Portrayal of Spartacus in Cold war era movies

Milan Milenković
Graduate historian
Faculty of Philosophy, Belgrade
milanmilenkovic2@gmail.com
Scientific Paper
DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.10901492

FULL TEXT IN PDF

received: 11. 1. 2024.
accepted: 21. 3. 2024.

Abstract: The goal of this paper is to analyse how the character of Spartacus is portrayed in the movies of the Cold War era, in the period 1953–1975, in the United States, the Soviet Union, and Italy. Special attention is paid to the ideological background in which these movies originated so that it is possible to determine if certain ideas had an impact on them, especially if we consider that these movies were filmed during the Cold War, which is a period specific to the conflict of ideologies. Also, for this kind of analysis, there is a need to shed light on Spartacus based on historiography to determine in which segments of the movie there is a presence of an ideological moment; in other words, if some important aspect of the Spartacus uprising, which is present in historiography, was left out of the movie or if something was deliberately inserted into the movie to comply with the ideological frame. The American movie portrays slaves as a movement with the sole purpose of obtaining freedom through the return of gladiators to their homelands. On the other hand, the goal of the gladiators in the Italian movie is to conquer Rome to free all people living in the Republic. Soviet movies portray Spartacus and his companions idealistically, unlike American movies, which display the pillaging of villages and the looting of citizens. Finally, directors of these movies exploited the fact that many aspects of Spartacus and the slave uprising are not known due to a lack of historical sources, which meant that they could use their artistic freedom to fill the gaps in this ancient phenomenon, which resulted in portraying Spartacus less as a historical figure and more as a half-mythological hero who fits into certain ideologies.

Keywords: Cold War, Spartacus, ideology, slaves, movie

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