Hollywood's Ancient Worlds

by Jeffrey Richards

Jeffrey Richards examines the cultural, social, economic and technological circumstances that dictated the rise and decline of each successive cycle of Ancient World epics, from the silent film era, to the "golden age" of the 1950s, right up to the present day ( Gladiator , 300 , Rome ). Analysis reveals that historical films are always as much about the time in which they are made as they are about the time in which they are set. The ancient world is often used to deliver messages to the contemporary audience about the hostility to totalitarian regimes both Fascist and Communist, concern at the decline of Christianity, support for the new state of Israel, celebrations of equality and democracy, and concern about changing gender roles. The whole adds up to a fresh look at a body of films that people think they know, but about which they will learn a good deal more.

Genres: History

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Jeffrey Richards is Professor of Cultural History at Lancaster University.

Reviews

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a dense book, full of information. It is more encyclopedic than academic. Each chapter describes films (almost exclusively for Anglo audiences) and television shows about antiquity. The descriptions include details of production, sometimes with quotes from actors and production staff. This is followed by a plot summary, details of the film's reception with quotations from (primarily British) reviews, and bits of trivia. Richards also weighs in on the successes and failures of films as pieces of art. This is an entertaining and edifying book. It begins with a chapter on Victorian antecedents of modern films, followed by a chapter on early films about antiquity, three chapters on the period 1950-60 which are divided by theme (Rome, the Bible, Greece and Egypt), and concludes with a survey of more recent cinematic and televisual representations of antiquity.

Richards often focuses on the cinematographic, i.e. visual, elements of the films he describes, and states his goal in the preface of showing the continuity of influence from Victorian painting. His entries on various films will sometimes include a paragraph that describes the influence of various paintings. But in a work which is so visually oriented there are only 10 images included in the text, as an insert, and they offer only the most general indication of the types of imagery common in films about antiquity. Perhaps it would have been cost prohibitive to include more images or a nightmare to obtain permissions to include shots from so many copyrighted works, but as a result, if you really want to see what Richards is trying to show, you must often hop on a computer to google the scenes and paintings he refers to. The author clearly knows a lot about the subject and his analysis and evaluations are hard to disagree with, but more often then not, you simply don't know what he's talking about unless you are already familiar with all of the films and paintings to which he refers.