Classical Masculinity and the Spectacular Body on Film: The Mighty Sons of Hercules [Paperback]

The muscle-bound male body is a perennial feature of classically-inflected action cinema. This book reassesses these films as a cinematic form, focusing on the depiction of heroic masculinity. In particular, Hercules in his many incarnations has greatly influenced popular cultural interpretations of manliness and the exaggerated male form.List of Illustrations Acknowledgements Introduction PART I: MEN AS MEN SHOULD BE 1. Hercules Unchained 2. Hercules Reformed 3. Hercules Diminished 4. Hercules Rebooted 5. I'm Spartacus! PART II: TAMING THE WOMEN WITH LOVE OR DEATH 6. The Loves of Hercules 7. The Temptress from Beyond 8. Fight Like a Man PART III: THIS THING OF DARKNESS 9. White Man's Burden? 10. Doom's Children 11. This is Sparta! Bibliography

Daniel O'Brien's work here is both foundational and invaluable. Perhaps his most profound statement about these films is his most simple: that the strongman figure, embodied in Hercules, is part of our masculine mythopoesis as surely as the intellectual problem-solver, the suave secret agent, and the mysterious foreign count. This figure thus represents our desire to supersede the bonds of our own masculinity, reflecting not the dominant arm of the patriarchy, but that which surpasses it - the mythical, mystical link between human and deity, bound up in bodies too large to readily codify. This is a text that any scholar, critic, or fan of sword-and-sandal films will want readily available for repeat consultation. - Michael G. Cornelius, Wilson College, USA

Forget the unwieldy title and just marvel at the fact that academic writing on film can be as lively and stimulating as this! Daniel O'Brien produces a remarkably allusive study of the cinema's treatment of the muscular male physique (with particular attention to the Hercules movies directed by such talented auteurs as Vittorio Cottafavi and Mario Bava, as well as lesser talents such Pietro Francisci, responsible for the two Steve Reeves Herculelc$