Antique film
The antique film is a film genre that includes all those films whose action is set in ancient times. Historical events and people, Greco - Roman mythology and ancient and modern literature serve as a template . Another variety is the Bible film .
history
With the transition from silent film to sound film, antique film disappeared from the screen. The audience was interested in the music film , which brought the technical innovations to better advantage. Cecil B. DeMille therefore had considerable difficulty in finding a studio at all that would take over the financing of In the Sign of the Cross (1932). However, the tight funds were enough for numerous daring scenes that attracted the audience in droves. He was able to repeat this success two films later with Cleopatra (1934). In contrast to these two Paramount productions , RKO Pictures had far fewer problems with censorship with The Downfall of Pompeii (1935). Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack used spectacular special effects that were created under the supervision of Willis O'Brien . The costs could only be paid in with the re-performance fourteen years later.
Two more antique films were made in Europe under entirely different political circumstances. Although German films were already largely under the control of the Nazi state , Ufa , which had not yet been nationalized, managed to produce Amphitryon (1935). Reinhold Schünzel staged the musical comedy in the style of his earlier sound film operettas. A completely different work, however, came out in fascist Italy under the direction of Carmine Gallone . The propaganda film Karthagos Fall (1937) fell through at the box office despite its elaborately designed crowd scenes.
British filmmaking paid special attention to domestic theater. Gabriel Pascal had already filmed two plays by the playwright George Bernard Shaw when he presented his most elaborate film, Caesar and Cleopatra (1945). For the first time, an antique film was shot entirely in color. The unexpectedly long and difficult filming during the final year of the war made costs skyrocket. As a result, the RKO Radio Pictures for Androkles und der Löwe (1952) made only a small budget available to him. Color film was no longer an option for this comedy. That the work of the playwright William Shakespeare also found its way into the cinemas was due to the screen adaptation by Laurence Olivier . The success prompted Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer to try Julius Caesar (1953) on their own. Joseph L. Mankiewicz shot the large-scale production in black and white. The viewer should be impressed by the spectacle and not by the elaborate scenery.
After the war, the Italian film industry began producing antique films. The economic situation, however, enabled only slow progress. Only when the Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer with Quo vadis? (1951) first shot in Cinecittà , the tide turned. In the course of further Hollywood productions in Italy, the Italian antique film also took off. The producers Carlo Ponti and Dino De Laurentiis achieved a first high point with The Journeys of Odysseus (1954) and Attila, the Scourge of God (1954), for which they were able to engage Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn . Although the Italian film slid into an economic crisis in 1956, Pietro Francisci continued to rely on this film genre and shot The Incredible Adventures of Hercules (1958) with the former strength athlete Steve Reeves in the lead role. The US-American producer Joseph E. Levine recognized the potential that an ancient hero with supernatural powers placed at the center of a film plot and marketed the film in the USA with an extensive advertising campaign. The film was a huge success with the public. The increasing demand led to a veritable flood of similar films in Italian films, in which other American and Italian strength athletes were used as actors. The boom in Italian antique film finally ended in 1965 with the rise of the spaghetti western .
literature
- Eigler, Ulrich: Moving antiquity. Ancient themes in modern film, Stuttgart, Weimar: Metzler, 2002.
- Junkelmann, Marcus: Hollywood's dream of Rome. Gladiator and the tradition of monumental films, Mainz: Philipp von Zabern, 2004.
- Juraske, Alexander: Bibliography Antiquity and Film. In: Anzeiger für die Altertumswwissenschaft 59, 2006, H. 3–4, P. 129–178.
- Lindner, Martin (Hrsg.): Script history. The ancient world in the film. Münster: LIT, 2006 (Ancient culture and history, 7).
- Lindner, Martin: Rome and its emperors in a period film. Frankfurt am Main: Verl. Antike, 2007.
- Lochman, Tomas; Späth, Thomas ; Stähli, Adrian (ed.): Antiquity in the cinema. On the way to a cultural history of antique film, Basel: Skulpturhalle Basel, 2008.
- Meier, Mischa; Slanička, Simona (Ed.): Antiquity and the Middle Ages in Film. Construction - documentation - projection. Cologne: Böhlau, 2007 (contributions to historical culture, 29).
- Wieber, Anja: Antiquity moves: Antiquity, film and ancient language teaching. In: Der Altsprachliche Studium 48, 2005, H. 1, S. 4–12.
- Wieber, Anja: On sandals through the millennia - an introduction to the topic of "Antiquity and Film". In: Eigler, Ulrich (ed.): Moved antiquity. Ancient themes in modern film. Stuttgart; Weimar: Metzler, 2002, pp. 4-40.
- Wieber, Anja: Antiquity by the meter - more than a century of film history. In: Meier, Mischa; Slanička, Simona (Ed.): Antiquity and the Middle Ages in Film. Construction - documentation - projection. Cologne; Weimar; Vienna: Böhlau, 2007, pp. 19–40.
- Wieber-Scariot, Anja: Film. In: Landfester, Manfred (Ed.): Der Neue Pauly. Encyclopedia of Antiquity. History of Reception and Science, Vol. 13, Stuttgart; Weimar: Metzler, 1999, Col. 1133-1141.