Spartacus (1960)

Cast: Kirk Douglas, Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, John Gavin, Tony Curtis

Director: Stanley Kubrick

This movie instantly reminds you of Mel Gibson’s ‘Apocalypse’. Reasons – Perfect r&d, set design, casting, costumes, picturization of ancient life and warfare etc. You find it hard to believe that such extensive movie was made in 1960! It is primarily based on a book ‘Spartacus’ by Howard Fast.

Set in the 1^st century BC, the film is about a slave named Spartacus, who is born in slavery, sold to be trained as a Gladiator (they were made to fight in twosome wherein one had to die), rebels against slavery, forms a group to facilitate departure of slaves to their home grounds as free men, is made to fight against the imperial Roman army, fights them again and again bravely, is ultimately crucified with hundreds of others, thereby condemning the age old system of slavery which ultimately got abolished 2000 years later.

It is needless to say that the direction as well as acting is simply superb. The movie is more of an edutainment since it covers in detail the hardships of ancient slavery system focusing more on how slaves (read gladiators) were kept and controlled rather than how they were captured. It is fascinating to witness the early teaching methods. There is a scene wherein the to-be-gladiators are taught wounding which body areas causes the following - death, impairing of limbs and slow death respectively. Today, we employ extensive lectures and audio-video lessons to teach anything similar and still cannot be sure of students grabbing the essence of the matter. But in the movie, the teacher simply used three colors – red (for death), blue (for impairing) and yellow (for slow death) to teach the same. In six swift strokes (two strokes for each color) wherein red was applied on a student’s throat and heart region, blue was applied on one set of his limbs and yellow was applied on left and right sides of the front region of his upper torso, the important lesson was taught effectively!

It is a must watch movie for serious movie enthusiasts.