On the Matter of The Classics on the Big Screen in 2024

How Hollywood has brought back Greco-Roman period pieces to the forefront of the moviegoer's mind and why that's not only good for their industry, but also for people like us in the field.

The masses yearn for Greco-Roman period pieces. While I acknowledge that part of this blog’s purpose is to combat the adoption of classical aesthetics without putting in the work to learn the subject itself, it’s still a delight to see the lorica and the galea on the silver screen. The more they appear, the more prospective students will latch onto figures and concepts that will help them later on in their studies. It happened with the sword-and-sandal films of the ‘50s and ‘60s, it happened with I, Claudius in 1976, and it happened with Gladiator in 2000. This generation is lucky enough to undergo a particular swell in Hollywood’s interest in the period. I figured that instead of covering books this week, it might be beneficial to talk about recent releases in film and TV that tackle the subject of the ancient world in one way or another.

The Holdovers

This movie was released late in 2023, but its theater run persisted through January, so I’m counting it. The other reason I categorize this as a 2024 movie is that it received a secondary period of buzz during awards season, because it was a major dark horse candidate to win in a year where a handful of films garnered passionate fanbases. Barbie in particular performed poorly when compared to its box office successes, but I have no interest in relitigating year-old quibbles. If the so-called “Dark Academia” crowd takes a greater hold on the zeitgeist in the coming decade, or the lead actor Dominic Sessa (who is now in talks to play another favorite of mine, Anthony Bourdain) continues to put on great performances, then hindsight may hold this as the best movie of 2023. Paul Giamatti plays an ancient history teacher at a small New England boarding school. This is not the only passion he and I share; art museums, writing, and Kathleen Ferrier records are also common between our interests. In some respects, the setting feels a little like the intercession in Donna Tartt’s The Secret History when Papen almost freezes to death from his own pride. The season and region of the country are obviously the same, but using the cold as a metaphor for emotional frigidity and loneliness is incredibly effective. Giamatti’s character is also reminiscent of Stevens from The Remains of the Day in that he’s dedicated to upholding tradition in a role he has held for most of his life, even when it gets in the way of his own happiness. Certainly there’s a happier resolution to this film though. It’s unlikely that it’ll ever get holiday syndication like the Charlie Brown cartoon does, but it’ll be on the second or third bar of the streaming holiday playlist for decades to come. Besides, it’ll be on at my place.

The Book of Clarence

LaKeith Stanfield is a fantastic lead actor. Babs Olusanmokun has had three or four massively impactful performances over the last two years, perhaps the most impactful if weighing by seconds of screen-time. This is, in its purest form, Monty Python’s Life of Brian if it had been directed by Spike Lee. It takes the subject matter much more seriously in certain places, and the inspiration from the sword-and-sandal genre is a lot stronger here. A lot of care was put into the cinematography; they love to use the circle wipes/iris outs. You can’t really spoil the story of the bible, so I figure mentioning the shot composition of the scene depicting the Last Supper is also phenomenal. One may go into this expecting it to be blasphemous, but at all times it maintains that the story and the teachings of the Bible as real, and this is just something adjacent going on in the world. I’m sure there were plenty of cultural references I missed to contemporary black culture, and now looking back at some of the producers¹ I wish I didn’t enjoy this as much as I did, but it would be wrong to fault the movie for any of that.

Kaos

This was a lot of fun. There are a handful of baffling aesthetic decisions that kept it from being truly great, but I can’t begrudge the whole project for something some idiot in a boardroom decided “played better” to an audience of hayseeds. The title alone not being at least Khaos is evidence enough of that. Characters throughout the supposedly Greek world pray in Latin, saying “vero” where “aletheios” would be far more proper. The most egregiously out-of-character moment has to go to Hera, the goddess of fidelity, cheating on Zeus. One can feel the inner turmoil in this piece between those with respect for the original myths and those out to capitalize on a trend. Obviously the set designers and costumers fall into the former category because the attention to detail in differentiating the palettes and art styles of each of the cultures was really fantastic. The underworld setting is all in black-and-white, which is a common enough trope, but their portrayal of Medusa as a managerial director of the underworld takes inspiration from Lucille Ball, or some other old starlet from that era. Hades is also in that tradition, but I can’t quite place my finger on whom. There are times where certain plot points feel more suitable for a Norse pantheon than a Greek one because Zeus spends most of his time trying to avoid a Gotterdammerung situation. I don’t so much mind that it wasn’t picked up for a second season, but I know a few people who were looking forward to it; keep in mind that Netflix decided to cancel this while Graham Hancock’s son got to greenlight his dad’s adventures to find Cloud Cuckoo Land or whatever. Between this and their decision to host that godawful Mike Tyson fight, it might be a good time to look into other streaming platforms for your entertainment.

Gladiator II

Listen. Everyone else on the internet has ragged on both this film and the original for being historically inaccurate and I get it, but I still enjoyed the project for what it was. The scene with the newspaper made me laugh out loud, seeing sharks² in the naval battle was ridiculous when they could have picked a dozen other fearsome (but realistic) sea creatures, and Pedro Pascal valued his iconic hair and beard more than he did historical accuracy. Him saying “vay victis” instead of “vae victis” was distracting as well; someone ought to have pulled him aside and made that easy correction. Denzel Washington’s performance alone glossed over all of those issues for me though. Even if he did tell an underling to “hose ‘em down” early on (to which the correct response is “what the hell is a hose?”), I can forgive it all because of the way he portrays a lust for power that has been left out of every other interpretation of the Roman Empire I’ve seen. Ridley Scott can’t take real credit for that either, it’s all in Denzel’s facial acting and body language. It’s almost a pity that this movie exists because there are a handful of figures in Roman history who Scott was pulling stories from (Ricimer in particular comes to mind) to write the characterization of Macrinus³ that I would have preferred to see. The theme and indeed the overall message of not accepting freedom on someone else’s terms is shared by both this and the original. Would I prefer to watch this over that one? Probably not, just from the nostalgia factor that the original brings to the table. There is allegedly a third film in the making, and based on the end to this one I expect the success of this one to be a total fluke (again, because of Denzel). Wherever it picks up and whoever is in charge, I don’t expect you’ll find me in the theater.

Those About to Die

Anthony Hopkins is one of those actors who, like Denzel Washington in the previous entry, is a joy to see in any project. Funnily enough, this series claims to be based on the same novel by Daniel P. Mannix which influenced Ridley Scott to make the original Gladiator movie in 2000, although this is evidently the more faithful adaptation. I cannot speak to the accuracy as I have not read the work, but I would consider it down the line if there were interest. It should come as little surprise to longtime readers that horseracing fascinates me as a sport. I understand why some activists take umbrage with the practice and they would find no resistance from me if they tried to tear down the infrastructure, but I still find it to be a magnificent part of Italian culture. Bringing the focal point away from gladiatorial battles and looking at the intersection between politics and sport more generally made for a more well-rounded vision of the Roman world. Roland Emmerich is much more famous for his action scenes in movies than he is political nuance, but the writing staff did a fantastic job balancing an interesting story in between all the violence.

Caligula: The Ultimate Cut

This was a major late entry on my radar: truth be told I’ve had this whole essay diagrammed out in my head since Gladiator 2 was announced, and missing the opportunity to cover The Holdovers in a timely fashion left a sour taste in my mouth. I had no idea that this was due for a re-cut, but I’m glad it’s been given a second opportunity. The synopsis is incredible on its own but the theatrical release was cut to shreds in the editing department by the American pornographic industry. I’m a big fan of Malcolm McDowell’s work, and I feel that he had a string of poor casting decisions after A Clockwork Orange that hampered his career. My appreciation for the works of Gore Vidal, who wrote the screenplay, can be found throughout the two reviews of his novels I’ve done for this website. Does this re-release meet what I desire from the outline of this project? In short, yes. There are some unavoidable issues with audio fidelity, and the decision to wallpaper over them with a droning, ambient soundtrack was by and large a mistake that drew more attention to it than away from it. Drusilla was poorly cast as well, but she was hardly the only one pronouncing names inconsistently either. On the other hand, if I were a more paranoid person, I’d conclude that this production had been sabotaged to stop movies from reaching their ideal form. It’s that good. The set design takes great inspiration from the Roman world, even in its anachronisms (i.e. the lawnmower). It’s easily Malcolm McDowell’s best performance, and that isn’t even to mention Peter O’Toole, who may have given my favorite performance of a Roman Emperor ever. This movie was given a limited release, but I really would recommend seeking it out as soon as possible in whatever format you can.

There’s certainly more to discuss past these examples. Francis Ford Coppola’s Megalopolis takes names from the end of the Republic to use as shorthand for some of the roles of his characters. I rewatched Dame Maggie Smith’s performance in Clash of the Titans after she died in September. Robert Harris, who wrote the ever-popular Imperium trilogy about Cicero, had his other novel Conclave adapted as well. Speaking of Ralph Fiennes movies, he allegedly stars in an adaptation of Homer’s Odyssey called The Return but at time of writing I cannot find it anywhere. If 2025 ends up being as promising a year for classics in pop culture, I’ll gladly write another one of these for next January.

1. I’m amending this for the last time in the week that the filings against Jay-Z dropped.

2. Even now, scientists struggle to contain great whites in captivity.

3. Another figure of note that was drawn from other historical sources was Caracalla. The one major factoid everyone learns about his was that contemporary sources called him "a soldier first and an emperor second." Instead, Scott just made up two Elagabaluses.