More surprising are the weak psychologies of some key characters in the story. Because one can't argue the cast isn't top-notch: Tony Curtis, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, John Gavin, Herbert Lom (remember him, the future Dreyfuss of the "Pink Panther" series?). And yet, aside from standout characterizations (Laughton and Olivier above all), everyone else seems just like pretty figurines, characters without depth. Starting with Varinia-Simmons (who succumbs to an uncharacteristically tear-jerking finale), to Antoninus-Curtis, who is little more than a prop despite being essential to the story (in the original version, due to censorship, the homosexual relationship between Antoninus-Curtis and Marcus Crassus-Olivier was carefully omitted). Even Peter Ustinov does little, but he would have the fortune to win an Oscar (subsequent to which three more followed: photography, artistic direction, and costumes).

Ultimately, "Spartacus" is the most unusual film in Kubrick's filmography, his least felt (as the director himself would admit years later), a Kubrick film that isn’t really his. If we were honest, when discussing "Spartacus," we shouldn’t say directed by S.K. but by Kirk Douglas, because the film is, 70%, his work. It is thus, an epic blockbuster, halfway between hard-and-pure spectacle and anti-Hollywoodian refinement, never knowing which side to lean on, and eventually, becomes tedious. Noteworthy, however, are the splendid opening titles, from an idea by Saul Bass (to understand, the same one who, in that year, created the opening titles of "Psycho"). It doesn’t matter if it isn’t a masterpiece, what’s important is that it isn’t recalled as part of Kubrick's essential filmography.