Spartacus (5 Stars)

As I'm sure everyone knows by now, the legendary actor Kirk Douglas passed away yesterday, aged 103. In the American Film Institute's list he's ranked the 17th greatest screen legend in American history. I personally would rate him higher, in second place after Gene Kelly. He's a giant in the history of cinema, not least because of his longevity. He made his last film 12 years ago, and he's managed to stay out of the public eye, but there have been brief news reports reminding us of him every year on his birthday.

My impulse was to watch a few of his films to remember him. I have "Spartacus" on Blu-ray, so it was an obvious first choice, but what about his other films? According to IMDB he's made 86 films, so I checked Netflix first. Exactly zero films are available. Why is Netflix so bad? It might be useful for bingeing on TV series, but it has hardly any of the films that people want to watch. My next step was to check Amazon Prime Video, of which I'm also a member. It has two of his films available for streaming. That's better than Netflix, but still poor. If anyone else says to me that streaming services will make Blu-rays obsolete, I'll laugh in his face. We're a long way off.

It's a pleasure to watch this film. It's a miracle of digital remastering. The picture is so clear, an amazing feat considering the film's age. It's an epic film, on which a lot of money was spent (for the time), but its strength is in the minor details. We get to know and sympathise with Spartacus, he's a real character who steps off the screen into the room. He plays a poor, uneducated man, who was sold into slavery at an early age. He's never learnt how to read, but he has intuitive military skills, and his mind is open to the universe. "I want to know why a star falls and a bird doesn't, where the Sun goes at night, why the Moon changes shape. I want to know where the wind comes from". Those are important questions. If he'd been born in a different time in a different place, he would have become a great scholar.

His lover Varinia doesn't ask questions, because she already knows the answers. "The wind begins in a cave, far to the north. A young God sleeps in the cave. He dreams of a girl and he sighs, and the night wind stirs with his breath". The sad thing is that she really believes what she says. As a rule of thumb, those who ask questions are more intelligent than the ones who answer questions.

Spartacus is a rebel leader who died in 71 BC, aged about 40. Surprisingly little is known about him. As someone who's studied Roman history, it seems to me that the slave rebellion wasn't such a big affair as the film makes out. The first Century before Christ was a turbulent time for the Roman Empire, and the rebellious slaves were just one of many problems. The larger problems are shown in passing. Crassus was drawing power to himself, attempting to become a dictator. As things turned out, he died too soon to achieve his goal. Rome's first dictator was Julius Caesar, 12 years after the film ends. The TV series "Rome" tells the further story from approximately 52 BC to 30 BC.

This is one of the best films ever made. I wrongly omitted it from my list of 30 films to watch before you die. But then I would have had to remove "The Shining" from the list. Choices, choices.....

Kirk Douglas
December 9, 1916 – February 5, 2020

Kirk Douglas lived a mere 103 years on this Earth, but he'll be remembered forever.

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