Spartacus
(HD-DVD)
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras: D Film (restored cut): C+
Stanley
Kubrick made his mark as a filmmaker first with some of the most important late
Film Noirs ever, followed by Paths Of
Glory, the 1957 anti-war classic that is more relevant now than ever. They were all remarkable black & white
films and if he would have continued on that course, it is hard to say. However, when actor-turned-producer Kirk
Douglas was having terrible troubles with his latest epic film production, he
was so happy with Kubrick’s work on Paths
that he felt he needed him for Spartacus.
Kubrick
and then-filmmaking partner James Harris decided to accept and Kubrick made his
full color debut in the largest way possible.
Though there was hard work and occasional conflict on the set, as well
as coherency troubles between Douglas’ needs, the studio’s needs, the Dalton
Trumbo screenplay (which broke the Hollywood Blacklist thanks to Douglas),
Kubrick’s ides of the story & genre to the point of having another writer
(Calder Willingham) adding battle scenes to the script and then juggling all
that and the immense sets and top-rate cast, Kubrick pulled of a huge critical
and commercial hit.
Now in
this long 197 (to 198) minutes long edition was restored well in time for
Kubrick to reconsider the film, but he was never happy with it and there are
good reasons for that. The main conflict
is that Trumbo was so interested in his Leftist (and predictable) ideology that
it narrowed some of the film’s possibilities down, with Trumbo essentially
doing a Communist answer to the Biblical Epic.
Kubrick was far more interested in the humanity of the characters, the
idea and concepts of power instead of mere class division oversimplification
and had a grasp of the genre far above anything Trumbo could ever hope to
touch.
To
demonstrate this, Trumbo re-imagined (there goes that word again, though there
is real history here he severely trashed, it turns out) the title character as
a simple Leftist hero getting fellow slaves together to rise up Battleship Potemkin style to liberate
themselves from Roman tyranny. Kubrick
pulled a Hitchcock by making the powerful “bad guy villains” far more
interesting than the masses and this showed why they had power in the first
place. It was because they had a clue
about what they wanted and would go for it, undermining the Communist Myth that
everyone can be herded happily together and that will make the best possible
world. It did not gel with reality then
and by the film’s re-release in 1991, The Soviet Union had collapsed!
Fortunately
for the film, the aspects of Kubrick’s vision that survive have stopped the
film from aging worse and being more boring and overly long than it is and
really always was. Besides all the money
on the screen in production design, props and costumes, there was the stunning
cast.
Douglas
was so popular and powerful and Universal so on its way to becoming a major
studio that Sir Laurence Olivier, Jean Simmons, Charles Laughton, Peter
Ustinov, Tony Curtis, John Gavin, Nina Foch, John Ireland, Herbert Low, Charles
McGraw and Woody Strode brought strong performances, chemistry, intensity and realism
that mowed down Trumbo’s shortcomings and displayed that Kubrick could handle
the greatest screen talent and star power around. After this, he was able to move (after a
falling out with Marlon Brando on the VistaVision Western One-Eyed Jacks) on and become a full auteur and all-time architect
of world cinema.
There are
some remarkable compositions in the film that serve the narrative well. Unfortunately, the film drags more often than
it should and I can see why Universal (as bad a decision as it was) might have
felt inclined to cut this down except where it was just blatant censorship. Needless to say those scenes were some of the
best and whatever survived of them is here.
A few others are sadly lost forever, along with Kubrick’s vision.
Fortunately,
it is worth watching through the whole way once, but Kubrick fans should know
(and frankly notice) which parts are closer to Kubrick and which are not. As a genre work, it did break open the
phonier side of Biblical Epics going back to the silent era. Of course, the 1950s brought them back with a
vengeance with hits like The Robe
(1953, which introduced CinemaScope), The
Ten Commandments (1956, an early VistaVision hit) and Ben-Hur (1959, an early MGM Camera 65 hit). After Spartacus,
films like King Of Kings, Barabbas, and The Greatest Story Ever Told just did not measure up. By the time John Huston’s underrated The Bible (1966, which introduced the
Dimension 150 70mm format, which failed due to badly designed theaters) arrived
with more naturalistic shooting like that of Spartacus, the genre was dead.
Now, with
Martin Scorsese’s Last Temptation Of
Christ, Mel Gibson’s Passion Of The
Christ, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator
and the endless imitators of Scott’s films, the influence of even the flawed Spartacus has proven its long-term
influence and it is primarily because of Kubrick. That is not just because his name is on it,
but because of his work in it. That is
more than good enough to suffer through the poor parts and that is why Spartacus remains a must-see film, even
if you only see it once.
The 1080p
2.21 X 1 digital High Definition image is an improvement over the regular
Universal DVD, but despite the advantages of more lines, color is not always as
good as that of the Criterion Collection transfer. Maybe 30GBs is not enough either, but this
also marks the second Kubrick HD release in a row with a substandard transfer
after Full Metal Jacket (reviewed in
HD-DVD elsewhere on this site, but also issued in Blu-ray) to hit the
market. For someone who created some of
the most vivid images in cinema history, this is not good.
The film
was shot in the large-frame Technirama format and released in Super Technirama
70mm prints, which used strategically assembled mirror housing instead of a
lens to squeeze a big frame onto its film stock. Developed by the Technicolor Company (who
made 35mm dye-transfer three-strip tradedown prints of this film as well) as
their big screen format to compete with other widescreen formats. The great Russell Metty, A.S.C. (Touch Of Evil, The Misfits, All That Heaven
Allows) shot some of the film, but it turns out Kubrick himself shot most of
the film while directing it. Needless to
say, it won the Best Cinematography Academy Award and Metty got the statue
since he had the sole credit.
For many years,
the prints of this film were a wreck, with horrible color, fading, definition,
tears, scratches and other issues not the least of which was missing
footage. The Robert A. Harris/James Katz
restoration (whose names are synonymous with saving our film heritage) was a
landmark and still one of the most expensive restorations ever. However, Universal knew they had to save the
film because it was one of their key titles.
Kubrick was quoted as saying that he was more concerned about 2001, which more recently had some
upgrade work done on it (though that stargate sequence still needs some work)
and this HD-DVD probably should have been a double set and with all the extras
Criterion has likely will be someday.
This
could look better and in real life does, but this version is passable with
obvious reservations in color and some other details. Then there is the sound, which was originally
6-track magnetic stereo where most of the speakers were behind the screen. The 1991 70mm reissue offered a
reconstruction of the sound saved in Dolby’s advanced analog SR system, with
35mm optical SR and 70mm 6-track Dolby SR magnetic release prints. This was painstaking, from the sound effects,
to the dialogue (some of which had to be rerecorded, including Anthony Hopkins
dubbing Olivier in the famous bathhouse scene where Olivier’s Crassus tries to
seduce Curtis’ Antoninus in a gay sex seduction attempt) and the famous score
by Alex North. The work is amazing, and
though most of the action takes place in the front speakers, there are good
surround moments and the mix is impressive for its age. The Criterion set originally promised a DTS
track that was abandoned for extra’s space at the last minute. That makes the Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 mix
here the best version of the sound released to date.
There are
no extras like a few other Universal HD-DVDs on the basic side that happen also
to have deluxe Criterion sets in standard DVD.
However, it is a Kubrick film and except for those bigger fans who might
wait for a later HD-DVD set, it will be popular as the most important filmmaker
of his generation (and one of the greatest of all time) only becomes more
popular and acknowledged as the innovator he was.
- Nicholas Sheffo
