Quo Vadis? (1913)

At the time, Enrico Guazzoni's Quo Vadis? (1913) was called "The most ambitious dramatic work ever seen in cinema" (New York Times). Today it remains overshadowed by it's 1951 Hollywood remake, a product of Hollywood, though that too was shot in Rome, in the Cinecittà studios. Both films and the 1902 (Pathé) original were based on Henryk Sienkiewicz's (Polish) novel, itself dating only as far back as 1890.

The film's creation, produced by the Rome-based company Cines, marks the coming together of a number of interconnected trends. Even at this early stage in cinema history there had been numerous adaptations of 19th century epic novels pitting Romans against early Christians from Edward Bulwer-Lytton's "The Last Days of Pompeii" (1834, adapted in 1908 and again in 1913) to Lew Wallace's "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ" (1880, first adapted in 1907). Then, in terms of Italian output, the epic film was very much emerging. If Arturo Ambrosio and Luigi Maggi's 1908 Gli ultimi giorni di Pompei, an adaptation of Bulwer-Lytton's novel, can be seen as the first true epic film then just a year after the release of Guazzoni's Quo Vadis? (1913) was it's silent era high point - Giovanni Pastrone's still impressive Cabiria. Watch those three films back to back and suddenly much of the credit given to Griffith's Intolerance seems a little misplaced.

But the enduring impact and impressiveness of Quo Vadis? and Cabiria masks the level of turmoil that was present in the Italian industry at the time. Despite the acclaim for Quo Vadis? Cines hit a downward spiral plagued by poor business decisions and a failure to conquer America and was sold off just a year or two later (Tomadjoglou 108). By the time Christus was released in 1916, it was very much a different company.

The popularity of the epic film was itself part of a broader movement in Italian filmmaking around this time. Naturally there was a strong emphasis on Roman history. From Carthage (Cabiria) and Spartacus (1913's Spartaco), to the loose Shakespearean adaptations Anthony and Cleopatra (Guazzoni, 1913) and Julius Caesar (Guazzoni, 1914), through to Constantine (In hoc signo vinces, 1913), but the subjects covered were far broader, taking in subjects as diverse as Greek myths (L'Odissea,1911), the Crusades (Guazzoni's La Gerusalemme liberta, 1911) and Napolean (Guazzoni's Pro patria mori, 1912). Naturally there were no shortage of biblical titles either. Again Guazzoni was at the fore with Guiseppe ebreo (Joseph the Hebrew, 1991), I Maccabei (1911) and Quo Vadis?, but consider also Milano films' 1910 San Paolo, Luigi Maggi's Giuda (Judas, 1911), and Cines' Christus (1916).

Having said all that, please don't gain the impression from my rather overenthusiastic listing that the Italian film industry of the early 1910s was dominated by such offerings. In fact "historical films did not make up the majority of Italian production but, rather, were considered the flagship product, geared both to the domestic and foreign markets." (Muscio 163) This ties in well with what we know of the American industry at the same time. Many saw the cinema as disreputable so companies like Vitagraph sought to provide a higher quality of output. Historical films, based upon reputable sources like the Bible and Shakespeare were a much favoured route. I guess we could debate - comparing the way cinema is regarded in comparison to other art forms today - whether or not Vitagraph and the Italian film exporters like Cines' George Kleine were successful or not, but perhaps another time.

Nevertheless, the artistry and quality of the Italian films was what set them apart from competition abroad. According to Muscio's research "the most common traits of historical films pertained to the quality of the mise-èn-scene, which included the visual blocking of the masses, the richness of the scenographic details, frame composition, the quality of the lighting, and the use of landscape" (166).

In Italy the historical films were also considered an important medium for those looking "for literary kinships and a strong link with traditional culture" who were typically "wanting to educate the masses by popularizing the classics" (Muscio 166). In this we perhaps find the roots of Roberto Rossellini's later historical works, which were made with very much the same intention. But at home they filled a further role. The unification of Italy had only been completed forty years previously and was still a source of tension in some quarters. Historical epics had a "capacity to glorify history as a nostalgic escape from post-Unification disenchantment and the mounting social unrest of the present" (Muscio 168).

The film itself runs to around 100 minutes, far better paced than the 1951 remake which drags in places. Visually it's typified by the use of tinting and/or toning in almost every scene, and this technique is used to great effect, particularly as Rome burns. My favourite, though might be the way the colours change as the orgy scene progresses. Initially pink, is switches to a more sultry red as things hot up a bit. By the time we reach the last throws of the event the next morning, the colour has changed again to a pale sickly green.

As implied above the sets are certainly impressive as is the size of the various crowds which fill so many scenes, but the fire scenes and those in the Colosseum particularly stand out. It's also noticeable how well Guazzoni uses the available space and the film's depth of field. In the Colosseum scene an unfortunate group of Christians wait in the deep background for a pride of lions who emerge at the front of the shot and prowl terrifyingly towards them

The film opens by introducing us to each character in turn as one shots are alternated with intertitles giving us the names of each character and their actor in turn. Vincinius' arrival in the city is somewhat muted, as his attempted courtship of Lyggia is kept short. Less than nine minutes passes before she is arrested and then dragged to Nero's orgy. Once there, Vincinius' attempt to seduce Lyggia is far more uncomfortable viewing than the 1951 version. Things start off pleasant enough, but it seems like it might have ended in rape had not Ursus stepped in to whisk Lyggia away.

It's a surprise then when Lyggia so quickly decides to marry him, and he decides to convert. The two head off to find Peter in the first of many scenes in the catacombs. Peter is seemingly much more involved with the everyday goings on in the Christian community. He is far more hands on and less remote than Finlay Currie's take in the 1951 version. Later we also meet Paul and then, of course, Jesus. Peter's vision on the Appian way occurs right at the end of the film. By this point Nero has already burned Rome, blamed the Christians and murdered them in the amphitheatre by various grisly means. The Roman "games" scene features a Ben-Hur style chariot race (not found in the novel).

Jesus' appearance is shot using double exposure, a ghostly figure with hair that reaches down to his chest. Peter barely gets back to Rome before the legions have revolted and Galba has been declared emperor. Nero flees but dies shortly afterwards and an intertitle declares that "from the rain of strife and blood sprang a new life: the life of Christianity, in the sign of love and peace". The film's closing image, featuring a green tint, is Jesus stood in front of a glowing cross in the background, being worshipped by his followers. 

For Bible films fans there are appearances by Peter, Paul and Jesus, quite possibly the first production to do so. It seems unlikely the original adaptation would have had time to include the Paul scenes, and whilst one of the early films about Paul might have included both the apostle's brushes with Peter and a lifelike vision of Jesus on the Damascus road it's hard to imagine they had the running time either.

For everyone else, Quo Vadis? is rightly celebrated as a landmark film.It may not have a claim to fame for a historic first, but it's impressive sets, crowds, use of colour and set it above the films that were being made across the Atlantic and in neighbouring France.

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Muscio, Giuliana (2013) "In Hoc Signo Vinces: Historical Films", in Bertellini, Giorgio (ed.) (2013). Italian Silent Cinema: A Reader (New Barnett: John Libbey Publishing), pp. 161-70

Tomadjoglou, Kimberly (2013) "Rome's Premiere Film Studio: Società Italiana Cines", in Bertellini, Giorgio (ed.) (2013). Italian Silent Cinema: A Reader (New Barnett: John Libbey Publishing), pp. 161-70

Quo Vadis (1951)

Revisiting Quo Vadis (1951) after all this time I feel I should somehow have more enthusiasm for it - it was nominated for eight Oscars™, after all. How many Bible movies can boast that? Yet for all it's fabulous colours and spectacular crowd scenes; despite Miklós Rózsa much lauded score; and despite, even, Peter Ustinov's memorable take on Nero, I find myself strangely unmoved by it. I don't want to spend too much time on that - as ever I'd rather dwell on the positives and the aspects of it that do catch my attention - but, I guess, the central love story seems to lack the necessary drama or gravitas to pull everything off. Robert Taylor's Marcus Vinicius is far from the first hero to start off a film as a jerk only to reform his ways, but somehow I can't buy into the idea that forcibly removing a woman from their home and throwing them into the middle of one of Nero's orgies would ever fan the flames of love in a fair maiden's heart. Perhaps it's just the lack of action scenes, but watching it again with the kids, I'm a little embarrassed at how, well, boring it is.

Which isn't to say that there's not a few interesting things to discuss as well. For one thing, it wasn't until I re-watched this that it became apparent just how specifically the Coen Borthers parody this film in particular in Hail Caesar (2016). The opening shots of the Coens' film-within-the-film is practically a shot for shot homage to the opening of Quo Vadis. View these two short clips from the two films back to back and you will see what I mean. This is also film with the overly long trumpets which was parodied so mercilessly in Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979).

It's all too easy looking back on it almost seventy years later to only recall those films to affectionately mock it, but, of course it had huge impact at the time. Not only did it top the 1951 box with over $20M in worldwide income, it also inspired films like The Robe (1953) and a handful of other Roman-Christian epics that were to follow.

Yet as much as later films have reused, recycled and reinvented aspects of it, the film itself drew on works that went before it. Firstly there are the earlier adaptations of Henryk Sienkiewicz's 1896 novel. There were three silent versions of the film made in 1901, 1912 and 1924. The 1912 film (available to view online) is arguably the most famous - some credit it with being the first true epic. If nothing else it's this one, directed by Enrico Guazzoni, I feel most guilty about for not having seen. That might be something I put right shortly.

But as much as Mervyn Le Roy's 1951 retelling derives from both Sienkiewicz's novel and the various early adaptations, it also is influenced to some degree by another film. DeMille's The Sign of the Cross (1932) clearly draws a great deal from "Quo Vadis", not least it's plot, though presumably changes just enough to avoid a lawsuit. There's Nero and Poppaea and a Roman soldier who falls in love with a Christian girl. Despite the furore caused by the film it performed reasonably well, but more significantly it provided a bit of a template for how a proper adaption of the novel could be handled. Replace Charles Laughton with Peter Ustinov to play a similarly self-obsessed camp Nero, tone down the orgy a bit and hope the spectacle grabs the audience's attention. DeMille's film forms the bridge between the novel, the 1912 film and LeRoy's remake.

Having said that I'm not sure how to read the portrayal of Nero and, to a lesser extent Patricia Laffan's Poppaea. Ustinov plays Nero as a vain toddler without anyone to keep him in check. Leo Genn's Petronius peddles a fine line in providing sharp answers that cut both ways, only Nero cannot even conceive of the possibility that what sounds like praise might in fact be an insult. Ustinov was nominated for an Oscar™ (as was Genn) but lost out to Karl Malden's turn in A Streetcar Named Desire. His performance is memorably, but mainly for its over-the-topness. Of course, Nero was over the top, but Ustinov channels Laughton as much as anything. More to the point, despite his toned down sexuality, these days it just feels a little bit transphobic. Ultimately it also overshadow's Laffan's Poppaea a bit too much, at least to the extent that I would have liked to see a bit more of her character (who is, after all rather more instrumental in how events transpire between Deborah Kerr's Lygia and Marcus Vinicius). That said I also suspect that this would also have had it's problems.

Having come this far and only just mentioned Deborah Kerr, I feel I owe her the last word. I don't really know where this ranks amongst her films, but in the orgy scene she is particularly outstanding. As Marcus makes his arrogantly ham-fisted attempts to seduce her she bristles at the very prospect. On the one hand she remains calm and prim and proper. On another level she is clearly appalled and horrified at what is happening to her. And on perhaps another, part of the disgust she feels is because she is attracted to Marcus despite her misgivings. The film doesn't really make as much of her as it could. Marcus's story arc consists of his conversion; Petronius' his rebellion; but for Lygia (and I suppose, Paul and Peter) there's little to no story arc. As Christian's their characters have already reached their goal and the film, unlike, say Demetrius and the Gladiators (1954) gives little consideration to the possibily of regression (or even progression) following a conversion experience.

Despite my intentions, I seem to have ended on a negative note. Undoubtedly, there are things to admire about Quo Vadis. If you havent already seen it, you really should, but, perhaps only once.

The Characteristics of the Biblical Epic: Part 2 - Defining Attributes

This is the third in a series looking at the Biblical Epic Genre
In my last post in this series I was looking at the criteria that various scholars have come up with to help classify the biblical epic. In this post I'm going to draw up my own "list" before going on, in the next post, to explain why this approach isn't really particularly useful. Given that, then, this post might be a rough around the edges. Anyway here are a few characteristics that tend to be present in almost all of the Biblical Epics.

Adapting a Biblical Narrative
This one is so obvious that I almost just left a sarcastic remark, but I do think a few points are worth making here. Firstly, that this is by no means the sole qualification. There is more to a biblical epic than it being based on one of the biblical narratives. It follows then, that not all Bible films let alone all 'biblical films' are Biblical Epics. Jesus of Montreal (1989) is clearly a biblical film, but no-one would classify it as an epic.

At the other end of the scale there's also the question of how much biblical content is required to classify an epic as 'biblical'. My own definition is that it should be a dramatisation of one or more characters who appear in the biblical narratives. At the thin end of the wedge this would include The Silver Chalice (1954), but exclude Spartacus despite the prologue's attempts to link to the story of Jesus.

The Moral Victory
It seems to me that one aspect of the Biblical Epic that sets it apart as a genre from other sub-genres of Historical Epics is the inevitable moral victory. Sometimes this coincides with a more quantifiable victory as in The Ten Commandments (1956) and Samson and Delilah (1949), but oftentimes the hero may lose in the eyes of "the world" but from a moral, or indeed a historical, point of view they are a winner. Such examples include The Robe (1953) where in the final moments Marcellus completes his moral transformation, but is sent for execution; nearly all of the Jesus films where Jesus is executed, but stays true to his cause; and David and Bathsheba (1951) where David ends the film significantly weakened in the eyes of his people, but nevertheless restored in the eyes of God. This perhaps reflects Michael Wood's point that the true hero of these films is God rather than his human agency. Ultimately, no matter how things turn out for the film's protagonists, the audience knows from its historically-privileged position that they are on the side that will prove to be victorious in the long run.

The 'Moral Victory' theme can also be read as a response to the nihilistic pessimism of Film Noir, a genre where the leading characters are frequently unwilling or unable to make the right choices and where the pull towards wrong is, at times, seemingly inescapable. In Biblical Epics 'good' always pulls through, with the leading characters, at least making the 'right' moral choices.

Analogy and shared pasts
Closely linked to the above is the manner in which biblical epics seek to draw analogies with the modern day, either representing the events of that day in such a way to draw parallels with this day or suggesting the roots of Israel have much in common with the shared past of America. Whilst the famous example of the former is the presence of cold war themes in The Ten Commandments (1956), this film is also an example of the latter as the Israelites leaving Egypt is narrated in terms that would not be out of place accompanying the story of the Pilgrim Fathers leaving to found America. Another common example is the suggestion that Israel then and America now have both lost their way and need to turn back to God before disaster strikes. The message is that just as doing right in the ages depicted lead to a better future (which vindicated their actions in their 'present') if modern day Americans will make the right choices then they too will be on the right side of history.

Sex/no sex
One of the most common ways these films attempt illustrate the lack of godliness is in many characters' more liberal attitude to sex, often, um, climaxing in an orgy scene. This trait is most distinct in the 50s epics due to the curious relationship the epics had with the production code. One the one hand the code was more lenient with the Biblical Epics than with any other genre. Their view seems to have been that the amount of flesh on display, the portrayal of orgies and the loose morals of many of the characters is tempered by both the films' moral message and their historical verisimilitude. On the other hand however the code did prevent the films from depicting any actual sex. Participants in the orgies kept their underwear on and the leading characters never really got to consummate their love. Add to this, of course, the fact that in all of the Jesus epics (bar Last Temptation and many of the other epics the central character is seemingly celibate. In this way, then, there is a paradox between the promise of movie sex - a promise the films' marketing teams were all to happy to use to aid promotion - and the amount that actually occurred. In essence, in the Biblical Epics, sex is something that happens to other people. Even in Solomon and Sheba (1959) the two leads' attempt to sneak off to a quiet spot in the middle of the orgy to try and consummate their relationship is foiled by God destructing his own temple to prevent them.

Self-seriousness
There is an incredible earnestness about Biblical Epics. Whether it's the tone of the narrator's voice, or written into the characters faces, these films seemingly take themselves incredibly seriously. It is perhaps the main reason why the genre is so ripe for parody by those no longer held by its spell.

It can be argued that humour, or it's absence, is one of the aspects of a genre that is most embedded, but also most overlooked. Take, for example all the action movies where the hero makes a "pun" after he has just killed an opponent. In the cold light of day this would seem an unlikely response, but it's a way of reminding the audience that this character is simultaneously both like them and not like them. In Biblical Epics seemingly the opposite is true. Aside from the occasional wry comment, usually by one of the campier characters the majority of the audience is unlikely to identify with, the genre is extremely self-serious. Consider the puns James Bond would have made on witnessing just one of the ten plagues of Egypt, for example. The fact that there is very little joking around or attempts at humour is a mechanism for reminding the audience, lest they forget, of the extreme importance of the events they are witnessing. These are not mere stories, they intended to be earth-shattering events of huge significance.

Even the Roman-Christian epics, where the nature of the films and their heroes is closest to the action movie, lack this sense of humour. Strangely, then, the two recent epics that have attempted to inject some humour by their leading characters have both been Jesus films. As with the action films the humour in both Jesus (1999) and The Passion of the Christ (2004) signifies that the character, in this case Jesus, is both like and unlike the audience. On the one hand he likes a water fight, or to share a laugh about a kitchen table (Emphasising Jesus's humanity), but at the same time these happen in-between extreme incidents that emphasise Jesus' otherness (his divinity). Perhaps this breaking of genre codes explains my own reaction to these attempts at humour. To me they simultaneous feel both like a brief breath of fresh air yet rather awkward and our-of-place.

The other kind of self-seriousness these films exhibit is almost a kind of opposite. Critics of the genre in general, or a specific film in general frequently cite terrible, "corny" lines of dialogue. Usually the question they ask is "How can anyone say that with a straight face?". "How?" indeed. The answer again seems to be that these overblown, overly earnest lines, are again examples where normal reactions ought to be suspended. These are not just stories, the filmmakers are at pains to remind us, they are accounts about the very birth of civilisation/salvation.

Camp
Linked to the above point about corny dialogue, and that about the characters that are permitted to make humorous comments is the fact that another of the key distinctives of many Biblical Epics is camp. This is very much at the foremost of my mind at the moment as I'm reading Richard Lindsay's "Hollywood Biblical Epics: Camp Spectacle and Queer Style from the Silent Era to the Modern Day". Lindsay cites Susan Sontag's descriptions of camp as "Failed seriousness" (p.xxix) and the "love of the unnatural: of artifice and exaggeration" (p.xxx) before adding something Sontag excludes, namely that camp "is often specifically queer, but it need not be exclusively queer" (p.xxxi, emphasis his). Ultimately he agrees with Philip Core's definition of "camp as an expression of what is simultaneously hidden and revealed about the personality"(p.xxx).

Even to those unfamiliar with academic definitions of camp, it is fairly plain that it is a feature of most of the major Biblical Epics from Mary Magdalene's zebra-powered chariot in The King of Kings, to Jay Robinson's portrayal of Caligula in The Robe to the underlying scorned-lover motivation behind Boyd's depiction of Messala in Ben-Hur, through to Richard Gere dancing in his underpants in 1985's King David. But it's even present in The Passion of the Christ a point that is, at first, surprising and then rather obvious. As Lindsay puts it "The androgynous Satan figure and the gay Herod figure suggest the kind of decadent society that would put the Son of God to death" (p.46).

Indeed Biblical Epics are not just about the existence of camp, but usually camp of the kind of wrong in the world which, one way or another, God is intent on rectifying. Thus ultimately Magdalene covers up her gold bikini, the smug sneer is wiped of Caligula's face and Satan descends into hell; camp orgies are terminated by "acts of God" such as earthquakes and lightning and huge pagan temples and idols crumble into the dust. It's a mark against the genre that the 'more-godly' world at the end of these films is usually one that is more heterosexual.

Excess
Closely linked to the above is the degree and the sense of excess in the Biblical Epics. As Wood explains "(o)nly epics, I think, insist on our thinking so much about money while we are in the cinema. Every gesture, every set piece bespeaks fantastic excess." (p.169) However, this excess is not simply about good storytelling or attractive marketing it also serves to bolster the film's moral message. This is closely tied to the points made above about "Moral Victory" and "Camp". Often the epics' excess is a way of signifying decadence, or the might of the empire against which God's people are to stand against. However, perhaps, it receives its fullest expression in the large scale destruction that occurs at the end of many Biblical Epics. Wood again ((178-182):

...the idea of waste in these movies receives its fullest expression here...Here are costly sets, carefully built constructions, going up in smoke or toppling down in ruins, the very feats of engineering we have just been admiring are now thrown away. This is visible expense, like the crowd of extras, only more startling. This is money being burned...It is pure excess, a ritual expression of lack of need...Having all that cash to throw away is a sign of (apparent) financial health. But actually throwing it away is a sign of moral health, a sign that you are not hampered by your riches...I don't think this is a reaction against a past of puritan prescriptions. It is rather the oblique expression of a faith. Here is God's plenty...to save money or gasoline or energy is to doubt the profusion of Gods gifts...For many modern Americans worldly goods are so abundant that that it becomes a form of scandal to want to hang on to any of them for very long.

Of course 'Excess' is not just linked to destruction in the Epics it's often used to underscore the supposed momentousness of the events that are being depicted. The moment of Exodus in both versions of The Ten Commandments, the Hallelujah Chorus in The Greatest Story Ever Told and the ark in the various epic adaptations of the Noah story.

Divine Activity
One of the key factors that distinguishes the Biblical Epics from other historical epics is the presence of divine intervention. This takes different forms in different films. Whilst Grace describes this as "the miracles and the sense of the nearness of the heavenly realm" (p.13) this varies depending on the type of story which is being adapted. As a description it best fits the Roman-Christian Epics where Peter sees a vision (Quo Vadis?), Marcellus is haunted (The Robe) and Miriam and Tirzah are healed (Ben-Hur). However, in the Old Testament Epics "nearness of the heavenly realm" seems a little cosy compared to the acts of judgement and destruction which typify God's decisive action in the film. In the Jesus films it is not so much about a connection to another "realm" as the presence of God made man and walking among mortals.

What is striking is that whilst divine activity is far from unique amongst ancient writings, very few other historical epics (at least within the Hollywood tradition) include such incidents, without moving into the fantasy genre where the aspects of self-seriousness and contemporary resonance are also absent. To put it another way, only the only form of divine activity that Hollywood cinema takes seriously is that which affirms Judeo-Christian belief. More recently characters have been allowed to believe in other gods - there were mentions of the supernatural in the early twenty-first century epics Gladiator (2000) and Troy (2004) - but in such cases their faith remains strictly a personal affair. The divine does not appear to have a decisive effect on the lives of mortals.

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Having said all of this, I'm no longer sure having lists of genre characteristics is particularly helpful. When I started researching this series of posts I was very much hoping to come up with a list of criteria that would more or less indicate which films were part of the genre and which weren't. However as I have looked into more I have learned that not only is such a process widely practised it is also rather problematic. The reason I went down this path in the first place is because two of the early pieces I read, many years ago now, did offer such list based classifications. The first was in the very first general film studies text I read, Warren Buckland's "Teach Yourself Film Studies" where the author briefly examines Film Noir and lists seven of Noir's main attributes.

The second was in Gaye Ortiz and Clive Marsh's "Explorations in Theology and Film: An Introduction" which is now 20 years old and which has not dated as well as some of its contemporaries. The chapter in question was Robert Banks' "The Drama of Salvation in George Stevens's Shane" which started by listing the key characteristics of the Western. Both pieces very much caught my attention and have acted as doorways to discovering two genres that I have a real love for. Nevertheless, I've only read one subsequent piece of scholarship on these genres that attempts genre classification by list, and crucially I was not able to rediscover it to mention it here.

Anyway, this approach is not generally favoured by most authors on genre studies. One of the main reasons for this is that such lists are inevitably part of a self-fulfilling circle. If I define a genre, I do so with reference to a particular list of films that qualify for that genre, but if I start with a list of films and seek to draw out their shared characteristics then the question arises as to on what basis these particular films were selected in the first place. There's more I could say on this, but for a footnote this has already gone on quite a lot and I should probably press on and wrap it up.

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- Banks, Robert (1997) “The Drama of Salvation in George Stevens’s Shane,” in Explorations in Theology and Film, Marsh & Ortiz (eds.), Oxford: Blackwell, 59-65
- Buckland, Warren (1998) "Teach Yourself Film Studies", London: Hodder & Stoughton.
- Grace, Pamela. (2009) The Religious Film:Christianity and the Hagiopic, Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
- Lindsay, Richard A. (2015), Hollywood Biblical Epics: Camp Spectacle and Queer Style from the Silent Era to the Modern Day, Santa Barbara, California/Denver, Colorado: Praeger.
- Wood, Michael. ([1975] 1989) America in the Movies, New York: Columbia University Press

The Sign of the Cross (1932)

DeMille's Sign of the Cross is notorious for being the film that brought about censorship in American cinema. A quick image search confirms DeMille's instinct for the public's appetite. Claudette Colbert's nipples poking out of a bath of milk might seem tame today - even compared to the occasional pop video - but clearly these shots still hold a certain appeal. DeMille knew his audience.

I want to focus on other aspects of the film though because whilst it certainly showcases the worst of DeMille's excesses (titillation offset by faux piety, over-wrought melodrama and a kitschy sense of spectacle) it also displays some of his trademark touches and some of his best work.

The plot is, like so many Roman-Christian epics the story of two people from different backgrounds meeting, falling in love with the Roman finally converting to Christianity. And it's to this film's credit that it doesn't import a whole bunch of biblical characters as various versions of Quo Vadis? do. The only character mentioned in the Bible (aside, I suppose, from cryptic references to Nero in Revelation) is Titus, who has been sent by Paul from Jerusalem.

Interestingly though Titus' entrance suggests that he is Peter. He walks in, the sunlight illuminating his bearded face, and clutching a huge staff. Titus meets Favius, the two are arrested as part of Nero's post-fire crackdown on the Christians and the two are saved by the intervention of the Christian girl, Mercia, and Nero's second in command Marcus. The two fall in love and the rest of the film is driven by their growing love and the resulting negotiation about who is going to adopt to who's world.

As is often the case with these early-Christian films there are various quotations from the New Testament: a compound version "blessed are the meek" and "the first shall be last and the last shall be first" ("The meek will take the place of the mighty"; exhortation to be like children"; recitation of some of the beatitudes in the background; and a summary of Luke's account of the second thief on the cross.

The looseness of these quotations is certainly acceptable - after all the film tells us at the start that this is 64 AD and, according to most scholars, the gospels are yet to be written. We are also given Titus' account of seeing Jesus on the road to Calvary.

However the real triumph of this film is it's use of the camera. The print available in the DeMille collection is really good, and it reveals some beautiful composed and lit shots. Colbert in the milk bath is tawdry; but the shot of Mercia's and Marcus heading up the steps to their deaths I could look at for a good while. The various underground prison scenes are also wonderful, eerily lit and often shot from a low angle.

But it's after 95 minutes when there are three shots that are simply stunning - the kind of innovative and tricky long shot that would have been particularly difficult to execute in 1932. They pre-date Welles and most of Hitchcock's work and in that light are certainly innovative. The first is a pan down a three story section of the Colosseum stair well. It starts fairly close to capture one couple's conversation before panning down to capture a conversation on the next level before descending to ground level and coming to rest just behind a stall where various other conversations of passers-by are overheard.

There's a brief close-up of one of these conversations before the film's finest shot. The camera begins with a close up of a poster detailing the day's events. It then zooms in panning down at the last minute to go through the bars of the Coliseum's cells starting with a high shot before zooming in close to some of the conversations amongst the frightened Christians. It's an immensely impressive piece of camera work as evidenced by the acclaim that Orson Welles gained for a similar shot 9 years later in Citizen Kane.

The third such shot is that opf gladiators processing out at the start of the games. Here the camera starts wide, takes in a lot of the procession before zooming all the way in on Nero (Charles Laughton).

Once the games begin the scenes in the coliseum are also very interesting. In contrast to these long takes leading up to the games, the fights themselves feature a lot of short shots. But for most of this segment the focus is actually on the audience. It's true that from time to time DeMille can't help but dwell on the spectacle he has laid before us (a little like Nero perhaps?) but overall it's the crowds reaction, some horrified, but most enraptured, or focussed on gambling that is what seems important, and it's certainly a damning indictment of the coliseum's punters. These are very well constructed montages for the most part. The close up shots of rabid crazed viewers, occasionally mixed with a more 20th century reaction or a shot of what they are watching make disturbing viewing. This contrasts with more recent films such as Gladiator which want us to enjoy the fighting and in which the audience is largely faceless and very much in the background.

It's also interesting to see some of DeMille's touches from other films (particularly 1927's The King of Kings. The love of exotic animals goes into overdrive here: lions, leopards, elephants, bears, bulls and crocodiles (shown from ground level). We also see the technique from King of Kings whereby writing initially in a foreign language dissolves into English. And then there are the wire bikini tops...

So Sign of the Cross is a film full of contradictions. The publicity revolved around Colbert and Laughton, but they are only supporting roles to Fredric March and Elissa Landi. It's an exhortation to Christianity and Christian values but revels in it's titillation and erotic imagery. It's best known for that fact, but should be more widely celebrated for showcasing some of DeMille's best work. And then whilst it tells us so much about what made Emile tick it also asks some probing questions about our tendency towards inhumanity. And the scandal of the film, as well as the gospel is that the true sign of the cross is for those in the baying crowds just as much as those brave enough to go to their deaths without even a whimper.

DVD Review: Quo Vadis?

Warner Home Video
Run time: 174 mins
Rating: Not Rated
Aspect Ratio: 4:3
Region: Region 1
Audio: English-DD Mono
French-DD Mono
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, Japanese
Number of discs: 2
Extras: Commentary, Trailers, Featurette,
ASIN: B00005JN8Z
When the post-war film studios realised that their future lay in giving their audiences the kind of visual stunning experience that they couldn't get from their televisions, Warner Brothers' first major effort was Quo Vadis?. Henryk Sienkiewicz's Roman-Christian novel had already spawned two large scale silent epics - the first of which was said to inspire D.W. Griffith's ground-breaking Intolerance. The "new" version would be even more impressive. On-location filming and 30,000 extras offering up the kind of spectacle that would pull people away from their TVs and into the cinema.

So it's kind of ironic to be reviewing a DVD release that seeks to bring that original spectacle and theatrical experience of watching Quo Vadis? into our living rooms. Warner Home Video's new 2-disc release promises a "new ultra-resolution digital transfer" and a restored soundtrack. And for anyone who is happy with their existing DVD or VHS release, there's a selection of extra features to make the new package a little more enticing. I'll start by reviewing the extras, before offering a few comments on the quality of the transfer at the end.
Commentary by F.X. Feeney
Film commentaries are something of a mixed bag. Whilst the best produce a far greater appreciation of a particular film's depth, the worst veer into extreme tedium, or worse still, ego-centric back slapping. Thankfully this is a very much an example of the former. I'm unfamiliar with Feeney's previous work, but his efforts here are far more interesting than his billing as a "film historian" suggests. Feeney has clearly done his homework and manages to pepper his commentary with an intriguing mix of tidbits regarding the movie's creation, through to fascinating interpretations of the film's use of cinematic language. It's this diversity that makes the commentary such a success. Often a lone commentator comes across as somewhat one-dimensional, but Feeney successfully changes gears from talking about the novel, to the issues surrounding the film's long pre-production to analysing the final product. At 174 minutes it hardly surprising that Feeney dries up a little in the second half, which may also be due to his love for the film's climax getting the better of him. I don't think I've ever listened to a DVD commentary twice, but, in this case I think it may well be a possibility.

Trailers
Both the theatrical trailer and the original teaser trailer are included. It's perhaps a testimony of the extent to which Ben Hur subsequently overshadowed Quo Vadis? that there are no later TV trailers as there are with other epic films from this era. The teaser trailer only shows one shot from the film - one of Marcus's army marching into the centre of Rome. As you'd expect there's a bit more in the longer theatrical trailer which shows a couple of long shots but mainly occupies its time by introducing all the main characters and boasting about the movie's "colossal" size. And, as if to force the point home, this version of the trailer runs for over five minutes.Featurette - In the Beginning: Quo Vadis and the Genesis of the Biblical Epic
A lot of DVDs these days tend to break up their documentary content into a number of shorter featurettes, each covering a specific area. It makes it seems like potential purchasers are getting more for their money. So it's nice to see a longer documentary here which eschews such an approach. That said it does appear that this may have been on the cards at one point as in places the documentary feels a little segmented. It start with a look at the background to Sienkiewicz's novel and quickly moves on to look at the two silent film versions of the story from 1913 and 1925. There's some brief footage from both films which is nice to see, but also leaves you wanting more. Given the recent releases of Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments - both of which included their 1920s predecessors as extra features - it would have been nice to see these included as well.

The documentary then looks at the pre-WWII plans for making the film. Whilst Robert Taylor was originally lined up to play Marcus Vinicius, it soon began to look like Gregory Peck would play the Roman commander. Peck was the preferred choice of the director who was originally meant to be making the film - John Huston. But when Peck was forced to drop out, Huston left the picture too. But despite all these setbacks, the project carried on. Mervyn Le Roy was drafted in to direct and Taylor was returned to the role 15 years after it had originally been discussed.

We then move on to hear about various aspects of the production itself: the performance of the leads, the design of sets and costumes, Miklós Rózsa score and so on. This is perhaps the most interesting part if the featurette, and the interview with the son of matte artist Peter Ellenshaw was particularly fascinating.

The final segment of the documentary looks at its marketing, audience reception, and its influence on later biblical epics, the claims here are perhaps a little too grand. Whilst Quo Vadis? was indeed a landmark epic, and certainly influential on the Jesus Cameo films that followed in its footsteps, it was DeMille who really kickstarted the epic craze of the fifties with his 1949 Samson and Delilah, and his second stab at The Ten Commandments. But that said, the tendency for the 50s epics to comment on (the then) modern day America does owe something of a debt to Quo Vadis?, which, the documentary points out, is made fairly explicit throughout the film, most notably at the end.Transfer Quality
Having only previously seen Quo Vadis? on VHS, I personally was impressed by the picture quality, but then, I'm not an expert on such matters and was only watching it on a standard television set. But it appears not everyone shares my opinion and several of the experts (DVD Times, DVD Talk and DVD Review) are fairly critical. However, even having read their criticisms I'm not sure I can see what they see. Perhaps it's one of those half empty/half full things. The aspect ratio is 4:3 as the original film was (it would not be until The Robe two years later that widescreen was introduced) and there are no criticisms about the overly zealous cropping and so on.

Overall
Whilst some have a few quibbles with the quality of the transfer, overall this seems to me to be a strong release. Feeney's commentary is excellent and the featurette is well paced and interesting. Whilst I've not been able to compare this release with the earlier one-disc version, I've been led to believe that the picture quality is a significant improvement, and it's certainly a major improvement to the VHS version. Having said all that, the Blu-Ray edition of this disc is due to come out next year, and, according to DVD Beaver it offers a significant improvement again in picture quality, and manages to fit the film and all of the same extras onto a single disc.

Quo Vadis Coming to DVD

Peter Chattaway has the news that 1951's Quo Vadis is finally getting a DVD release. The film, which is the most famous of at least 8 different adaptations of Henry Siekiewicz's novel, is due for release to DVD in November, with a Blu-Ray edition due in time for Easter 2009.

In addition to being the most expensive film ever made at the time of its release, Quo Vadis is famous for Peter Ustinov's startling performance as Nero, and for giving film débuts to two of cinema's most iconic stars - Elizabeth Taylor and Sophia Loren.

A press release from Warner Home Video promises a new documentary on the making of the film and a commentary by filmmaker/writer F.X. Feeney. I'll post more details as I get them.