Of Muscles and Men
ALSO BY MICHAEL G. CORNELIUS
The Boy Detectives: Essays on the Hardy Boys
and Others (McFarland, 2010)
Nancy Drew and Her Sister Sleuths: Essays on
the Fiction of Girl Detectives (McFarland, 2008)
Of Muscles and Men
Essays on the Sword
and Sandal Film
Edited by MICHAEL G. CORNELIUS
McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina, and London
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Of muscles and men : essays on the sword and sandal film /
edited by Michael G. Cornelius.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-7864-6162-2
softcover : 50# alkaline paper
1. Epic films— History and criticism. 2. Masculinity in
motion pictures. 3. Men in motion pictures. I. Cornelius, Michael G.
PN1995.9.E79O42 2011
791.43' 652 — dc23
2011030754
BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE
© 2011 Michael G. Cornelius. All rights reserved
No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.
On the cover: Reg Park in the title role of Hercules in the Haunted World, 1961; details from poster art of the films (top) Atlas, 1961
and (bottom) Samson and the Seven Miracles of the World, 1961
Front cover design by Mark Berry (www.hot-cherry.co.uk)
Manufactured in the United States of America
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Table of Contents
Introduction — Of Muscles and Men: The Forms and Functions of the Sword and Sandal Film
MICHAEL G. CORNELIUS
1
Hercules, Politics, and Movies
MARIA ELENA D’AMELIO
15
Hero Trouble: Blood, Politics, and Kinship in Pasolini’s Medea KRISTI M. WILSON
28
“To do or die manfully”: Performing Heteronormativity in
Recent Epic Films
JERRY B. PIERCE
40
From Maciste to Maximus and Company: The Fragmented
Hero in the New Epic
ANDREW B. R. ELLIOTT
58
Reverent and Irreverent Violence: In Defense of Spartacus, Conan, and Leonidas
JOHN ELIA
75
“Civilization ... ancient and wicked”: Historicizing the
Ideological Field of 1980s Sword and Sandal Films
KEVIN M. FLANAGAN
87
Homer’s Lies, Brad Pitt’s Thighs: Revisiting the Pre-Oedipal Mother and the German Wartime Father in Wolfgang
Petersen’s Troy
ROBERT C. PIRRO
104
An Enduring Logic: Homer, Helen of Troy, and Narrative Mobility
LARRY T. SHILLOCK
124
v
vi
Table of Contents
“By Jupiter’s Cock!” Spartacus: Blood and Sand, Video Games, and Camp Excess
DAVID SIMMONS
144
Beefy Guys and Brawny Dolls: He-Man, the Masters of the
Universe, and Gay Clone Culture
MICHAEL G. CORNELIUS
154
Developments in Peplum Filmmaking: Disney’s Hercules
CHRIS PALLANT
175
Hercules Diminished? Parody, Differentiation, and Emulation in The Three Stooges Meet Hercules
DANIEL O’BRIEN
187
About the Contributors
203
Index
207
Introduction
Of Muscles and Men: The Forms
and Functions of the Sword
and Sandal Film
MICHAEL G. CORNELIUS
Cinematic classification by genre is largely derivative of particular tones or atmospheres that films themselves reflect. These tonally descriptive monikers assume and imbue other characteristics onto a film so identified — distinctive qualities related to characterization, plot development, artistic style, and other such filmic expectations, however loosely defined — but identifying film genre tends to begin from a generic quality that acts as an indicator of the prevailing emotional mood or, indeed, tone of a work. A horror film, for example, seeks to create a sense of fear in its audience; while there are numerous differing permutations of the horror film, aspects that operate as differentiae to the overall species, horror films in general strive to create the same type of generic tone from one film to the other, regardless of subgenre, approach, or purpose: in short, they wish to make the viewer afraid. Other films genres work from this same guiding principle: romantic films create a tone reflective of sexual love and the coming together of two individuals; medical dramas generate an atmosphere that pivots on the generic “race-to-find-the-cure”; action films use explosions, car chases, and relentless pacing to establish a “rock-’em sock-’em” style and mood. Comedies make audiences laugh, tragedies cause them to weep, and thrillers bring them to the edge of their seats in breathless anticipation. Even the names of seemingly more esoterically-derived genres, such as fantasy and science fiction, reflect the tone of the films, where auteurs work to establish a mood that is either fantastical or, conversely, rooted in human visions, expectations, and anxieties over technology, exploration, and the future (i.e., fictions of science). Thus regardless of the nature and origin of each film genre, its appellation tends to develop from the particular tone or atmosphere the genre is most specifically connected to, is derived from and within, and/or works to re-craft, re-envision, and recreate.1
1
2
Introduction
There are two significant exceptions to this rule.2 The first is the Western, whose name is obviously derivative of the specific setting of these films. Though the setting is often less literal than it may seem (Westerns need not be set in the western portion of the United States, as Michael Mann’s version of James Fenimore Cooper’s The Last of the Mohicans [1992], for example, set in New York state during the French and Indian War, shows, and Westerns may not even be set in the United States at all, such as Ramesh Sippy’s Sholay [1975], a Western set in India, or Tony Richardson’s Ned Kelly [2003], an Australian interpretation of the genre, to name just two instances), and the classification of “Western” has come to be as evocative of tone and atmosphere as “fantasy”
or “horror” is, it is certainly true that the genre’s specific name-origin did not evolve from tone but rather place. Setting, then, becomes an essential characteristic in the crafting of a Western film itself; regardless of when the film is set, or what other liberties (of hundreds of possibilities) filmmakers may decide to take in creating the film, setting is essential to the Western movie; though not all Western films are specifically set in the southwestern United States, the landscape and place inherent to these films evokes that essential setting, replicating its bleak, panoramic rurality and often isolated, minimalist, “frontier”
urbanity regardless of where or when a film is actually situated. Thus setting is, essentially, the definitive characteristic of the Western film, and the genre’s name reflects this fundamentality; just as horror films must evoke horror, and fantasy films must evoke the fantastic (and romance films roma
nce, etc.), so, too, must Western films evoke and conjure a strong sense of the American West to be classified as part of that particular genre.
The other exception from naming film genres based on tone, and perhaps the more interesting illustration, is the sword and sandal film. The sword and sandal film derives its common name from two objects, two aspects of a material culture that are recurrently utilized by the protagonists of the films themselves.
It is the only genre of film thus named, and as such the premium placed on these objects, and other like representative aspects of the material continuum universally common to these films, insists that the discerning viewer question the relevance and significance of these objects to the overall genre itself. To put it plainly, the particular question this genre’s name begs is, why swords? Why sandals? On the surface, the two objects appear to have little in common; indeed, they are almost diametrically opposed to the other in form, function, appearance, and significance. Swords, of course, are martial objects; they are distinctly masculine and often representative of the phallus. They can be viewed as objects of worship or great significance, especially in fantasy epics, such as John Boorman’s Excalibur (1981) and other films based on the Arthurian tradition, but in sword and sandal movies swords tend to be more functional, a tool for the hero to use in hewing down enemies, fighting off mythological beasts, and in general saving the day. Swords in these films are made of metal, and often reflect the common Roman legion gladius style, though in some more fantasy-derived
Introduction
3
sword and sandal movies, such as John Milius’ Conan the Barbarian (1982) and Don Cascarelli’s The Beastmaster (1982), the hero’s sword reflects contemporary re-envisionings of late medieval long sword design. In sword and sandal films, swords are almost always wielded by men, and are thus seen as distinct from objects that have a feminine or neutral sense of gender.3 Yet they can be brandished by both hero and villain alike, whose swords are often indistinguishable from the other. Indeed, in the films’ denouements, the sword is often lost or discarded, and the hero must look to his own strength, and his own hands, to save the day by crushing the monster, toppling the tower, or breaking the iron chains of bondage. Thus in sword and sandal films, swords are omnipresent, but usually in and of themselves not of utmost importance; largely they are an extension of the strongman hero himself, whose character and form acts cyno-surally to the narrative.
Sandals, while also omnipresent in these films, are certainly much more unobtrusive to the eye. They are usually simple, pedestrian objects reflecting notions of pseudoclassical or premodern leathercraft, and very rarely do they take a position of import within the film itself.4 Unlike swords, sandals reflect gender neutrality, as they are worn by men and women alike in the films. Symbolically speaking, footwear, according to Allison Protas, in its varying manifestations, denotes status: “Shoes might represent the lowly and the humble, or authority and power, depending upon the context.” Bare feet, since they are associated with slavery and freedom from confinement, often reflect liberty, or the emancipation of the individual from some form of bondage. Thus in the films the sandal could be construed as symbolic of both freedom and a status that is, perhaps, neither high nor low. However, the symbolic value of the sandal is diminished by the fact that they tend to be found on the feet of all characters in the film. Indeed, they may perhaps be considered a distinguishing feature of these films less for their commonality within this species of movies and more for their general absence from other filmic genres. They neither aid the hero in any significant way nor play any role of general prominence, literally or symbolically, under the auspices of the movies themselves. They are there largely because they reflect what modern audiences would expect to see on the feet of individuals during the time periods in which these films are generally set. They are functional, yes, but hardly vital.
Thus while neither object can be deemed essential to the genre as a whole or to the heroes of these films, and while these objects seem enormously distinct from one another on the surface, they must be deemed important, and perhaps even essential, if for no other reason than that the film genre’s name is derived from these two seemingly inconsequential objects. Yet what unites these two objects within the confines of these movies is what makes them essential to the sword and sandal genre overall: the sense of utility that connects them, one to the other, and to the sword and sandal hero himself. They are, in the end, both useful objects, sandals for motility and for establishing setting, and swords for
4
Introduction
violence, as a tool to aid the hero in his quest, and for further establishing the hyperdeveloped aura of masculinity that pervades these films. They are workmanlike matter; they function in particular ways for both the hero and the genre.
It is no surprise that the other common names for sword and sandal movies likewise reflect this same sense of utility that distinguishes the nomenclature of this film genre. In Italy, these films are often referred to as peplum, a name first coined by French critics in the early 1960s that refers to the short “skirt” or
“kilt” worn by the hero protagonists and other male characters in these films (after the Greek peplos, which began as a floor-length gown worn by Greek women and was eventually adapted by men into a garment that was shorter, more functional, and distinctly masculine in style and efficacy) (Günsberg 97–
98). The peplum can trace its roots to Italian historical epics of the pre–World War I silent era, commencing with Luigi Maggi’s Gli ultimi giorni de Pompei ( The Last Days of Pompeii) (1908). The addition of the muscleman figure to these films, who first appeared in the guise of the character Ursus in Enrico Guazzoni’s version of Quo vadis? (1913) but truly caught fire with the character of Maciste, a freed slave played by Bartolomeo Pagano in Giovanni Pastrone’s Cabiria (1914, often considered the first true peplum film), aided in cementing the parameters and dynamics of the sword and sandal genre itself. Maggie Günsberg defines the peplum as “a fantasy genre celebrating musclebound masculinity in heroic action in the distant prehistorical, pre-industrialized past” (97).
Peter Bondanella adds to this when he observes, “Peplum epics reject any neo-realist interest in historical accuracy, or even any postrealist interest in psychological depth” (162). Instead, Bondanella labels the films “neomythological,”
reflecting both the scope and intent of the genre itself (159). Describing the neomythic aspects of the genre, Patrick Lucanio suggests that the films are highly stylized pictorialism, played out in panoramic widescreen and luscious color
... where polarized forces of good and evil vie for superiority over mortal (and immortal) souls: political and social behavior are reduced to manageable opposites—
good and evil — where characters are clearly revealed as heroes and villains, and where notions of ideal moral behavior always triumph [2].
The peplum genre has been popular in Italy since Cabiria, though, like most film movements, its popularity has waxed and waned over the sprawl of the twentieth century. The growth of fascism in post–World War I Italy, culminating with the formation of the National Fascist Party in 1921, signaled a downturn in popularity for this First Wave of peplum heroes. Though individual peplum films were still made in Italy in the 1930s and 1940s, the genre did not return as a popular culture phenomenon until 1957, when Pietro Francisci directed a pair of low-budget Hercules films starring bodybuilder and former Mr. Universe Steve Reeves that became wildly popular not only in Italy but in the rest of Europe and North America as well. Both Le fatiche di Ercole (1958, released simply as Hercules in the United States in 1959) and Ercole e la regina di Lidi (released as Hercules Unchained in 1960) returned millions and millions
Introduction
5
of dollars in worldwide box office receipts. These successes prompted a slew of similar films, labeled the Second Wave of the peplum; Bondanella places the number of pepla made between 1957 and 1967 at 180 to 200 f
ilms, while Günsberg places the number closer to 300 (166, 97).5 By the late 1960s the peplum had again receded in popularity, only to return magnificently with a Third Wave of films in the early 1980s, with the advent of such movies as the Conan series, the Beastmaster series, Luigi Cozzi’s Hercules (1983) starring Lou Fer-rigno, and the original Clash of the Titans (1981). The Third Wave lasted approximately seven years, but spawned numerous films, and, for the first time, popular (children’s) television series including Thundarr the Barbarian (1980 –
1982); He-Man and the Masters of the Universe (first series, 1983 –1985); and She-Ra: Princess of Power (1985 –1987). The Fourth Wave of peplum film popularity commenced in 2000, when Ridley Scott’s Gladiator grossed over $457
million worldwide and took home five Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor.6 The genre has proven steadily if not spectacularly popular since, with such imitators as Wolfgang Petersen’s Troy (2004), Oliver Stone’s Alexander (2004), and Zack Snyder’s 300 (2006), though current box office and critical reception suggests that the genre may again be moving into one of its periodic stages of decline.7
It is noteworthy that the Second, Third, and Fourth Waves of peplum or sword and sandal films have all become popular in the United States during periods of relative political conservatism, and in a way, sword and sandal movies are considered generically conservative, ideologically and politically speaking.
The films are generally highly patriarchal, reinforcing traditional masculine and feminine societal roles, and espouse high moralistic standards (orgies, drug use, seduction, murder, and other such debaucheries are often depicted in these films, but those who partake tend to be on the villainous side and are usually destroyed by the film’s end). From this perspective, the values these films espoused in the mid–1950s, 1980s, and 2000s reflect traditional, “American”
political ideologies and ideals that were prevalent at those times: “righting wrongs, slaying enemies, and destroying marble palaces,” as one critic puts it (Chapman 4). Nonetheless, in many ways, the movies are also subversively ideological as well. Governments often fall in these films, which was seen as a selling point of the genre, as graphic posters routinely promised and depicted the fall of tyrants or the toppling of empires. Religious institutions were likewise viewed as untrustworthy, as authoritative religious leaders and brutal, totalitarian cults were frequent antagonists in these films as well. The strongman hero often fought for those too weak, too poor, or too disenfranchised to fight for themselves against a strong, patriarchal, central government or religious authority; rarely, indeed, was the hero fighting for himself, his own cause, or his own people. Thus while many of the social mores of the patristic tradition were maintained by these films, those institutions that generally work to establish the patriarchy were often the antagonistic counter to the heroic strongman,
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