De Spartacus

Well hello original LOTR battle scenes.
Expanding on space, story, action, story and even length, Spartacus looks like Kubrick was freed from any creative chains that might have held him back in his previous films. Not that he needed to break free in the others, but this one provided a canvas to truly experiment with his actors and his environment.

I liked the movie a lot. The action was entertaining and the ending was unexpected. But then this is to be expected from Kubrick. Happiness does not seem to be his staple.

A few things did bother me. Namely the soft focus used to shoot Jean Simmons, Varinia. this technique was used to make her seem more beautiful than she already is, but to me, it was rather distracting to go from one cut of Spartacus in sharp focus, to the next of Varinia in this dream-like state...and then back again. While it did make her seem beautiful and dreamy, in my world, imperfections add to the true beauty, and Jean Simmons did not look like an imperfection sort of lady, so the soft-focus was unnecessary.

The acting was another interesting thing int he movie. Kubrick's actors are truly his own. They don't seem to be performing via their own accord, but by the Kubrickian strings that the director deems necessary to get the 'right' performance from his puppets. It definitely works, but in a way that is familiar when you know what to look for. Kirk Douglas and Jean Simmons are fantastic as the doomed couple, and Lawrence Olivier is unseemly menacing as the evil Crassus.

Personally, the greatest moment came in the last half, as the gladiators battled the Romans. For fifteen minutes, the Romans walked into battle as the picture perfect image of a war nation, organized and ready for battle. They had perfect formations that came from all sides of the battlefield, slowly marching towards the gladiators. And the most astounding thing was the scope of the production...thousands of actors dressed in Roman garb marching in unison, no cgi to be had at all. While LOTR looked amazing as well, their sense of scope was created through computers, and I am not saying it was a bad thing at all, but seeing what Kubrick accomplished with Spartacus is truly impressive.
Anyways, after all the formal marching, it took a few seconds for the gladiators to send torched lumbers rolling down the hills and have those brave Roman soldiers running cowardly for their lives...all thousands of them.

Spartacus ended a few minutes later, tragically as all Kubrick films deem to find an end. Man's destiny is inescapable and we are born with an innate urge to both run from and complete our destiny; which is what happens to Spartacus. He ends as an example, a martyr, a hero, a husband and bound in wood...just like he begun.