Blockbusters and the Ancient World

Allegory and Warfare in Contemporary Hollywood

Chris Davies

• Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9781350105027
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Ancient History
• Index: History

Following the release of Ridley Scott's Gladiator in 2000 the ancient world epic has experienced a revival in studio and audience interest. Building on existing scholarship on the Cold War epics of the 1950s-60s, including Ben-Hur, Spartacus and The Robe, this original study explores the current cycle of ancient world epics in cinema within the social and political climate created by September 11th 2001. Examining films produced against the backdrop of the War on Terror and subsequent invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, this book assesses the relationship between mainstream cinema and American society through depictions of the ancient world, conflict and faith. Davies explores how these films evoke depictions of the Second World War, the Vietnam War and the Western in portraying warfare in the ancient world, as well as discussing the influence of genre hybridisation, narration and reception theory. He questions the extent to which ancient world epics utilise allegory, analogy and allusion to parallel past and present in an industry often dictated by market forces. Featuring analysis of Alexander, Troy, 300, Centurion, The Eagle, The Passion of the Christ and more, this book offers new insight on the continued evolution of the ancient world epic in cinema.

Chapter 1

War and Empire: The Ancient World Epic, Combat Films and Genre

While American cinema certainly did not experience some sort of monolithic change in the post-9/11 era, it is clear that a sustained set of changes in emphasis can be observed, a foregrounding of tropes that may have been existent in prior decades but that were often presented rather differently after 9/11.¹

As indicated by Terence McSweeney’s vignette, the influence of the War on Terror on cinema can best be identified by comparing the changes within genres before and after 9/11. However, in the case of the ancient world epic only Gladiator (2000) had been released in the years immediately prior to 9/11, meaning the tropes of this cycle had not been firmly established prior to the event. It is therefore necessary to return to the 1950s–60s cycle to establish the core thematic and structural signifiers of the genre in order to recognise how the genre has evolved. As cinema itself has evolved in the decades separating these cycles, a wider awareness of corresponding genres is required to best identify how they have reflected 9/11 and the War on Terror to recognise similar motifs within the ancient world epic. In later chapters the specific similarities between certain epics and other genres – such as the comic-book movie, western or horror – will be discussed, but the influence of the combat film on the ancient world epic is prevalent throughout this cycle. Indeed, the overriding difference between the recent cycle of ancient world epics and that of the mid-twentieth century is the newfound prevalence of war narratives, specifically those concerning invasion and occupation in the context of ‘empire’. In order to facilitate this change, the ancient world epic has repeatedly been hybridised with the combat film and has even mirrored the latter genre’s evolution in recent years. This chapter serves the dual purpose of outlining the tropes of the ancient world epic and combat film as two seemingly disparate genres, and the role of ‘empire’ in becoming the unifying theme between them.

An American Empire?

America responded to the September 11 attacks by invading Afghanistan in October 2001 through a combination of aerial strikes and assistance from indigenous ground forces.² Despite the target being an organisation located within that territory, the Bush administration publically associated al-Qaeda with both the Taliban and Afghanistan as a whole, refiguring their military action to appear less like the Vietnam War and more like the Second World War, a war between nations.³ On 1 November 2001 Donald Rumsfeld even cited the attacks on Pearl Harbor and the retaliatory Doolittle Raids (as seen in Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor (2001), released earlier that summer) as an analogy for 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan.⁴ However, despite American efforts in Afghanistan the lack of identifiable successes led pundits in Newsweek and the New York Times to liken the first month of the conflict to the ‘quagmire’ of Vietnam.⁵

In 2003 the United States led an invasion of Iraq, in part because the country and its regime were believed to support acts of terrorism, including 9/11, but also because Saddam Hussein had failed to adequately comply with UN weapons inspections which was deemed evidence that he possessed Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) which presented a potential threat to the United States, United Kingdom and their allies.⁶ On 20 March 2003 a ‘Coalition of the Willing’ consisting of forty nations entered Iraq and by 9 April had driven the ruling regime from power, with President Bush declaring an end to major combat operations on 1 May.⁷ Although the invasion was a military success the subsequent occupation of the country proved problematic. The US-led coalition was unable to quickly install a new government and provide the various resources the Iraqi people required, including electricity, gasoline, food and medicine.⁸ Deborah Gerner and Philip Schrodt have argued that the initial invasion and occupation of Iraq was conducted by an inadequate number of troops to effectively enforce order and stability in the country following the removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime.⁹ Mary Ann Tétreault has similarly blamed the levels of instability on a series of actions taken by the occupying forces:

The violent implosion of Iraq was hastened by ill-conceived policies such as excluding Baath party members from jobs, disbanding the 300,000-strong Iraqi army, and failing to sequester arms and weapons located in dumps all over the country and in the hands of the disbanded soldiers.¹⁰

Many of these disbanded, and therefore jobless, soldiers joined the Fedayeen, with continued fighting in Fallujah, Ramadi and Sadr City resulting in heavy civilian casualties and climbing American lo sses.¹¹ Arthur Goldschmidt has argued that the escalating violence and revelations of American-perpetrated prisoner abuse at sites such as Abu Ghraib discredited the war for many Americans.¹² What originated as an aggressive, forward-moving invasion descended into a prolonged period of occupation. As David Ryan summarises, ‘Beyond regime change there was little positive planning for the post-war period. The specific military mission and its objectives were achieved with relative ease. The broader objectives relating to the stabilisation of Iraq let alone those of the war on terrorism remained vague, undefined and therefore difficult to achieve.’¹³

David Altheide has likewise written critically of the invasion of Iraq and the War on Terror. He points out that many members of what would become the Bush administration including Colin Powell, Paul Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney had been involved in the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), which laid out a plan for regime change in Iraq ten years prior to the 2003 invasion.¹⁴ Altheide believes the invasion was part of a wider plan for the United States to become a hegemonic power on the global stage, quoting David Armstrong’s 2002 essay in Harper’s in which he states that the plan ‘calls for the United States to maintain its overwhelming military superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge it on the world stage. It calls for dominion over friends and enemies alike. It says not that the United States must be more powerful, or most powerful, but that it must be absolutely powerful.’¹⁵ Whether Bush’s foreign policy was indeed informed by PNAC and furthered the concept of an American ‘empire’ has been the subject of much debate. David Holloway has charted the rise of interest in the American ‘empire’ theory, citing the early influence of Samuel P. Huntington’s ‘Clash of Civilisations’ concept put forward in the 1990s in which he posits that America’s place as a global superpower would ultimately meet resistance from ‘non-Wests’, especially those in Muslim countries.¹⁶ Holloway argues that after 9/11 the ‘clash of civilisations’ theory went ‘mainstream’.¹⁷ He writes,

The concept of American empire often occupied the centre-ground in discussion about the causes and consequences of 9/11, and about the underlying motivations and historical drivers of the war on terror. The Bush administration denied that America had an empire to maintain or enlarge. But after 9/11, on this and related issues, the administration looked increasingly out of step. … Newspaper articles and popular histories compared the US to classical Rome and nineteenth-century Britain, describing ‘empire denial’ as a contemporary American pathology. After 9/11 commentators of many political stripes and persuasions suddenly agreed that something that could legitimately be described as an American ‘empire’ did exist after all.¹⁸

In an influential essay for the New York Times in the months prior to the invasion of Iraq, Michael Ignatieff similarly proposed, ‘What word but “empire” describes the awesome thing that America is becoming? … a global hegemony whose grace notes are free markets, human rights and democracy, enforced by the most awesome military power the world has ever known.’¹⁹ He coined the term ‘empire lite’, reasoning that America is undoubtedly a globally influential superpower but differs from classical empires in that it must nevertheless make concessions to appease its allies and avoid provoking its most powerful opponents. However, Ignatieff employed further comparison to ancient imperialists as a word of caution:

To call America the new Rome is at once to recall Rome’s glory and its eventual fate at the hands of the barbarians. A confident and carefree republic – the city on a hill, whose people have always believed they are immune from history’s harms – now has to confront not just an unending imperial destiny but also a remote possibility that seems to haunt the history of empire: hubris followed by defeat.²⁰

As illustration he asks his readers to recall America’s involvement in Vietnam as a potential analogy for the outcome of America’s ‘nation-building’ strategy in Iraq, concluding that despite American military superiority ‘empire is no match, long-term, for nationalism’.²¹ His words proved prophetic, as in the years following the invasion of Iraq the conflict was repeatedly compared to that of Vietnam and, as discussed below, the similarities between the conflicts would be mirrored t hrough their respective combat films. These themes – imperialism, hubris and defiance in the face of an empire – are pre-established tropes of the ancient world epic, but they found new form in the cycle of epics that followed Gladiator through the introduction of predominantly war and combat-orientated narratives. To recognise this, it is first worth establishing the tropes of the genre prior to the release of Gladiator.

The Epic and Empire

During the 1950s–60s Hollywood generally favoured Roman and biblical epics over those set in ancient Greece. Gideon Nisbet theorises that this is due in part to Greece lacking an easily recognisable mise-en-scène w...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-Title
• Title
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• Chapter 1 War and Empire: The Ancient World Epic, Combat Films and Genre
• Chapter 2 The Time of Achilles: Memory and Warfare in Troy (2004)
• Chapter 3 The Dreamers Exhaust Us: Storytellers and the Combat Film in Alexander (2004)
• Chapter 4 Is This Sparta?: War, Freedom and America in 300 (2007)
• Chapter 5 Body Politics: Gods, Men and Monsters in 300 (2007) and Greek Mythological Epics
• Chapter 6 Land of the Free, Rome of the Brave: Faith, Torture and Imperialism in King Arthur (2004)
• Chapter 7 American Eagle: Imperialism in The Last Legion (2007), Centurion (2010) and The Eagle (2011)
• Chapter 8 Rome on the Range: The Western in King Arthur (2004), Centurion (2010) and The Eagle (2011)
• Chapter 9 Religious Violence: Christianity and Extremism in Agora (2009)
• Chapter 10 Passion Project: Faith, Horror and Propaganda in The Passion of the Christ (2004)
• Chapter 11 The New Wave: Tales of Hercules and the Return of the Biblical Epic
• Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Filmography
• Index
• Copyright