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What a Person Needs

Maya Plisetskaya

in I, Maya Plisetskaya

In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya reflects on her grief and sorrow after the Soviet authorities did not allow her to leave the country until April 1959. She also talks about Spartacus and the Bolshoi ... More

In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya reflects on her grief and sorrow after the Soviet authorities did not allow her to leave the country until April 1959. She also talks about Spartacus and the Bolshoi Ballet's first crack at the Aram Khachaturian ballet, in which she played the part of Aegina. After the first performances of Spartacus, which was choreographed by Igor Moiseyev, she began to negotiate with Vakhtang Chabukiani about a possible repertoire.Less

Pan-Africanism: Freedom for Africa

David Johnson

in Dreaming of Freedom in South Africa: Literature Between Critique and Utopia

The Pan-Africanist dream of freedom as expressed in South African political writings and literature from the 1940s to 1970s is the focus of the final chapter. The Pan-Africanist dreams expressed in ... More

The Pan-Africanist dream of freedom as expressed in South African political writings and literature from the 1940s to 1970s is the focus of the final chapter. The Pan-Africanist dreams expressed in political discourse that are discussed include: the ANC Youth League’s Manifesto (1944); the ANC’s Programme of Action (1949); the political writings of Muziwakhe Anton Lembede, A. P. Mda and Robert Mangaliso Sobukwe; the PAC’s Manifesto of the Africanist Movement (1959); and the articles and reviews in PAC publications like The Africanist and Mafube. Pan-Africanist dreams of freedom expressed in literary terms are discussed in sections on Lembede’s thoughts on individual literary works; Mda’s prescriptions for literature; Sobukwe’s wide reading and eclectic literary tastes; Melikhaya Mbutumu’s praise poems; novels hostile to the PAC by Peter Abrahams, Richard Rive and Alex la Guma; and novels sympathetic to the PAC by Lauretta Ngcobo and Bessie Head. The popularity within the PAC of Howard Fast’s novels My Glorious Brothers (1948) and Spartacus (1951) is also assessed.Less

Haunted by Horrors: Image and Superscription and Spartacus

William K. Malcolm

in Lewis Grassic Gibbon

Mitchell himself confessed that he was vexed to a near-pathological extent by ‘horrors’ – incidences of human cruelty in past and present – which provided the emotional and ethical drive for his ... More

Mitchell himself confessed that he was vexed to a near-pathological extent by ‘horrors’ – incidences of human cruelty in past and present – which provided the emotional and ethical drive for his writing. This chapter explores the two novels that most acutely highlight this aspect of the author’s mindset. Image and Superscription, his bracing picaresque novel of Rebirth, is presented as an unsuccessful attempt to dramatise and come to terms imaginatively with mankind’s propensity for cruelty. While visceral scenes depicting human brutality in contemporary times are overstated, however, the graphic treatment of historical atrocities points forward to the success of Spartacus. The historical novel dealing with the legendary uprising of the slaves against the Roman Republic is adjudged a triumph in conception and execution. It is appraised as both a realistic account of an inspirational historical event and an emblem of revolutionary ardour. Further, Mitchell’s permeating humanism is productively allied with a deeper lying philosophical scepticism to sustain a sanguine vision of humankind’s destiny.Less

The First Sicilian Slave War

Peter Green

in The Shadow of the Parthenon: Studies in Ancient History and Literature

This chapter discusses the Roman slave revolts of the second and early first centuries bc. It notes that although the first Sicilian is little studied by historians, it contains some unique features, ... More

This chapter discusses the Roman slave revolts of the second and early first centuries bc. It notes that although the first Sicilian is little studied by historians, it contains some unique features, and that its leader, Eunus, was in his own way as remarkable a man as Spartacus. The chapter further notes that the main evidence for the revolt and its background is to be found in Diodorus Siculus. It reports that Diodurus was a Sicilian, from Agyrium; that his account post-dates the revolt by less than a century; and that he may have drawn material from the Greek philosopher and historian Posidonius—himself, like Eunus, a native of Apamea. Posidonius was widely traveled and had an interest in the problem of slavery.Less

Spartacus

Janice Ross

in Like a Bomb Going Off: Leonid Yakobson and Ballet as Resistance in Soviet Russia

This chapter describes “Spartacus”. This ballet by Yakobson is considered to be almost autobiographical in content. The ballet portrays the heroic struggle of Spartacus in a slave revolt. It ... More

This chapter describes “Spartacus”. This ballet by Yakobson is considered to be almost autobiographical in content. The ballet portrays the heroic struggle of Spartacus in a slave revolt. It effectively shows the development of Yakobson's work from the creation of a full length piece for the Kirov Ballet. The story in the ballet was shaped to advance Soviet propaganda during the early days of the war. The work sparked controversy and changed Yakobson's career. “Spartacus” was Yakobson's grandest manifesto as an artistic dissident. Internationally, the work proved to be a public humiliation, becoming the target of anti-Soviet feeling by American critics. However, in many ways “Spartacus” came to symbolize the shadier side of Cold War cultural diplomacy.Less

Dismantling the Hero

Janice Ross

in Like a Bomb Going Off: Leonid Yakobson and Ballet as Resistance in Soviet Russia

This chapter deals with ballets written by Yakobson after “Spartacus.” His ballets at this time exhibited anti-heroics postures, fracturing the indestructible Stalinist-male image. Yakobson added a ... More

This chapter deals with ballets written by Yakobson after “Spartacus.” His ballets at this time exhibited anti-heroics postures, fracturing the indestructible Stalinist-male image. Yakobson added a more brutal and satiric tones in the characters he created during this era of his career. He was not discouraged by the harsh reception of “Spartacus” abroad; instead, he jumbled the qualities of the modern hero into the problems of contemporary Russian society. Yakobson did not confuse reality and realism in his ballets; rather he used dance to give an “aerial” view of the facts of the time. These postwar ballets transformed power and image from the state to the artist—the formulation of power from the artist against the state. By deconstructing the Soviet hero through his ballets, Yakobson rewrote the USSR's symbol of power.Less

Spartacus: Identifying a Cinematic Epic Hero

Joanna Paul

in Film and the Classical Epic Tradition

The figure of the hero is a particularly useful way of assessing the relationship between cinematic and literary epic. The figure of Spartacus demonstrates that even as new versions of an ancient ... More

The figure of the hero is a particularly useful way of assessing the relationship between cinematic and literary epic. The figure of Spartacus demonstrates that even as new versions of an ancient epic hero reflect contemporary concerns (such as violent behaviour in warfare), many continuities remain between the hero, his characterization, and his function in ancient and modern contexts. This chapter considers the history of turning Spartacus into a hero, before focusing on the 1960 film and the Howard Fast novel on which it was based. It explores how each presents Spartacus's heroic behaviour, motivation, achievements, and individuality, all against the backdrop of the controversial Communist ideology of the film.Less

Spartacus

Larry Ceplair and Christopher Trumbo

in Dalton Trumbo: Blacklisted Hollywood Radical

Trumbo’s major breakthrough occurred when he was assigned to adapt Howard Fast’s historical novel about the great slave uprising against the Roman Empire. To maintain his vision of the movie, he ... More

Trumbo’s major breakthrough occurred when he was assigned to adapt Howard Fast’s historical novel about the great slave uprising against the Roman Empire. To maintain his vision of the movie, he waged a series of battles against director Stanley Kubrick and some of the actors. As part of that campaign, he wrote some of his most scintillating analyses and employed some of his best maneuvers to earn a screen credit.Less

Exodus and the Credit Announcements

Larry Ceplair and Christopher Trumbo

in Dalton Trumbo: Blacklisted Hollywood Radical

While working on the Spartacus script, Otto Preminger asked Trumbo to write the script for Exodus. Preminger publicly announced that Trumbo would receive screen credit. (The announcement that Trumbo ... More

While working on the Spartacus script, Otto Preminger asked Trumbo to write the script for Exodus. Preminger publicly announced that Trumbo would receive screen credit. (The announcement that Trumbo would also receive screen credit for Spartacus came seven months later.) Thus, at the end of 1960, Trumbo’s name was on the screen twice, for two hugely successful films. This feat provoked a slow weakening of the blacklist, but blacklistees returned to work in a trickle, not a wave.Less

Introduction: Reimagining a New Spartacus

Antony Augoustakis and Monica S. Cyrino

in STARZ Spartacus: Reimagining an Icon on Screen

This introductory chapter discusses the highly successful television series Spartacus, which aired on the premium cable network STARZ from 2010 to 2013. The story of Spartacus, the historical ... More

This introductory chapter discusses the highly successful television series Spartacus, which aired on the premium cable network STARZ from 2010 to 2013. The story of Spartacus, the historical Thracian gladiator who led a slave uprising against the Roman Republican army from 73 to 71 BC, has inspired numerous receptions over the centuries in a variety of different media, while the figure of the rebel slave leader has often served as an icon of resistance against oppression in modern political movements and popular ideologies. Here, the chapter looks into the production history of the STARZ series and how the series itself treads familiar ground at the same time as it explores new territory.Less

From Kubrick’s Political Icon to Television Sex Symbol

Nuno Simões Rodrigues (ed.)

in STARZ Spartacus: Reimagining an Icon on Screen

This chapter starts from the iconic 1960 Stanley Kubrick film version of Spartacus and it compares it with the other version to demonstrate how in the Kubrick version the political and ideological ... More

This chapter starts from the iconic 1960 Stanley Kubrick film version of Spartacus and it compares it with the other version to demonstrate how in the Kubrick version the political and ideological nature of the Spartacus figure re-emerges in the twenty-first century, reinvented and far more sexualized than its predecessor. STARZ Spartacus, the chapter argues, has an altogether different set of objectives, placing special emphasis on the glorified and eroticized image of mostly male—but also female—bodies. This chapter concludes that Kubrick's Spartacus is transformed from a political icon, representing freedom, equality, and independence, into a new Spartacus who also becomes the image of a hypersexualized masculinity.Less

Rome (2005–8)

Sylvie Magerstädt

in TV antiquity: Swords, sandals, blood and sand

This section contains a case study of the HBO–BBC co-production Rome (2005–7).

Starz Spartacus (2010–13)

Sylvie Magerstädt

in TV antiquity: Swords, sandals, blood and sand

This section contains a case study of the HBO–BBC co-production STARZ Spartacus (2010-13).

Xena: Warrior, Heroine, Tramp

Anise K. Strong

in Epic Heroes on Screen

This chapter examines the oldest of the ancient heroes in this section of the book, the mythical warrior woman Xena in the eponymous Xena: Warrior Princess. The show first aired at the end of the ... More

This chapter examines the oldest of the ancient heroes in this section of the book, the mythical warrior woman Xena in the eponymous Xena: Warrior Princess. The show first aired at the end of the twentieth century (1995) and continued through the early twenty- first century (2001). The depiction of Xena is significant not only because of her gender, but also because of the onscreen precedents she set for future characters. The chapter shows that Xena set the trend for women on screen who could be sexually active and polyamorous and not be coded as immoral or deviant. By following a model that more typically applied to male characters of the ancient world, Xena represented a more complicated image of heroism for female characters. Such a representation laid the foundations for a number of later characters, such as Saxa in STARZ Spartacus (2010–13) and Starbuck in Battlestar Gallactica (2005–9).Less

Shchedrin

Maya Plisetskaya

in I, Maya Plisetskaya

In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya focuses on the premiere of Spartacus on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow on March 11, 1956, and her meeting with Rodion Shchedrin, her future husband. The ... More

In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya focuses on the premiere of Spartacus on the stage of the Bolshoi Theater in Moscow on March 11, 1956, and her meeting with Rodion Shchedrin, her future husband. The rehearsal period for the Moscow production dragged on so long that Leonid Yakobson finished his work with the Aram Khachaturian score in Leningrad ahead of Igor Moiseyev. Maya invited a few friends to the Spartacus premiere and reserved two tickets for Shchedrin. The premiere was a success. The following day, Shchedrin told Maya that Vladimir Radunsky was working on a new Little Humpbacked Horse for the Bolshoi Theater and that he was enlightening Shchedrin as best he could about the ballet. By late August Maya was pregnant.Less

Work with Yakobson

Maya Plisetskaya

in I, Maya Plisetskaya

In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya reflects on her work with Leonid Veniaminovich Yakobson, one of Russia's great choreographers. Maya worked more often and for a longer time with Yakobson than with ... More

In this chapter, Maya Plisetskaya reflects on her work with Leonid Veniaminovich Yakobson, one of Russia's great choreographers. Maya worked more often and for a longer time with Yakobson than with any other of her contemporary choreographers. She danced Swan Lake under Yakobson's choreography to open the Kremlin Palace of Congresses on December 23, 1961. After yet another Swan Lake, this time for the king of Laos, Maya focused on rehearsing Spartacus with Maria Nikolayevna Shamsheva as coach. Sol Hurok, who had seen Yakobson's ballet in Leningrad, wanted to bring it on Maya's fall tour of America. Yakobson's Spartacus premiered at the Bolshoi Theater on April 4, 1962. Yakobson died on October 17, 1975.Less

The Erotic Eye: Cinema, Classicism, and the Sexual Subject

Alastair J. L. Blanshard

in Ancient Rome and the Construction of Modern Homosexual Identities

From mainstream Hollywood studios to the pornographic outputs of backyard production houses, cinema has continually been tantalized by the homoerotic possibilities of ancient Rome. From some of the ... More

From mainstream Hollywood studios to the pornographic outputs of backyard production houses, cinema has continually been tantalized by the homoerotic possibilities of ancient Rome. From some of the earliest productions, we can see cinema providing much for the enjoyment of queer viewers, as male bodies are positioned and displayed for voyeuristic pleasure; this chapter interrogates the queer viewing experience. Over time, a cinematic narrative about Roman homosexuality has developed, in films such as Ben-Hur, Spartacus, Fellini Satyricon, and Derek Jarman’s Sebastiane, as well as in pornographic films. It is one in which hierarchically structured relationships centred on scenarios of domination and submission predominate. The eroticization of slavery represents one of cinema’s most distinctive contributions to the representation of Roman homosexuality and it is a feature that only a few film-makers have been prepared to subvert.Less

Slave

Mark Storey

in Time and Antiquity in American Empire: Roma Redux

Twinned with the first chapter, this takes up the subject of American slavery and its intricate connections to the political philosophies of Roman slavery. The subject here is both the racialized ... More

Twinned with the first chapter, this takes up the subject of American slavery and its intricate connections to the political philosophies of Roman slavery. The subject here is both the racialized figure of the Atlantic slave trade and the metaphorized “slave” as the coerced and oppressed subject of capitalist modernity. Engaging with the fields of Black classicism and theoretical history, the chapter begins with the photography of Carrie Mae Weems before moving into a series of textual engagements with the Roman slave: Toni Morrison, Howard Fast, Ralph Ellison, W. E. B. Du Bois, and Robert Montgomery Bird all feature, amongst a host of other writers. The chapter argues that Rome has proved to be a way of suturing the embodied and contingent experience of American slavery and subjugation into a fuller apprehension of imperial sovereignty and its long-term conditions.Less

A Question of Taste: The Bolshoi Ballet’s 1962 Tour of the United States

Anne Searcy

in Ballet in the Cold War: A Soviet-American Exchange

Chapter 3 explores the Bolshoi Ballet’s 1962 tour of the United States, which took place during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the wake of the crisis, President Kennedy and his family staged numerous ... More

Chapter 3 explores the Bolshoi Ballet’s 1962 tour of the United States, which took place during the Cuban Missile Crisis. In the wake of the crisis, President Kennedy and his family staged numerous public meetings with the Bolshoi dancers to soothe the mounting political tensions. In the critical reception of the Bolshoi, however, a less conciliatory strain emerged. American critics understood the Soviet works through the lens of taste, a framework related to domestic struggles about the positioning of ballet in an aesthetic and class hierarchy. They disparagingly compared the Bolshoi’s new production of Spartacus to Hollywood epic films. These concerns were in turn related to a desire to foster the United States’ status as an emerging ideological empire.Less