Big Screen Rome [Paperback]

Big Screen Rome is the first systematic survey of the most important and popular films from the past half century that reconstruct the image of Roman antiquity.

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• The first systematic survey of the most important and popular recent films about Roman antiquity.
  
• Shows how cinema explores, reinvents and celebrates the spectacle of ancient Rome.
  
• Films discussed in depth include Stanley Kubrick’s Spartacus, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator and Terry Jones’s Monty Python’s Life of Brian.
  
• Contributes to discussions about the ongoing relevance of the classical world.
  
• Shows how contemporary film-makers use recreations of ancient history as commentaries on contemporary society.
  
• Structured in a way that makes it suitable for course use, and features issues for discussion and analysis, and reference to further bibliographic resources.
  
• Written in an energetic and engaging style.

List of Illustrations.

Acknowledgements.

Introduction.

Quo Vadis (1951).

The Robe (1953).

Ben-Hur (1959).

Spartacus (1960).

Cleopatra (1963).

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum (1966).

Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979).

History of the World, Part I: Roman Empire sequence (1981).

Gladiator (2000).

Bibliography.

Index.

No other book on film and the classical world gives us what Big Screen Rome does: a complete format for an undergraduate courl³|