Spartacus a 1960 film made by the legendary directer Stanley Kubrick is a fantastic man versus the machine movie that also does an amazing job of showcasing Roman art and architecture. The movie opens up by introducing our main character Spartacus who is a slave in a rock mine and the audience are quickly shown he is not a perfect slave and has a mind of his own. The movie does an excellent job in showing what Roman clothes and armor looks like throughout the whole movie. In the beginning of the film there are majority slaves on camera with just loincloths on, which is very true of the Roman time and so are the outfits the guards are wearing. The guards have leather armor on and the easy recognizable red cape which was very prominent in Ancient Rome. The rock mine slave scene leaves little to the imagination when showing how gruesome and harsh the slave camps were in the Roman era.
Soon after this Spartacus is sold to a different owner who force slaves to train and fight to the death in gladiator battles. Spartacus then starts his training to become a gladiator and quickly shows he is a force not to be messed with. The training scene in this film shows a varying type of weapons and shields that resemble the actual weapons and armor. The slaves in training would use iron made weapons and shields that had spikes and colors on them this is similar to the type of weapons and shields used in Roman history. There is also a scene where Spartacus is painted on with bright colors and shows how the Romans like color a lot since all of their statues and monuments were painted with color when they were original made. Spartacus now has to put his fighting powers to the test when he is forced to fight another gladiator in the camp. The fight does nearly not get close enough to resemble the speed, intensity, and horror of a real gladiator match but in the background there is some truth. In Roman history gladiator match’s would be very violent and deadly and there would most likely only one pair of gladiators coming out of the arena alive. There are four rich and prominent Roman leaders watching the fight and are sitting on a marble hightop of the fight with many colorful drapes hanging behind them. The marble is a cornerstone to roman art and architecture since they used it so much as a society for building and decorating. Next in the film Spartacus starts a slave Rebellion by drowning the fighting master in a pot of stew. This is where the intensity of the movie takes it up another level. Spartacus and his army of free slaves start to head into the country side going to village to village freeing more slaves to join his army. After freeing many slaves and getting rich in the process by taking away gold and jewels from the masters Spartacus now devises a plan to get the slaves to freedom. Spartacus trades all of the gold and jewels he has collected to a pirate who will let them ride on their ships to get to safety. The gold and jewels were stored in a open treasure box in this scene and are very interesting. These riches not only show what expensive nice jewelry looked like in Rome but also shows the wealth and influence the masters of these slaves had. During this time Spartacus’s enemies in the capital of Rome plot against him and his army. The long colorful clothes these wealthy prominent Roman leaders have on are very similar to was worn by the real leaders of Rome. Near the end of the film Spartacus and his army are forced to go attack the capital Rome and are horribly outnumbered and defeated.
This is where the man verses machine analogy comes in. Spartacus this whole movie has fought for freedom for him and his fellow freed slaves. The roman officers who stopped the slave army ask for the slaves to identify which one was Spartacus and they will be spared. The slaves then all stand up and say I am Spartacus. These men now that know what freedom is like and would rather die a free man than rat out the man who gave them this freedom. That was one of the best moments in the whole movie.
Spartacus the movie is overall a very excellent film in so many ways. The story is absolutely riveting and is very hard to look away. Some aspects of Roman art style is shown true in the movie especially with the clothing the characters wear. When it comes to the fighting of actual gladiators the film is much less intense than real fights. Even with the films downsides it is still an amazing film that takes the viewer back to ancient Rome for an amazing story.
