The fall of the Roman Empire – 1964 notes PDF

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The fall of the Roman Empire – 1964 Antony Mann Summary: - film opens with the wise, diplomatic emperor Marcus Aurelius (Alec Guinness) calling together the various representatives of the many nations within the Empire as a means of securing peace and prosperity for all involved. - When Marcus intimates that he intends to turn over his crown to adopted son Livius (Stephen Boyd, who here plays the principal hero – he had previously played the villainous Messala in the Hollywood Ben-Hur) rather than the logical successor Commodus (the British actor Christopher Plummer), he is poisoned by one of Commodus' cronies. - Marcus' daughter Lucilla (Sophia Loren) tries to get Livius to claim the throne, but he wants no part of it; thus, the fate of the empire is in the incompetent hands of the preening Commodus. - Lucilla is in love with Livius, but in obedience to her deceased father’s wishes she agrees to a political marriage with the King of Armenia (Omar Sharif). Despite efforts by cooler heads (Timonides, played by British actor James Mason) to save Rome from ruin, Commodus vainly declares himself a god and kills anyone who poses a threat to him. - When he learns that Lucilla actually has a stronger claim to the throne than he does, Commodus condemns her to be burned at the stake. Only then does Livius intervene, slaying Commodus and promising to try to pick up the pieces of the disintegrating empire. Historical period/events represented - Despite the opening editorial voice-over construing ‘the fall of the RE’ as a complex and centuries long process, the movie actually covers only a specific 12-year period, from the death of Marcus Aurelius to the death of his son and successor Commodus [AD180-192] – i.e. the same span as Ridley Scott’s later Gladiator, which manifestly ‘borrows’ many structural plot-devices and incidental elements from Fall. Primary Sources - Cassius Dio, early third century AD Greek (and Roman senator) who wrote an extensive History of Rome up to nearly his own time; trans in Loeb. The Augustan History, a problematic source: supposedly a collection of Lives of the emperors (Marcus and Commodus among them) by various biographers, in fact almost certainly an elaborate late 4th century hoaxer’s work, written by one hand cAD390-400. Secondary sources - Mann may arguably have read in translation some primary (ancient) material and been influenced by it. - His main source, however, was not a primary [ancient] account, but rather Edward Gibbon’s (massive) Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, originally published in three volumes over the years 1776-1788 Genre - A full blown Hollywood Roman epic, the last of its kind until Gladiator (2000); it brought to an end the post WW2 Hollywood series of grandiose Roman-themed films such as Ben-Hur, Quo Vadis, The Robe, Spartacus, Cleopatra.

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visually spectacular= filmed in Ultra Panavision with a star-studded cast, and no expense spared on production costs (ended up bankrupting and destroying the cinematic production company of the producer Samuel Bronston). Like Cleopatra before it, Fall was an epic that failed at the box-office despite the sumptuous production values and pre-release publicity

The director - Anthony Mann was an eminent and highly accomplished mainstream Hollywood director who had made successful films of high interest and quality in more than one genre - He was intended to be the original director Spartacus, but was soon sacked and replaced by Kubrick, perhaps at the insistence of the actor/producer Kirk Douglas (In Fall, look out for the influence of Classic Western elements in the representation of the Empire.) The concept of ‘decline & fall’ of the RE and its evocation in the movie - In historiography, the concept has antique precursors [Cassius Dio in the 3rd cent. AD envisaged ‘decline’ after the reign of M Aurelius, & S. Augustine’s City of God was written in early 5th cent] - Gibbon’s account was often later criticized for failing to give a ‘philosophic’ [ie a neatly theorized?] explanation of the causes: so far as he gives an explanation, it comes at the end of his ch 28 [the appended ‘General Reflections on the Fall of the Roman Empire in the West’ and at the end of the whole work, where four ‘causes’ are listed: 1. injuries of time and nature 2. the hostile attacks of barbarians and Christians [‘triumph of barbarism and religion’] 3. the use & abuse of the materials [precious metal, cannibalizing of building material] 4. the domestic quarrels of the Romans, [‘the most potent and forcible cause of destruction’] - the point at which Gibbon identified ‘decline’ was the death of M Aurelius A tension in the evocation of the theme in the movie? - Time-frame of action in movie: AD 180-92 [Commodus’ reign], ie the point Gibbon treats as the watershed: o but nb there is an effort to evoke Gibbon’s longer perspective in the movie’s opening and closing editorial voice-overs: ‘the fall of the empire was not an event, but a process over centuries’; ‘this was the beginning of the Fall… a great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within’ The representation of the Roman empire in the movie, and its contemporary echoes - Fall has been praised by a classicist/Roman historian [J Winkler] as ‘the most intelligent’ Hollywood Roman Epic (comparing/contrasting it with eg Sign of the Cross, Ben Hur, Quo Vadis, The Robe, even Spartacus): - Consider= o A Mann ‘quote’: ‘..The reason for making the Fall of the RE [=FRE] is that it [the subject and its implications?] is as modern today as it was in the history that

Gibbon wrote: if you read Gibbon, it is like seeing the future as well as the past . The future is the thing that interested me in the subject…’ o Mann as an ‘historically informed’ director?  Mann’s source of inspiration, then, is apparently Gibbon direct, perhaps even at times an ancient source (particular details from the Augustan History?) – ie he had (selectively?) read and been inspired by a classic work of historiography rather than by a novel or play  or rather than having been led chiefly by the example of earlier post WWII movies: ‘he [Wyler] studied not Roman history but other Roman movies as his preparation for the film’). o The treatment of Xtian in FRE  Mann’s FRE disdains to adopt the usual Hollywood Xtianizing angle of vision on the RE, which typically sets up the RE as a repressive power doomed to fall to a new ‘free’ world ushered in by Xtianity [eg Ben Hur & Quo Vadis, and on one possible reading even Spartacus]; by contrast, Xtianity (historically, correctly) does not figure in FRE as movement enjoying an evident significant political presence in the late 2nd century empire o Contemporary political allusions in/background to the movie?  Bearing in mind that the movie was released in 1964, note the following dates as significant:  1961: start of substantial military involvement of US in Vietnam, with deeper involvement in subsequent years of 1960s; 1961 also the inauguration of youthful Democrat JFK as president after Republican Eisenhower presidency of 50s  1962: Cuban missile crisis; civil rights campaign of 1963 [‘March on Washington for jobs and freedom’/ equal rights for blacks [M Luther King]  1963: assassination of JFK in Dallas Cinematic ‘intertexts’ in FRE [allusions to/echoes of/prefigurations of other movies] - QV & Ben Hur & Spartacus: the role of the romantic love-theme as a focalizing trope for the treatment of the theme [again, nb Livius is a fictional, invented, character] - Ridley Scott’s Gladiator [ 2000]: ask what is arguably different in the attitude & motivation of Livius in FRE and Maximus in Gladiator: the commitment to civic service; the recipe for personal happiness? What is interestingly eschewed in FRE? Consider the relative lack of gladiatorial emphasis with ref to Commodus in FRE.

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