In the days of the Roman Empire two millenia ago (73 BCE), slaves were commodities. Spartacus (Kirk Douglas), a Thracian (Southeastern Europe), was one of them.
Directed by Stanley Kubrick
Rating
Violence: Yes
Sex: No
Language: No
He was purchased by a Roman, Batiatus (Peter Ustinov) who owned a gladiator school, and who then arranged for guests to be entertained.
Spartacus didn’t particularly care for being a slave, let alone being thrown into an arena and fight other gladiators to the death, some of whom he had befriended.
So, one day he shoved the school instructor’s head into a vat of steaming soup and led his compatriots in a revolt, escaping the school. He gathered others like him by the tens of thousands with the goal of escaping the Roman Empire to lead a peaceful life somewhere that Latin and Greek were not the native languages (tough to find, maybe they should have considered certain parts of New Jersey). Laurence Olivier, as Crassus, head of the Roman Army, chased him all the way, and Jean Simmons comforted him as Spartacus’ companion and lover, Varinia.
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When the cast for Ben Hur (1959) was being assembled, Kirk Douglas lusted for the leading role. He didn’t get it, so he made his own sword and sandal epic, Spartacus. Although Ben Hur received eleven Academy Awards, and Spartacus got four, the latter film remains today one of the finest of the genre and a masterpiece of storytelling.
This is due to Dalton Trumbo, who wrote the screenplay. As one of the Hollywood Ten, Trumbo had refused to testify before the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) in 1947 during the committee’s investigation of Communist influences in the motion picture industry, so he was black listed from being involved in film making. Douglas utilized Trumbo’s genius anyway, and gave him public recognition in the movie’s credits.
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Spartacus was shot in Super Technirama 70, which used 35mm film running sideways through the camera (like VistaVision) instead of vertically, with the framing at an aspect ratio of 2.20:1. Then the film was enlarged onto 70mm film for use in what was called “Road Shows” in those days. Theaters without 70mm projectors used the 35mm print.
As a result of the increased film space, the image quality is spectacular. I have the previous Blu-ray version, and the new one is so sharp, it is almost like comparing TV before High Definition and 2K (HD 1080p). 70mm film is not used much anymore, especially since digital movie cameras have 4K resolution now, although at my last visit to the movie theater, one of the coming attractions was listed as being shot in 70mm.
The sound is in DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1, which is not used very often in new motion pictures, let alone old ones (Spartacus was made more than half a century ago). It was shot with six channels of sound, and the studio added a seventh for this release.
Some of Hollywood’s A-list directors have publicly stated they will only use film in their future motion pictures and never give in to digital. This might be a problem in distribution, since most theaters have totally converted to digital projection. However, the master could be 70mm and the movie converted to digital for theaters. The beautiful warmth of the 70mm image seems to come through even in digital conversion, especially skin tones. The large 70mm camera negative could also be used when 8K arrives, and even 16K, as long as the 70mm image is the native image, and not a blowup from 35mm film.
The disc is awash in extras, including a recent interview with the 98 year old Douglas. The rest of the extras are the same as in the previous version.
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You guys need to read up on your basic technical information. Technirama 70 was photographed on 35mm film running horizontally in camera with a slight scope squeeze. Its negative area was almost as big as a 65mm spherical print. What made it Technirama 70 was the ability to print up sllightly to a glorious 70mm print as with King of Kings, Solomon and Sheba and El Cid. It was also printed down to an anamorphic 35mm scope print. It created a gorgeous image either way. When printed to 70mm it was given the full six track magnetic stereo surround sound mix and presentation treatment of a Todd-ao or Super Panavision 70 roadshow engagement. The conversion that made this restoration so glorious was digitizing it from those wonderful horizontal (like VistaVision) 35mm negatives. Try consulting American Widescreen Museum next time.
I'm liking this Michael Bradley guy!
Alright, so the negative had twice the film space as a conventional 35mm film. In any case, the new version is visibly much sharper than the older version.
I hope the technical information about the products you endorse are not as erroneous as this review of a film. The writer does not seem to know his subject very well.
Mr. Bradly does not seem to know his subject very well either. Film grain represents live pixels, not dead pixels. The pixel shows a silver grain, or color. It is not blank, or dead. A dead pixel is black, and what ever was under that pixel is absent. Mr. Bradley, you need to read more reference texts instead of comic books.
You did not, but you are still wrong about how Spartacus was shot.
The credits in the movie state it was shot in Super Technirama 70. That is defined as being shot in 70mm. You are mixed up. Take your foolishness to some other website.
Let's just say that however it was shot, the image quality in the new release is much sharper than in the old release, and if you are a fan of the movie and have the old version, it is worth purchasing the new one. As to film grain and pixels, it is just a matter of semantics in your comparison. Some directors like grain, others do not. I prefer not to see the film grain as it is distracting. When I shot film in the old days, I used Kodak Panatomic -X film with an ISO of 32, or Plus-X with an ISO of 125. I never had a grain problem with those films. If I were a movie director, I would shoot all films with 70mm film at an aspect ratio of 2:1. The studio could release it any way they wanted, but the master negative would be 70mm, which would make it possible to master the release in 4K, 8K, and even 16K if that ever comes to pass.
You are indeed correct Michael. There is no difference between Super Technirama 70 and Technirama. Both were shot on 35mm horizontally thru the camera with a high quality prismatic anamorphic lens.
Any reviewer who used the Carr Hayes book for research needs their head examined. It is well known as being riddled with mistakes.
I won't trust your reviews again. I did not say Dolby and Technirama of all kinds was always photographed on 35mm. It says so on the Bluray notes and in the featurette. It was probably a Westrex or Todd-ao sound mix originally. You may not have been alive in the fifties and sixties but widescreen and color, be it Deluxe, Technicolor, Warnercolor or Cinecolor was a very big deal. There were regular articles about movie and television technology in Popular Science Magazine. More people than you would think would have cared about such things. Thank you for telling me about your sources. I will now know not to trust them either. A lot of their information has been discredited by the American Widescreen Museum Site. There were not dozens and dozens of film formats. There were dozens and dozens of studio names for them but there were no more than twenty actual formats.
Just to be clear...."I'M SPARTACUS!"
The only thing I did not like about this masterwork was Tony Curtis' Brooklyn accent.
Spartacus is well acted, really well made and wonderfully entertaining, but it is also typical and uneven.