Spartacus (1960)

When I wrote about Killers Kiss I hinted that I was going to talk about Spartacus. I agree that this movie is the least “Kubrick-ian” of Kubrick’s films and I understand why we did not watch it in class. But there are some moments that I find interesting. I will mention two of them.

The first one is the famous gladiator scene where Spartacus (Kirk Douglas) battles Draba (Woody Strode). This scene is very similar to the battle scene in Killers Kiss.  Just as Davey was equipped with a spear in Killers Kiss so is Draba in this scene, and just as Davey Draba “wins”. The spear is a very common phallic symbol and those are something Kubrick used on several occasions.

The second one is for me the most interesting one. If we look through some of Kubrick’s photographs from his time at LOOK magazine we will see this photo. 

In the photo the people are made to look like they are in a cage. This must have been something that Kubrick found interesting or funny “the caging of man” since he decided to take a picture of it. In the interview with Bernstein form 1966 Kubrick says that he found the first part of Spartacus “turned out quite well” but the rest of the story was quite silly. The interesting thing here is that it is in the first part if Spartacus that takes place during the gladiatorial training. During this part of the movie we see our main character being locked in cages and forced to do things such as battle to the death for others amusement. It is perhaps because he got a chance to explore this theme that he found that he found this part “turned out quite well”.