Even so, these instances of the fragmented hero are sufficient to show, at the very least, that the New Epic hero has returned to the fray to find a very different battle playing out compared to the ones left behind in the 1960s. Where once in The Robe the “enemy within” would suffice to allow a patriotic, morally upright leader to vanquish all to the eternal gratitude of his compatriots, the degree of difference among ideological beliefs in the twenty-first century places insurmountable barriers against our heroes— barriers which no amount of Herculean muscle could tear down. In the introductory chapter to his book Heroes, Paul Johnson offers an appealing definition of the hero, drawn from Homer, as “a name given to men of superhuman strength, courage or ability”
(xii). Where once this might have held true for the Homeric hero, one of the solutions employed by recent epics is to interpret the plural “men” of Johnson’s quotation as a very real plurality. These “men” reflect a fragmentation of the heroic role into a loose grouping of individuals who each embody one or more of the qualities demanded of our hero, rather than adopting strict categories of heroic values. By incorporating all of these values, the New Epic has offered us a new type of hero motif, one who is no longer superhuman but is, Leviathan-like, merely the sum of the best in each of us. To return to our adage of a society getting the heroes it deserves, perhaps this kind of loose-knit grouping, whose whole is greater than the sum of its parts, might well turn out to be precisely the kind of hero the twenty-first century will need.
NOTES
1. By the term New Epic, I mean to indicate the renaissance of films released between 2000 and the present which deal to a greater or lesser extent with classical, ancient, or
From Maciste to Maximus and Company (Elliott) 73
mythological topics, and whose emergence is traditionally accredited to Scott’s Gladiator.
One of the most persuasive arguments for this comes in Jeffrey Richards’ Hollywood’s Ancient Worlds (London: Continuum, 2008), in which he argues, “The astonishing worldwide success of Ridley Scott’s Roman epic Gladiator in 2000 single-handedly revived a cinematic genre that had been moribund for 35 years” (1).
2. For an excellent overview of the problems of the use of this term, see Pomeroy 29 –
59.
3. This is certainly the argument proposed by David Chapman in his interesting study of the peplum posters and lobby cards of the era, which allow a great deal of speculation on the audiences sought for the films.
4. It is interesting, and somewhat ironic, to note that in 300 (2006, a loose remake of The 300 Spartans), King Leonidas should find himself reinvented as a kind of neo-forzuto figure, whose exposed body serves as an index of virility, power, and male spectacle. The major difference, however, between 300’ s muscleman and his predecessor in the peplum is that the potency and virility serves as a kind of synecdoche which implies that the whole state of Sparta is cut from the same cloth; in this case, then, the exposed male body serves a politico-ideological function in and of itself.
5. For more on the encoding of agendas in late 1950s and early 1960s Hollywood epics, see Kevin J. Harty, “Agenda Layered Upon Agenda: Anthony Mann’s 1961 Film El Cid,” Hollywood and the Holy Land: Essays on Film Depictions of the Crusades and Christian-Muslim Clashes (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010), 161–68; Andrew Elliott,
“Chapter One : History, Historiography and Film,” Remaking the Middle Ages: The Methods of Cinema and History in Portraying the Medieval World (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010); and Alan Lupack, “An Enemy in Our Midst: The Black Knight and The American Dream,” Cinema Arthuriana: Twenty Essays (Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2002), 64 –70.
6. Here I am referring to the “history” offered by the film. The historical Romulus did last a little longer than a day, though his reign was indeed over in a matter of mere months.
WORKS CITED
Agora. Dir. Alejandro Amenábar. Mod Producciones, Himenóptero, 2009.
Arroyo, Jose. Action/Spectacle Cinema: A Sight and Sound Reader. London: British Film Institute, 2000.
Aziza, Claude. Le péplum, un mauvais genre. Paris: Klincksieck, 2009.
La Battaglia di Maratona / Giant of Marathon. Dir. Jacques Tourneur. Galatea Film, 1959.
Beowulf. Dir. Robert Zemeckis. Paramount Pictures, 2007.
Beowulf and Grendel. Dir. Sturla Gunnarsson. Movision, Darklight Films, 2005.
Cabiria. Dir. Giovanni Patrone. Kino Video, 1914.
Cawelti, John. The Six-Gun Mystique. Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green University Popular Press, 1970.
Centurion. Dir. Neil Marshall. 20th Century–Fox, 2010.
Chapman, David. Retro Stud: Muscle Movie Posters from Around the World. Portland, OR: Collectors Press, 2002.
Clash of the Titans. Dir. Desmond Davis. MGM, 1981.
Clash of the Titans. Dir. Louis Leterrier. Warner Bros., 2010.
Demetrius and the Gladiators. Dir. Delmer Daves. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, 1954.
Dyer, Richard. White. London: Routledge, 1997.
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Ercole l’invincibile / Son of Hercules in the Land of Darkness. Dir. Alvaro Mancori. Metheus Film, 1964.
Ercole, Sansone, Maciste e Ursus gli invincibili / Samson and the Mighty Challenge. Dir.
Giorgio Capitano. Films Regent, PE Films, 1964.
The Fall of the Roman Empire. Dir. Anthony Mann. Universal Pictures, 1964.
Le Fatiche di Ercole / Hercules. Dir. Pietro Francisci. Galatea Film, 1958.
Gladiator. Dir. Ridley Scott. Universal Pictures, 2000.
Hark, Ina Rae. “Animals or Romans: Looking at Masculinity in Spartacus.” Screening the Male: Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema. Eds. Steven Cohan and Ina Rae Hark. London: Routledge, 1993. 151–172.
Johnson, Paul. Heroes: From Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar to Churchill and de Gaulle. New York: HarperCollins, 2007.
Kingdom of Heaven. Dir. Ridley Scott. 20th Century–Fox, 2005.
Lagny, Michèle. “Popular Taste: The Peplum.” Popular European Cinema. Eds. Richard Dyer and Ginette Vincendeau. London: Routledge, 1992. 163 –80.
The Last Legion. Dir. Doug Lefler. Dino Di Laurentiis Company, Ingenious Film Partners, 2007.
Lee, Christina. “Lock and Load(up): The Action Body in The Matrix.” Continuum: Journal of Media and Cultural Studies 19.4 (2005): 559 –569.
Maciste e la regina di Samar / Hercules Against Moon Men. Dir. Giacomo Gentilomo.
CFFP, Governor Films, Nike Cinematografica, 1964.
Maciste l’eroe piu’ grande del mondo / Goliath and the Sins of Babylon. Dir. Michele Lupo.
Eagle, 1963.
Neale, Steve. “Masculinity as Spectacle: Reflections on Men and Mainstream Cinema.”
Screening the Male: Exploring Masculinities in Hollywood Cinema. Eds. Steven Cohan and Ina Rae Hark. London: Routledge, 1993. 9 –20.
Nowell-Smith, Geoffrey, James Hay, and Gianni Volpi, eds. The Companion to Italian Cinema. London: BFI, 1996.
Pomeroy, Arthur John. Then It Was Destroyed by the Volcano: The Ancient World in Film and on Television. London: Duckworth, 2008.
The Robe. Dir. Henry Koster. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, 1953.
Spartacus. Dir. Stanley Kubrick. Universal Pictures, 1960.
Spartacus: Blood and Sand. Dirs. Michael Warn, Rick Hurst, Jesse Jacobson. Starz Productions, 2010.
Tasker, Yvonne. Action and Adventure Cinema. London: Routledge, 2004.
_____. Spectacular Bodies: Gender, Genre and the Action Cinema. London: Routledge, 2000.
300. Dir. Zack Snyder. Warner Bros., 2006.
The 300 Spartans. Dir. Rudolph Maté. Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation, 1962.
Young, Timothy. “The Mondo-Esoterica Guide to the Peplum.” The Mondo-Esoterica Guide to The Peplum. 1 Feb 2011. Web.
≥i±ek, Slavoj. Violence: Six Sideways Reflections. London: Profile, 2009.
Reverent and
Irreve
rent Violence
In Defense of Spartacus,
Conan, and Leonidas
JOHN ELIA
According to philosopher and playwright Paul Woodruff, reverence is a
“forgotten” virtue, praised by ancient peoples across many cultures but lost to the modern world (3). He is surely right: loss of reverence is reflected in the absence of ritual and tradition in contemporary social life; in the incessant drive to innovate, recreate, start fresh; in the degradation of communities and environments; and in thin, ahistorical moral outlooks, which place more emphasis on abstract right and wrong than on particular practices, customs, relationships, and traditions.
Reverence, as Woodruff sees it, is a recognition of one’s place in the world, and a capacity to think, feel, and act skillfully in response to that place (4).
Heroic narratives were, in classical Greece, important vehicles for sharing an understanding of reverence, and since heroes, because of hyper-ability or semi-divine status, were both sheltered and tested by the gods, they needed reverence and yet were unusually tempted to forego it. There is no better place to display one’s excellence and to lose it than in the agon, or contest, especially the contest of war.
Though Conan the Barbarian is surely no Achilles or Odysseus, sword and sandal films are not just fun distractions. They are worth taking seriously. One can find in them intimations of the lost reverence that Woodruff has in mind, so beautifully depicted in ancient heroic narratives such as those of Homer.
Like their Greek ancestors, sword and sandal films focus on a hero’s journey, making violent contest central to the audience’s experience, and putting on display the hero’s excellences, whether muscular body or swordsmanship or integrity. While the campier films in the genre surely misunderstand the com-75
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plexity of violence, more sophisticated entries can be understood to challenge simple conceptions of violence while treating heroic violence as an exercise in testing and confirming the importance of reverence.
Many of the films in the sword and sandal genre are framed by irreverent exploitation and force, which a hero (or heroes) must then work to avenge.
Though these films are chock full of fantasy violence and, increasingly, blood-shed, engagement with characters such as Spartacus, Conan, or King Leonidas can deepen one’s understanding of violence and its costs, especially violence untempered by heroic reverence. The sword and sandal genre often follows a narrative of return and making whole again, borrowed from Greek epic poetry; however, the best films in the genre show, like their Greek epic counterparts, that the success of violent return is often, if not always, a myth. Ultimately, films such as Conan the Barbarian (1982) or 300 (2006) can in no way supplant Homer’s treatment of war in the Iliad or of journey in the Odyssey; yet they are about something of the same business.
The Nature of Reverence
Reverence is “to take care never to play the part of god or beast” (Woodruff 220). More specifically, says Woodruff, it is the refined capacity to have the feelings of awe, respect, and shame when these are the right feelings to have (8).
Shame is a powerful negative emotion attending to violations of excellence or dignity. Respect is more positive, often a response to the excellence or dignity of others. Awe has largely positive connotations in contemporary society, but also some, perhaps lost, negative ones— to be awed is to stand checked or corrected, put in one’s place; awe is responsive to high ideals, godly excellence, natural beauty, immensity, or perfection, and as such can be as terrifying as it is inspiring.
Woodruff ’s claim is not that modern peoples no longer have the capacity to feel shame, respect, and awe, for that is not the case, and if it were, a call to renew reverence would be misplaced. Rather, it is that this particular constellation of feelings, attitudes, and actions once had a name and a resonance within accepted systems of values (Woodruff talks specifically of ancient Greece and China, though other instances are surely available), and that, in losing track of it, one loses an understanding of the central role that reverence plays in a well-ordered life, family, and community.
Reverence and violence have a complex relationship. Reverence may sometimes require violence and personal risk because to do otherwise would be to fail in some way to honor important values. Yet reverence must always temper violence, since aggressive conflict invites one to lose sight of one’s values.
Woodruff, in addition to being a playwright and philosopher, is a Vietnam veteran. His book shares some anecdotes about his experiences, but also points to
Reverent and Irreverent Violence (Elia) 77
the central ambiguity surrounding violence and reverence. Warring has great costs, both morally and psychologically; probably, he claims, enough to make one eschew war altogether. Yet, says Woodruff,
I believe that wars can be fought by reverent people. This may be the most controversial suggestion I make here, but it has foundations as deep as Homer’s Iliad. If it were not so, then we could not pick out, as Homer does, failures of reverence in the opposing armies. A reverent soldier does not go on a rampage, desecrating enemy bodies or killing enemy soldiers who have become harmless. A reverent soldier takes no joy in killing, and he never forgets that the human beings on the other side are just that — human [32].
In spite of all of the pain and suffering violence causes, it happens; the best one can do is to prepare not to forget one’s humanity and the humanity of others, and to preserve the values one ought always continue to be awed by, even at the height of conflict and competition.
As Woodruff suggests, epic poems such as the Iliad and Odyssey are of special assistance here, because while they often dramatize heroic violence, they also emphasize its tragic elements. Recall Achilles’s complaint to Agamemnon in Book 1 of Homer’s Illiad:
How are you going to get any Greek warrior
To follow you into battle again? You know,
I don’t have any quarrel with the Trojans,
They didn’t do anything to me to make me
Come over here and fight, didn’t run off my cattle or horses Or ruin my farmland back home in Phthia, not with all
The shadowy mountains and moaning seas between.
It’s for you, dogface, for your precious pleasure —
And Menelaus’ honor — that we came here,
A fact you don’t have the decency to mention!
And now you’re threatening to take away the prize
That I sweated for and the Greeks gave me [ Iliad 1.160 –171].
Achilles is preparing to help sack Troy, and he is not getting the spoils his valiant efforts deserve. Indeed, he wonders why he is even fighting for Agamemnon.
And now Agamemnon has threatened to take away the beautiful Briseis, Achilles’s war prize. Achilles had dared to tell Agamemnon to give his own prize, Chryseis, back to her father, in order to mollify Apollo’s rage (Chryse, her father, had asked Apollo for help after Agamemnon rebuffed his attempt to ransom her back from the Greeks). Achilles’s anger will keep him out of the fight with the Trojans only for so long, however, since he will come to hold himself responsible for the death of his good friend Patroclus, to whom he loaned his prized armor. Indeed, many heroes, on both sides, will die tragically in these battles. The Lycian Sarpedon, for instance, is speared in the leg while fighting for the Trojans; he then takes on the role of supplicant to the Trojan warrior, Hector:
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Son of Priam, don’t let me lie here
As prey for the Greeks. Help me.
If I must die, let me die in your city,
Since I will never return to my own land
To make glad my wife and infant son [ Iliad 5.738 –742].
Achilles himself will violate expectations of care for the dead after he kills Hector and defiles Hector’s body. To Hector, Achilles says, “Die and be done with it. As for my fate, / I’ll accept it whenever Zeus sends it” ( Il
iad 22.405 –
406). Achilles’s own demise has been foretold: he recognizes that his violation of reverence for the dead and for rituals of mourning are going to cost him; his drive for battlefield glory has gotten the best of him, as Homer helps the audience to understand so clearly.
These tales complicate and test naive attitudes about violence. They recognize that war is an always difficult and sometimes absurd fact of the hero’s life, as they depict his conquest and his tragic loss, his excellence and its necessary undoing. As the philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre puts it: The Homeric epics are narratives which recount a series of contests. In the Iliad the character of these contests is gradually transformed until it is acknowledged in the confrontation between Achilles and Priam that to win is also to lose and that in the face of death winning and losing no longer divide [137].1
Reverence is complicated for the hero, since he must have it in order to negotiate his human responsibilities, and yet his special heroic capacities require him to push up against its limits: caught between humanity and divinity, the hero must strive to display his godlike qualities while tragically being disciplined by a mortality he cannot shed.
Reverence and Violence in the Sword and
Sandal Film
As a genre, the contemporary sword and sandal epic has its origin in the Italian peplum films of the 1950s and 60s (Bondanella 159 –162). Italian cinema’s interest in the hero epic prefigures the peplum film, however. The early Italian silent film, Cabiria (1914), introduced audiences to the heroic strongman Maciste (an alternative name for Hercules), whose character and characteristics would be reproduced hundreds of times in the ensuing decades, from Hercules and Jason in the Italian pepla to some figures better known to American moviegoing audiences, including Spartacus ( Spartacus 1960), Conan ( Conan the Barbarian), and King Leonidas ( 300).
The peplum films had a largely working-class Italian audience, less concerned with great acting and dialogue than with heroes and action (and a movie theater in which they could smoke). Like the spaghetti westerns that would
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