The story of the gladiator Spartacus, his beloved Varinia and the ambitious Roman commander Crassus. The overwhelming craving for freedom forces Spartacus to raise the legendary slave uprising that has become a major milestone in world history.

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Stanley Kubrick’s timeless film, which made its creator famous and is, in my opinion, the most boring creation of the master, however, it is not his fault. After watching “Spartacus”, you understand why Kubrick left the United States so suddenly, choosing England as his permanent residence. He was looking for creative freedom, because he wanted to be Demiurg, who became, freeing himself from the chains of producers, Hollywood, only leaving which he could embody everything he wanted. “Spartacus” is a film exclusively producer, created for the general public for the sake of profit, which is all its shortcomings.

There is no visual expressiveness typical for the Kubrick, communication with the audience through the composition of the frame, multi-level connotation, but still this picture remains a classic of world cinema, due to the powerful artistic images and vivid characters that cover the historical credibility. Everyone knows that the history of films cannot be studied (as well as fiction), because sometimes even the basis of events depicted in them, does not correspond to reality.

In this case, we are faced with a pathos and hypertrophied idea of freedom and struggle for it, for which you can sacrifice your own life, worth nothing in the harsh slavery. However, nothing of the kind could have happened then, because the main mistake of historians-artists is that they carry the world of modernity in antiquity, not realizing that the worldviews of other eras were different from the present. No, people were always the same, at all times they craved the same things (in fact), were driven by the same beliefs and desires, but only the form of all this was a little different than now.

Slavery was a normal phenomenon, completely natural in those historical conditions. Slaves were not oppressed, their labor was even stimulated by various incentives, including freedom, especially since all slaves were homegrown, so there were practically no revolts. Some historical sources refute this, but they should be treated with reasonable scepticism and criticism.

It must be remembered that Europe, since the Renaissance, had magnified freedom and had tried to find signs of it in its history in the past as well. The same applies to Soviet researchers who tried to prove that the fight against “damned exploiters” of character is for humanity. This is why there are many examples of “rebellions”, which are in fact only a manifestation of the deviant behavior of slaves. Such is the murder of his master’s slave because of jealousy (they were homosexuals), which many researchers characterized as a rebellion.

Slaves saw the world only in a circle of understanding, considering their innate status and all the duties associated with it the only correct state of affairs. Only the miners (of which there were very few) and farmers in Sicily lived badly, but history knows no other examples of the plight of slaves. As for Spartacus, he was not at all a slave from birth (as shown in the film), but was a warrior who was captured, which led to tragic results. Subsequently, this free man was never again turned into a slave, and therefore no further rebellion was observed.

Spartacus himself fell in battle and was not crucified on the cross, but this detail refines the magnificent artistic image, for we are dealing with a beautiful fairy tale telling of a strong Person, and therefore the cross can be seen as an allegory that this Person suffered for the sake of people, as Christ did in his time. And the woman crying at his feet like the Holy Virgin. Only the hero Peter Ustinov did not become an apostle, because all his actions are connected with money.

And everything would be fine if it were not for the multitude of scenes, not necessary for the development of the plot, or for the disclosure of the semantic part of the picture, if not for the pathos associated with the thirst for liberation, which is especially pronounced in the hero Tony Curtis.

Info Blu-ray
Video
Codec: HEVC / H.265
Resolution: Native 4K (2160p)
HDR: Dolby Vision, HDR10
Aspect ratio: 2.20:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.20:1

Audio
English: DTS:X
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 7.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Spanish: DTS 5.1
Portuguese: DTS 5.1
Japanese: DTS 5.1
Japanese: DTS Mono
Note: Portuguese = Brazil, Spanish = Latin America

Subtitles
English SDH, French, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish