Films on ancient Christianity and Jesus

Quo Vadis (1912 film)

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Quo vadis?
Quo Vadis poster.jpg
The movie poster

Directed by
Enrico Guazzoni
Produced by
George Kleine for Cines
Written by
Enrico Guazzoni
Based on
Henryk Sienkiewicz (novel)
Starring
Amleto Novelli, Gustavo Serena, Lea Rushes, Bruno Castellani, Carlo Cattaneo, Lia Orlandini, Amelia Cattaneo, Augustus Mastripietri, Andrea Serena, Olga Brandini, Ignazio Lupi, Caesar Moltroni, John Gizzi, Ida Carloni Talli

Release dates

1912


Running time
 120 min
Country
Italy
Language
Silent



 Scene from the film.
Quo Vadis? is a 1912 film directed by Enrico Guazzoni, based on the 1896 novel of the same name. It was the first blockbuster in the history of cinema, with 5,000 extras, lavish sets, and a running time of two hours, setting the standard for "superspectacles" for decades to come.
A worldwide success, it was the first film to be projected in a first-class Broadway theater, where it was screened for nine months from April to December 1913. The film's first screening in London was for King George V, who complimented the performers. Two years later, in 1914, another Italian director, Giovanni Pastrone, will direct Cabiria, which is similar to Quo Vadis, but even longer, more complex, and more spectacular.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Other versions
3 See also
4 References

Plot[edit]
The story is set during the early years of rule by the emperor Nero. He is an ambitious man obsessed with gaining absolute power. His soldier falls in love with a young Christian slave named Lycia, but their love is hindered by Nero, who hates Christianity and unleashes his officers to burn Rome, pinning the blame on the Christians. In addition, the cruel Nero kidnaps the pair and sends them into an arena to fight lions.
Other versions[edit]
1901 film directed by Lucien Nonguet and Ferdinand Zecca
1912 film directed by Arturo Ambrosio
1925 film directed by Gabriellino D'Annunzio and Georg Jacoby
1951 film directed by Mervyn LeRoy
1985 TV mini-series directed by Franco Rossi
2001 film directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz
2002 TV series (6 ep.) directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz
See also[edit]


Portal icon film portal
Quo Vadis, the novel (1895) by Henryk Sienkiewicz
References[edit]
The Peplum in the days of silent cinema, 1, ch. of "Cinema Peplum" Dominic Cammarota, "Future essays" n. 14, and. Fanucci, '87, p. 15th
The Dictionary of film Mereghetti-2002-cards, ed. Baldini & Castoldi, 2001, p. 1711.



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The films of Enrico Guazzoni




















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Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis































Stub icon This article related to an Italian silent film is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




  


Categories: 1912 films
Silent films
Films based on works by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Films set in ancient Rome
Films set in the 1st century
Films set in the Roman Empire
Italian cinema articles by quality
Italian epic films
Italian silent films
Silent Italian film stubs





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This page was last modified on 9 February 2015, at 19:35.
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Quo Vadis (1912 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Quo vadis?
Quo Vadis poster.jpg
The movie poster

Directed by
Enrico Guazzoni
Produced by
George Kleine for Cines
Written by
Enrico Guazzoni
Based on
Henryk Sienkiewicz (novel)
Starring
Amleto Novelli, Gustavo Serena, Lea Rushes, Bruno Castellani, Carlo Cattaneo, Lia Orlandini, Amelia Cattaneo, Augustus Mastripietri, Andrea Serena, Olga Brandini, Ignazio Lupi, Caesar Moltroni, John Gizzi, Ida Carloni Talli

Release dates

1912


Running time
 120 min
Country
Italy
Language
Silent



 Scene from the film.
Quo Vadis? is a 1912 film directed by Enrico Guazzoni, based on the 1896 novel of the same name. It was the first blockbuster in the history of cinema, with 5,000 extras, lavish sets, and a running time of two hours, setting the standard for "superspectacles" for decades to come.
A worldwide success, it was the first film to be projected in a first-class Broadway theater, where it was screened for nine months from April to December 1913. The film's first screening in London was for King George V, who complimented the performers. Two years later, in 1914, another Italian director, Giovanni Pastrone, will direct Cabiria, which is similar to Quo Vadis, but even longer, more complex, and more spectacular.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Other versions
3 See also
4 References

Plot[edit]
The story is set during the early years of rule by the emperor Nero. He is an ambitious man obsessed with gaining absolute power. His soldier falls in love with a young Christian slave named Lycia, but their love is hindered by Nero, who hates Christianity and unleashes his officers to burn Rome, pinning the blame on the Christians. In addition, the cruel Nero kidnaps the pair and sends them into an arena to fight lions.
Other versions[edit]
1901 film directed by Lucien Nonguet and Ferdinand Zecca
1912 film directed by Arturo Ambrosio
1925 film directed by Gabriellino D'Annunzio and Georg Jacoby
1951 film directed by Mervyn LeRoy
1985 TV mini-series directed by Franco Rossi
2001 film directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz
2002 TV series (6 ep.) directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz
See also[edit]


Portal icon film portal
Quo Vadis, the novel (1895) by Henryk Sienkiewicz
References[edit]
The Peplum in the days of silent cinema, 1, ch. of "Cinema Peplum" Dominic Cammarota, "Future essays" n. 14, and. Fanucci, '87, p. 15th
The Dictionary of film Mereghetti-2002-cards, ed. Baldini & Castoldi, 2001, p. 1711.



[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
The films of Enrico Guazzoni




















[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis































Stub icon This article related to an Italian silent film is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




  


Categories: 1912 films
Silent films
Films based on works by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Films set in ancient Rome
Films set in the 1st century
Films set in the Roman Empire
Italian cinema articles by quality
Italian epic films
Italian silent films
Silent Italian film stubs





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This page was last modified on 9 February 2015, at 19:35.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
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Quo Vadis (1924 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Quo Vadis
Quo Vadis poster.jpg
film poster

Directed by
Gabriellino D'Annunzio
Georg Jacoby
Produced by
Arturo Ambrosio
Written by
Henryk Sienkiewicz (novel)
 Gabriellino D'Annunzio
 Georg Jacoby
Starring
Emil Jannings
Elena Sangro
Lillian Hall-Davis
Rina De Liguoro
Cinematography
Curt Courant
Alfredo Donelli
Giovanni Vitrotti

Production
 company

Unione Cinematografica Italiana

Distributed by
Unione Cinematografica Italiana (Italy)
First National Pictures (US)

Release dates
 October 1924 (Austria)
 15 February 1925 (USA)

Running time
 90 minutes
 120 minutes (director's cut)
Country
Italy
Language
Silent
 Italian intertitles
Quo Vadis (or Quo Vadis?) is a 1924 Italian silent historical film directed by Gabriellino D'Annunzio and Georg Jacoby and starring Emil Jannings, Elena Sangro and Lillian Hall-Davis. It is based on the novel Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz which was notably later adapted into a 1951 film.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Production
3 Reception
4 Cast
5 References
6 Bibliography
7 External links

Plot[edit]
In Rome, during the reign of Nero, a young Roman general named Marco Vinicio falls in love with a beautiful Christian slave: Lydia. Their love is impossible, for the contrast of religions, and so Nero, when he learns, imprisons both them. The emperor also intends to extend his domination of Rome and burns the city, blaming the Christians, already hated by the Romans.
Production[edit]
The film was produced by the ambitious Unione Cinematografica Italiana. D'Annunzio, the son of the poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, was considered a rising director and also wrote the film's screenplay. It was one of several attempts in early Fascist Italy to recapture the success of the historical epics of the previous decade.[1] Rudolph Valentino was invited to star in the film, but was forced to turn the offer down due to contractual reasons.[2] Production quickly became troubled - the film ran seriously over-budget, and additional financing had to be raised from Germany. The new backers insisted that a German director, Jacoby, be appointed to co-direct.[3]
Reception[edit]
The film was a critical and commercial failure on its release, effectively ending the career of its producer Arturo Ambrosio who had been one of the major figures of early Italian cinema.[4] In its review the New York Times described it as "excellent as spectacle, but is too tedious in many sequences to be a good entertainment".[5] D'Annunzio never directed or wrote another film. Jacoby's reputation also suffered heavily, and he switched to working on musicals and comedies.[6]
Cast[edit]
Emil Jannings as Nero
Elena Sangro as Poppea
Lillian Hall-Davis as Licia
Rina De Liguoro as Eunica
Andrea Habay as Petronius
Raimondo Van Riel as Tigellinus
Gildo Bocci as Vittelius
Gino Viotti as Chilone Chilonides
Alfons Fryland as Vinicius
Bruto Castellani as Ursus
Elga Brink as Domitilla
Arnold Kent as Roman Guard
Marcella Sabbatini as Girl
Lucia Zanussi
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Ricci p.69
2.Jump up ^ Williams p.98
3.Jump up ^ Scodel & Bettenworth p.228
4.Jump up ^ Moliterno p.7
5.Jump up ^ Holston p.261
6.Jump up ^ Barton p.16-17
Bibliography[edit]
Barton, Ruth. Hedy Lamarr: The Most Beautiful Woman in Film. University Press of Kentucky, 2010.
Holston, Kim R. Movie Roadshows: A History and Filmography of Reserved-Seat Limited Showings. McFarland, 2012.
Moliterno, Gino. The A to Z of Italian Cinema. Scarecrow Press, 2009.
Ricci, Steven. Cinema and Fascism: Italian Film and Society, 1922–1943. University of California Press, 2008.
Scodel, Ruth & Bettenworth, Anja. Whither Quo Vadis: Sienkiewicz's Novel in Film and Television. John Wiley & Sons, 2009.
Williams, Michael. Film Stardom, Myth and Classicism: The Rise of Hollywood's Gods. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
External links[edit]
Quo Vadis at the Internet Movie Database


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
The films of Georg Jacoby


































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis































  


Categories: 1924 films
Italian films
Italian silent films
Italian historical films
Italian drama films
Italian-language films
Films directed by Georg Jacoby
Films directed by Gabriellino D'Annunzio
Films set in Rome
Films based on novels
Films based on works by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Films set in ancient Rome
Films set in the Roman Empire
Films set in the 1st century
1920s drama films
1920s historical films


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This page was last modified on 11 March 2015, at 00:49.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quo_Vadis_(1924_film)















Quo Vadis (1924 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Quo Vadis
Quo Vadis poster.jpg
film poster

Directed by
Gabriellino D'Annunzio
Georg Jacoby
Produced by
Arturo Ambrosio
Written by
Henryk Sienkiewicz (novel)
 Gabriellino D'Annunzio
 Georg Jacoby
Starring
Emil Jannings
Elena Sangro
Lillian Hall-Davis
Rina De Liguoro
Cinematography
Curt Courant
Alfredo Donelli
Giovanni Vitrotti

Production
 company

Unione Cinematografica Italiana

Distributed by
Unione Cinematografica Italiana (Italy)
First National Pictures (US)

Release dates
 October 1924 (Austria)
 15 February 1925 (USA)

Running time
 90 minutes
 120 minutes (director's cut)
Country
Italy
Language
Silent
 Italian intertitles
Quo Vadis (or Quo Vadis?) is a 1924 Italian silent historical film directed by Gabriellino D'Annunzio and Georg Jacoby and starring Emil Jannings, Elena Sangro and Lillian Hall-Davis. It is based on the novel Quo Vadis by Henryk Sienkiewicz which was notably later adapted into a 1951 film.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Production
3 Reception
4 Cast
5 References
6 Bibliography
7 External links

Plot[edit]
In Rome, during the reign of Nero, a young Roman general named Marco Vinicio falls in love with a beautiful Christian slave: Lydia. Their love is impossible, for the contrast of religions, and so Nero, when he learns, imprisons both them. The emperor also intends to extend his domination of Rome and burns the city, blaming the Christians, already hated by the Romans.
Production[edit]
The film was produced by the ambitious Unione Cinematografica Italiana. D'Annunzio, the son of the poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, was considered a rising director and also wrote the film's screenplay. It was one of several attempts in early Fascist Italy to recapture the success of the historical epics of the previous decade.[1] Rudolph Valentino was invited to star in the film, but was forced to turn the offer down due to contractual reasons.[2] Production quickly became troubled - the film ran seriously over-budget, and additional financing had to be raised from Germany. The new backers insisted that a German director, Jacoby, be appointed to co-direct.[3]
Reception[edit]
The film was a critical and commercial failure on its release, effectively ending the career of its producer Arturo Ambrosio who had been one of the major figures of early Italian cinema.[4] In its review the New York Times described it as "excellent as spectacle, but is too tedious in many sequences to be a good entertainment".[5] D'Annunzio never directed or wrote another film. Jacoby's reputation also suffered heavily, and he switched to working on musicals and comedies.[6]
Cast[edit]
Emil Jannings as Nero
Elena Sangro as Poppea
Lillian Hall-Davis as Licia
Rina De Liguoro as Eunica
Andrea Habay as Petronius
Raimondo Van Riel as Tigellinus
Gildo Bocci as Vittelius
Gino Viotti as Chilone Chilonides
Alfons Fryland as Vinicius
Bruto Castellani as Ursus
Elga Brink as Domitilla
Arnold Kent as Roman Guard
Marcella Sabbatini as Girl
Lucia Zanussi
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Ricci p.69
2.Jump up ^ Williams p.98
3.Jump up ^ Scodel & Bettenworth p.228
4.Jump up ^ Moliterno p.7
5.Jump up ^ Holston p.261
6.Jump up ^ Barton p.16-17
Bibliography[edit]
Barton, Ruth. Hedy Lamarr: The Most Beautiful Woman in Film. University Press of Kentucky, 2010.
Holston, Kim R. Movie Roadshows: A History and Filmography of Reserved-Seat Limited Showings. McFarland, 2012.
Moliterno, Gino. The A to Z of Italian Cinema. Scarecrow Press, 2009.
Ricci, Steven. Cinema and Fascism: Italian Film and Society, 1922–1943. University of California Press, 2008.
Scodel, Ruth & Bettenworth, Anja. Whither Quo Vadis: Sienkiewicz's Novel in Film and Television. John Wiley & Sons, 2009.
Williams, Michael. Film Stardom, Myth and Classicism: The Rise of Hollywood's Gods. Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
External links[edit]
Quo Vadis at the Internet Movie Database


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
The films of Georg Jacoby


































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis































  


Categories: 1924 films
Italian films
Italian silent films
Italian historical films
Italian drama films
Italian-language films
Films directed by Georg Jacoby
Films directed by Gabriellino D'Annunzio
Films set in Rome
Films based on novels
Films based on works by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Films set in ancient Rome
Films set in the Roman Empire
Films set in the 1st century
1920s drama films
1920s historical films


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Edit links
This page was last modified on 11 March 2015, at 00:49.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
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 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quo_Vadis_(1924_film)














Quo Vadis (2001 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Quo Vadis

Directed by
Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Produced by
Mirosław Słowiński
 Jerzy Kajetan Frykowski
Screenplay by
Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Based on
Quo Vadis
 by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Starring
Paweł Deląg
Magdalena Mielcarz
Bogusław Linda
Music by
Jan Kaczmarek
Edited by
Cezary Grzesiuk
Chuck Bush

Production
 company

Zespół Filmowy Kadr

Distributed by
Zespół Filmowy Kadr

Release dates
 14 September 2001

Running time
 170 minutes
Country
Poland
Language
Polish
Budget
$ 18 mln (ca.76 140 000 PLN)
Quo Vadis is a 2001 Polish film directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz based on the book of the same title by Henryk Sienkiewicz. It was Poland's submission to the 74th Academy Awards for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but was not nominated.[1][2]


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

Plot[edit]
The central plot in the movie revolves around the love of a Roman patrician, Marcus Vinicius, towards a Christian girl (coming from the territory of modern-day Poland) set against the backdrop of the persecutions against Christians during the reign of Nero.
In the beginning, Lygia, a Christian and hostage of Rome, becomes the object of Vinicius' love but she refuses his advances. Vinicius' friend Petronius tries to manipulate Nero, who has authority over all Roman hostages, to give Lygia to Vinicius, but Lygia is taken into hiding by Christians. Marcus Vinicius decides to find her and force her to be his wife. He goes to a Christian meeting along with Croton, a gladiator, to find her. After following her from the meeting, Marcus tries to take her, but Ursus, a strong man and friend of Lygia, kills Croton. Marcus himself is wounded in the fight, but is taken care of by Lygia and the Christians. Seeing their kindness he begins to convert to Christianity, and Lygia accepts him.
Rome catches fire while the emperor, Nero, is away. Nero returns and sings to the crowd, but they become angry. At the suggestion of Nero's wife, the Christians are blamed for the fire, providing a long series of cruel spectacles to appease the crowd. In one of the spectacles, Ursus faces a bull carrying Lygia on its back. Ursus wins and, with the crowd and guards in approval, Nero lets them live.
Nero kills himself, and Vinicius and Lygia leave Rome.
Cast[edit]
Paweł Deląg – Marcus Vinicius
Magdalena Mielcarz – Lygie Callina
Bogusław Linda – Petronius
Michał Bajor – Nero
Jerzy Trela – Chilon Chilonides
Danuta Stenka – Pomponia Graecina
Franciszek Pieczka – Saint Peter
Krzysztof Majchrzak – Tigellinus
Rafał Kubacki – Ursus
See also[edit]
Cinema of Poland
List of submissions to the 74th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "51 Countries In Race For Oscar". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 2001-11-19. Retrieved 2008-08-12.[dead link]
2.Jump up ^ "74th Academy Awards – Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 2008-06-22. Retrieved 2008-08-07.
External links[edit]
Quo Vadis at the Internet Movie Database


[show]
v ·
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 e
 
Films directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz















[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis































  


Categories: Polish-language films
2001 films
Polish films
2000s drama films
Films about religion
Films based on works by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Films directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Films set in classical antiquity
Films set in the Roman Empire
Films set in the 1st century
Polish historical films
Depictions of Nero on film





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This page was last modified on 24 December 2014, at 08:35.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quo_Vadis_(2001_film)












Quo Vadis (2001 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Quo Vadis

Directed by
Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Produced by
Mirosław Słowiński
 Jerzy Kajetan Frykowski
Screenplay by
Jerzy Kawalerowicz
Based on
Quo Vadis
 by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Starring
Paweł Deląg
Magdalena Mielcarz
Bogusław Linda
Music by
Jan Kaczmarek
Edited by
Cezary Grzesiuk
Chuck Bush

Production
 company

Zespół Filmowy Kadr

Distributed by
Zespół Filmowy Kadr

Release dates
 14 September 2001

Running time
 170 minutes
Country
Poland
Language
Polish
Budget
$ 18 mln (ca.76 140 000 PLN)
Quo Vadis is a 2001 Polish film directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz based on the book of the same title by Henryk Sienkiewicz. It was Poland's submission to the 74th Academy Awards for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, but was not nominated.[1][2]


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 See also
4 References
5 External links

Plot[edit]
The central plot in the movie revolves around the love of a Roman patrician, Marcus Vinicius, towards a Christian girl (coming from the territory of modern-day Poland) set against the backdrop of the persecutions against Christians during the reign of Nero.
In the beginning, Lygia, a Christian and hostage of Rome, becomes the object of Vinicius' love but she refuses his advances. Vinicius' friend Petronius tries to manipulate Nero, who has authority over all Roman hostages, to give Lygia to Vinicius, but Lygia is taken into hiding by Christians. Marcus Vinicius decides to find her and force her to be his wife. He goes to a Christian meeting along with Croton, a gladiator, to find her. After following her from the meeting, Marcus tries to take her, but Ursus, a strong man and friend of Lygia, kills Croton. Marcus himself is wounded in the fight, but is taken care of by Lygia and the Christians. Seeing their kindness he begins to convert to Christianity, and Lygia accepts him.
Rome catches fire while the emperor, Nero, is away. Nero returns and sings to the crowd, but they become angry. At the suggestion of Nero's wife, the Christians are blamed for the fire, providing a long series of cruel spectacles to appease the crowd. In one of the spectacles, Ursus faces a bull carrying Lygia on its back. Ursus wins and, with the crowd and guards in approval, Nero lets them live.
Nero kills himself, and Vinicius and Lygia leave Rome.
Cast[edit]
Paweł Deląg – Marcus Vinicius
Magdalena Mielcarz – Lygie Callina
Bogusław Linda – Petronius
Michał Bajor – Nero
Jerzy Trela – Chilon Chilonides
Danuta Stenka – Pomponia Graecina
Franciszek Pieczka – Saint Peter
Krzysztof Majchrzak – Tigellinus
Rafał Kubacki – Ursus
See also[edit]
Cinema of Poland
List of submissions to the 74th Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "51 Countries In Race For Oscar". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. 2001-11-19. Retrieved 2008-08-12.[dead link]
2.Jump up ^ "74th Academy Awards – Nominees and Winners". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. Archived from the original on 2008-06-22. Retrieved 2008-08-07.
External links[edit]
Quo Vadis at the Internet Movie Database


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Quo Vadis (novel)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero
Quo Vadis 1897 Edition.jpg
First American edition title page

Author
Henryk Sienkiewicz
Original title
Quo vadis. Powieść z czasów Nerona
Translator
Jeremiah Curtin
 W. S. Kuniczak
Country
Poland
Language
Polish
Genre
Historical novel
Publisher
Polish dailies (in serial) and Little, Brown (Eng. trans. book form)

Publication date
 1895
Media type
Print (Newspaper, Hardback and Paperback)
ISBN
NA



 Scene of the historical novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz ("Quo Vadis"), entitled "Ligia leaves Aulus' house". Illustration by Domenico Mastroianni.Postcard from 1913. Publisher: A.N. Paris (Alfred Noyer Studio).


Nero and the burning of Rome, Altemus Edition, 1897. Illustration by M. de Lipman.
Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero, commonly known as Quo Vadis, is an historical novel written by Henryk Sienkiewicz in Polish.[1] "Quo vadis Domine" is Latin for "Where are you going, Lord?" and alludes to the apocryphal Acts of Peter, in which Peter flees Rome but on his way meets Jesus and asks him why he is going to Rome. Jesus says, "I am going back to be crucified again", which makes Peter go back to Rome and accept martyrdom.
The novel Quo Vadis tells of a love that develops between a young Christian woman, Ligia (or Lygia), and Marcus Vinicius, a Roman patrician. It takes place in the city of Rome under the rule of emperor Nero, circa AD 64.
Sienkiewicz studied the Roman Empire extensively prior to writing the novel, with the aim of getting historical details correct. As such, several historical figures appear in the book. As a whole, the novel carries an outspoken pro-Christian message.[citation needed]
Published in installments in three Polish dailies in 1895, it came out in book form in 1896 and has since been translated into more than 50 languages. This novel contributed to Sienkiewicz's Nobel Prize for literature in 1905.[citation needed]
Several movies have been based on Quo Vadis including two Italian silent films, Quo Vadis (1912), and 1924, the Hollywood production, Quo Vadis (1951), and the 2001 adaptation by Jerzy Kawalerowicz.


Contents  [hide]
1 Characters in Quo Vadis
2 Historical events
3 Similarities with Barrett play
4 Adaptations 4.1 Ursus
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Characters in Quo Vadis[edit]
Marcus Vinicius (fictitious son of the historical Marcus Vinicius), a military tribune and Roman patrician who recently returned to Rome. On arrival he meets and falls in love with Ligia. He seeks the counsel of his uncle Petronius to find a way to possess her.
Calina (fictitious), usually known as Ligia (Lygia in some translations), the daughter of a deceased king of the Ligians, a barbarian tribe (hence her nickname). Ligia is technically a hostage of the Senate and people of Rome, and was forgotten years ago by her own people. A great beauty, she has converted to Christianity, but her religion is originally unknown to Marcus.
Gaius Petronius (historical), titled the "arbiter of elegance," former governor of Bithynia. Petronius is a member of Nero's court who uses his wit to flatter and mock him at the same time. He is loved by the Roman mob for his liberal attitudes. Somewhat amoral and a bit lazy, he tries to help his nephew, but his cunning plan is thwarted by Ligia's Christian friends.
Eunice (fictitious), household slave of Petronius. Eunice is a beautiful young Greek woman who has fallen in love with her master, although he is initially unaware of her devotion.
Chilon Chilonides (fictitious), a charlatan and a private investigator. He is hired by Marcus to find Ligia. This character is severely reduced in the 1951 film and the 1985 miniseries, but in the novel itself, as well as in the Polish miniseries of 2001, Chilon is a major figure as doublecrossing traitor. His end is clearly inspired by Saint Dismas.
Nero (historical), Emperor of Rome, portrayed as incompetent, petty, cruel, and subject to manipulation by his courtiers. He listens most intently to flatterers and fools.
Tigellinus (historical), the prefect of the feared Praetorian Guard. He is a rival of Petronius for Nero's favour, and he incites Nero into committing acts of great cruelty.
Poppaea Sabina (historical), the wife of Nero. She passionately envies and hates Ligia.
Acte (historical), an Imperial slave and former mistress of Nero. Nero has grown tired of her and now mostly ignores her, but she still loves him. She studies the Christian faith, but does not consider herself worthy of full conversion. In the 1951 film, it is she who helps Nero commit suicide.
Aulus Plautius (historical), a respected retired Roman general who commanded the invasion of Britain. Aulus seems unaware (or simply unwilling to know) that Pomponia, his wife, and Ligia, his adoptive daughter, profess the Christian religion.
Pomponia Graecina (historical), a Christian convert. Dignified and much respected, Pomponia and Aulus are Ligia's adoptive parents, but they are unable to legalize her status. According to Roman law Ligia is still a hostage of the Roman state (i.e., of the Emperor), but she is cared for by the elderly couple.
Ursus (fictitious), the bodyguard of Ligia. As a fellow tribesman, he served her late mother, and he is strongly devoted to Ligia. As a Christian, Ursus struggles to follow the religion's pacifist teachings, given his great strength and barbarian mindset. He is clearly portrayed as a noble savage.
Saint Peter (historical), a weary and aged man with the task of preaching Christ's message. He is amazed by the power of Rome and the vices of Emperor Nero, whom he names the Beast. Sometimes Peter doubts that he will be able to plant and protect the "good seed" of Christianity.
Saint Paul (historical) takes a personal interest in converting Marcus.
Crispus (fictitious), clearly a Christian zealot who verges on fanaticism.
Historical events[edit]
Sienkiewicz alludes to several historical events and merges them in his novel, but some of them are of doubtful authenticity.
In AD 57, Pomponia was indeed charged with practising a "foreign superstition", usually understood to mean conversion to Christianity.[citation needed] Nevertheless, the religion itself is not clearly identified. According to ancient Roman tradition she was tried in a family court by her own husband Aulus (the pater familias), to be subsequently acquitted. However, inscriptions in the catacombs of Saint Callistus in Rome suggest that members of Graecina's family were indeed Christians.[citation needed]
The rumor that Vespasian fell asleep during a song sung by Nero is recorded by Suetonius in the Lives of the Twelve Caesars.
The death of Claudia Augusta, sole child of Nero, in AD 63.
The Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, which in the novel is started by orders of Nero. There is no hard evidence to support this, and fires were very common in Rome at the time. In Chapter 50, senior Jewish community leaders advise Nero to blame the fires on Christians; there is no historical record of this, either. The fire opens up space in the city for Nero's palatial complex, a massive villa with lush artificial landscapes and a 30-meter-tall sculpture of the emperor, as well as an ambitious urban planning program involving the creation of buildings decorated with ornate porticos and the widening of the streets (a redesign which is not implemented until after Nero's death).[citation needed]
The suicide of Petronius is clearly based on the account of Tacitus.[citation needed]
Similarities with Barrett play[edit]
1896 was also the year that playwright-actor-manager Wilson Barrett produced his successful play The Sign of the Cross. Although Barrett never acknowledged it, several elements in the play strongly resemble those in Quo Vadis. In both, a Roman soldier named Marcus falls in love with a Christian woman and wishes to "possess" her. (In the novel, her name is Ligia, in the play she is Mercia.) Nero, Tigellinus and Poppea are major characters in both the play and novel, and in both, Poppea lusts after Marcus. Petronius, however, does not appear in The Sign of the Cross, and the ending of the play diverges from that of Quo Vadis.
Adaptations[edit]



 In 1951, Quo Vadis was adapted as a film by Mervyn LeRoy.
A successful stage version of the novel by Stanislaus Stange was produced in 1900.[2] Film versions of the novel were produced in 1901, 1912 and 1924.[3] A 1951 version directed by Mervyn LeRoy was nominated for eight academy awards. The novel was also the basis for a 1985 mini-series starring Klaus Maria Brandauer as Nero and a 2001 Polish mini-series directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz. It was also comically satirized as the quintessential school play gone horribly awry in "Shivering Shakespeare", a 1930 Little Rascals short by Hal Roach.
Jean Nouguès composed an opera based on the novel, to a libretto by Henri Caïn; it was premiered in 1909. [4] Feliks Nowowiejski composed an oratorio based on the novel, performed for the first time in 1907, and then his most popular work.
Ursus[edit]
Following the success of the film Quo Vadis, Ursus was used as a superhuman Roman-era character who became the protagonist in a series of Italian adventure films made in the early 1960s.
When the "Hercules" film craze hit in 1959, Italian filmmakers were looking for other muscleman characters similar to Hercules whom they could exploit, resulting in the 9-film Ursus series listed below. Ursus was referred to as a "Son of Hercules" in two of the films when they were dubbed in English (in an attempt to cash in on the then-popular "Hercules" craze), although in the original Italian films, Ursus had no connection to Hercules whatsoever. In the English-dubbed version of one Ursus film (retitled Hercules, Prisoner of Evil), Ursus was actually referred to throughout the entire film as "Hercules".

There were a total of 9 Italian films that featured Ursus as the main character, listed below as follows: Italian title/ English translation of the Italian title (American release title);
Ursus / Ursus (Ursus, Son of Hercules, 1961) a.k.a. "Mighty Ursus", starring Ed Fury
La Vendetta di Ursus / The Revenge of Ursus (The Vengeance of Ursus, 1961) starring Samson Burke
Ursus e la Ragazza Tartara / Ursus and the Tartar Girl (Ursus and the Tartar Princess, 1961) a.k.a. The Tartar Invasion, starring Joe Robinson
Ursus Nella Valle dei Leoni / Ursus in the Valley of the Lions (Valley of the Lions, 1962) starring Ed Fury
Ursus gladiatore ribelle / Ursus Rebel Gladiator (The Rebel Gladiators, 1962) starring Dan Vadis
Ursus Nella Terra di Fuoco / Ursus in the Land of Fire (Son of Hercules in the Land of Fire, 1963) starring Ed Fury
Ursus il terrore dei Kirghisi / Ursus, the Terror of the Kirghiz (Hercules, Prisoner of Evil, 1964) starring Reg Park
Ercole, Sansone, Maciste e Ursus: gli invincibili / Hercules, Samson, Maciste and Ursus: The Invincibles (Samson and His Mighty Challenge, 1964) starring Yan Larvor as Ursus (a.k.a. "Combate dei Gigantes" or "Le Grand Defi")
Gli Invincibili Tre / The Invincible Three (Three Avengers, 1964) starring Alan Steel as Ursus
See also[edit]

Portal icon Novels portal
List of historical novels
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Halsey, F. R. (1898-02-05). "Historians of Nero's Time" (PDF). New York Times. pp. BR95. Retrieved 2009-01-02.
2.Jump up ^ Gerald Bordman, "Stange, Stanislaus", The Oxford companion to American theatre, Oxford University Press, 1984.
3.Jump up ^ http://www.casttv.com/video/f987ap1/the-many-faces-of-ursus-ed-fury-dan-vadis-alan-steel-video
4.Jump up ^ Gesine Manuwald, Nero in Opera: Librettos as Transformations of Ancient Sources. (Tranformationen der Antike ; 24). Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013. ISBN 9783110317138
External links[edit]
Quo Vadis at Project Gutenberg, translated by Jeremiah Curtin (plain text and HTML)
Quo Vadis at Internet Archive and Google Books (various translations, scanned books original editions illustrated)
Quo Vadis at Google Books, translated by Dr. S. A. Binion and M. De Lipman
Quo Vadis at LibriVox (audiobook)
Quo Vadis, in Polish.
Quo Vadis, in Armenian.


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Categories: 1895 novels
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quo_Vadis_(novel)












Quo Vadis (novel)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero
Quo Vadis 1897 Edition.jpg
First American edition title page

Author
Henryk Sienkiewicz
Original title
Quo vadis. Powieść z czasów Nerona
Translator
Jeremiah Curtin
 W. S. Kuniczak
Country
Poland
Language
Polish
Genre
Historical novel
Publisher
Polish dailies (in serial) and Little, Brown (Eng. trans. book form)

Publication date
 1895
Media type
Print (Newspaper, Hardback and Paperback)
ISBN
NA



 Scene of the historical novel by Henryk Sienkiewicz ("Quo Vadis"), entitled "Ligia leaves Aulus' house". Illustration by Domenico Mastroianni.Postcard from 1913. Publisher: A.N. Paris (Alfred Noyer Studio).


Nero and the burning of Rome, Altemus Edition, 1897. Illustration by M. de Lipman.
Quo Vadis: A Narrative of the Time of Nero, commonly known as Quo Vadis, is an historical novel written by Henryk Sienkiewicz in Polish.[1] "Quo vadis Domine" is Latin for "Where are you going, Lord?" and alludes to the apocryphal Acts of Peter, in which Peter flees Rome but on his way meets Jesus and asks him why he is going to Rome. Jesus says, "I am going back to be crucified again", which makes Peter go back to Rome and accept martyrdom.
The novel Quo Vadis tells of a love that develops between a young Christian woman, Ligia (or Lygia), and Marcus Vinicius, a Roman patrician. It takes place in the city of Rome under the rule of emperor Nero, circa AD 64.
Sienkiewicz studied the Roman Empire extensively prior to writing the novel, with the aim of getting historical details correct. As such, several historical figures appear in the book. As a whole, the novel carries an outspoken pro-Christian message.[citation needed]
Published in installments in three Polish dailies in 1895, it came out in book form in 1896 and has since been translated into more than 50 languages. This novel contributed to Sienkiewicz's Nobel Prize for literature in 1905.[citation needed]
Several movies have been based on Quo Vadis including two Italian silent films, Quo Vadis (1912), and 1924, the Hollywood production, Quo Vadis (1951), and the 2001 adaptation by Jerzy Kawalerowicz.


Contents  [hide]
1 Characters in Quo Vadis
2 Historical events
3 Similarities with Barrett play
4 Adaptations 4.1 Ursus
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

Characters in Quo Vadis[edit]
Marcus Vinicius (fictitious son of the historical Marcus Vinicius), a military tribune and Roman patrician who recently returned to Rome. On arrival he meets and falls in love with Ligia. He seeks the counsel of his uncle Petronius to find a way to possess her.
Calina (fictitious), usually known as Ligia (Lygia in some translations), the daughter of a deceased king of the Ligians, a barbarian tribe (hence her nickname). Ligia is technically a hostage of the Senate and people of Rome, and was forgotten years ago by her own people. A great beauty, she has converted to Christianity, but her religion is originally unknown to Marcus.
Gaius Petronius (historical), titled the "arbiter of elegance," former governor of Bithynia. Petronius is a member of Nero's court who uses his wit to flatter and mock him at the same time. He is loved by the Roman mob for his liberal attitudes. Somewhat amoral and a bit lazy, he tries to help his nephew, but his cunning plan is thwarted by Ligia's Christian friends.
Eunice (fictitious), household slave of Petronius. Eunice is a beautiful young Greek woman who has fallen in love with her master, although he is initially unaware of her devotion.
Chilon Chilonides (fictitious), a charlatan and a private investigator. He is hired by Marcus to find Ligia. This character is severely reduced in the 1951 film and the 1985 miniseries, but in the novel itself, as well as in the Polish miniseries of 2001, Chilon is a major figure as doublecrossing traitor. His end is clearly inspired by Saint Dismas.
Nero (historical), Emperor of Rome, portrayed as incompetent, petty, cruel, and subject to manipulation by his courtiers. He listens most intently to flatterers and fools.
Tigellinus (historical), the prefect of the feared Praetorian Guard. He is a rival of Petronius for Nero's favour, and he incites Nero into committing acts of great cruelty.
Poppaea Sabina (historical), the wife of Nero. She passionately envies and hates Ligia.
Acte (historical), an Imperial slave and former mistress of Nero. Nero has grown tired of her and now mostly ignores her, but she still loves him. She studies the Christian faith, but does not consider herself worthy of full conversion. In the 1951 film, it is she who helps Nero commit suicide.
Aulus Plautius (historical), a respected retired Roman general who commanded the invasion of Britain. Aulus seems unaware (or simply unwilling to know) that Pomponia, his wife, and Ligia, his adoptive daughter, profess the Christian religion.
Pomponia Graecina (historical), a Christian convert. Dignified and much respected, Pomponia and Aulus are Ligia's adoptive parents, but they are unable to legalize her status. According to Roman law Ligia is still a hostage of the Roman state (i.e., of the Emperor), but she is cared for by the elderly couple.
Ursus (fictitious), the bodyguard of Ligia. As a fellow tribesman, he served her late mother, and he is strongly devoted to Ligia. As a Christian, Ursus struggles to follow the religion's pacifist teachings, given his great strength and barbarian mindset. He is clearly portrayed as a noble savage.
Saint Peter (historical), a weary and aged man with the task of preaching Christ's message. He is amazed by the power of Rome and the vices of Emperor Nero, whom he names the Beast. Sometimes Peter doubts that he will be able to plant and protect the "good seed" of Christianity.
Saint Paul (historical) takes a personal interest in converting Marcus.
Crispus (fictitious), clearly a Christian zealot who verges on fanaticism.
Historical events[edit]
Sienkiewicz alludes to several historical events and merges them in his novel, but some of them are of doubtful authenticity.
In AD 57, Pomponia was indeed charged with practising a "foreign superstition", usually understood to mean conversion to Christianity.[citation needed] Nevertheless, the religion itself is not clearly identified. According to ancient Roman tradition she was tried in a family court by her own husband Aulus (the pater familias), to be subsequently acquitted. However, inscriptions in the catacombs of Saint Callistus in Rome suggest that members of Graecina's family were indeed Christians.[citation needed]
The rumor that Vespasian fell asleep during a song sung by Nero is recorded by Suetonius in the Lives of the Twelve Caesars.
The death of Claudia Augusta, sole child of Nero, in AD 63.
The Great Fire of Rome in AD 64, which in the novel is started by orders of Nero. There is no hard evidence to support this, and fires were very common in Rome at the time. In Chapter 50, senior Jewish community leaders advise Nero to blame the fires on Christians; there is no historical record of this, either. The fire opens up space in the city for Nero's palatial complex, a massive villa with lush artificial landscapes and a 30-meter-tall sculpture of the emperor, as well as an ambitious urban planning program involving the creation of buildings decorated with ornate porticos and the widening of the streets (a redesign which is not implemented until after Nero's death).[citation needed]
The suicide of Petronius is clearly based on the account of Tacitus.[citation needed]
Similarities with Barrett play[edit]
1896 was also the year that playwright-actor-manager Wilson Barrett produced his successful play The Sign of the Cross. Although Barrett never acknowledged it, several elements in the play strongly resemble those in Quo Vadis. In both, a Roman soldier named Marcus falls in love with a Christian woman and wishes to "possess" her. (In the novel, her name is Ligia, in the play she is Mercia.) Nero, Tigellinus and Poppea are major characters in both the play and novel, and in both, Poppea lusts after Marcus. Petronius, however, does not appear in The Sign of the Cross, and the ending of the play diverges from that of Quo Vadis.
Adaptations[edit]



 In 1951, Quo Vadis was adapted as a film by Mervyn LeRoy.
A successful stage version of the novel by Stanislaus Stange was produced in 1900.[2] Film versions of the novel were produced in 1901, 1912 and 1924.[3] A 1951 version directed by Mervyn LeRoy was nominated for eight academy awards. The novel was also the basis for a 1985 mini-series starring Klaus Maria Brandauer as Nero and a 2001 Polish mini-series directed by Jerzy Kawalerowicz. It was also comically satirized as the quintessential school play gone horribly awry in "Shivering Shakespeare", a 1930 Little Rascals short by Hal Roach.
Jean Nouguès composed an opera based on the novel, to a libretto by Henri Caïn; it was premiered in 1909. [4] Feliks Nowowiejski composed an oratorio based on the novel, performed for the first time in 1907, and then his most popular work.
Ursus[edit]
Following the success of the film Quo Vadis, Ursus was used as a superhuman Roman-era character who became the protagonist in a series of Italian adventure films made in the early 1960s.
When the "Hercules" film craze hit in 1959, Italian filmmakers were looking for other muscleman characters similar to Hercules whom they could exploit, resulting in the 9-film Ursus series listed below. Ursus was referred to as a "Son of Hercules" in two of the films when they were dubbed in English (in an attempt to cash in on the then-popular "Hercules" craze), although in the original Italian films, Ursus had no connection to Hercules whatsoever. In the English-dubbed version of one Ursus film (retitled Hercules, Prisoner of Evil), Ursus was actually referred to throughout the entire film as "Hercules".

There were a total of 9 Italian films that featured Ursus as the main character, listed below as follows: Italian title/ English translation of the Italian title (American release title);
Ursus / Ursus (Ursus, Son of Hercules, 1961) a.k.a. "Mighty Ursus", starring Ed Fury
La Vendetta di Ursus / The Revenge of Ursus (The Vengeance of Ursus, 1961) starring Samson Burke
Ursus e la Ragazza Tartara / Ursus and the Tartar Girl (Ursus and the Tartar Princess, 1961) a.k.a. The Tartar Invasion, starring Joe Robinson
Ursus Nella Valle dei Leoni / Ursus in the Valley of the Lions (Valley of the Lions, 1962) starring Ed Fury
Ursus gladiatore ribelle / Ursus Rebel Gladiator (The Rebel Gladiators, 1962) starring Dan Vadis
Ursus Nella Terra di Fuoco / Ursus in the Land of Fire (Son of Hercules in the Land of Fire, 1963) starring Ed Fury
Ursus il terrore dei Kirghisi / Ursus, the Terror of the Kirghiz (Hercules, Prisoner of Evil, 1964) starring Reg Park
Ercole, Sansone, Maciste e Ursus: gli invincibili / Hercules, Samson, Maciste and Ursus: The Invincibles (Samson and His Mighty Challenge, 1964) starring Yan Larvor as Ursus (a.k.a. "Combate dei Gigantes" or "Le Grand Defi")
Gli Invincibili Tre / The Invincible Three (Three Avengers, 1964) starring Alan Steel as Ursus
See also[edit]

Portal icon Novels portal
List of historical novels
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Halsey, F. R. (1898-02-05). "Historians of Nero's Time" (PDF). New York Times. pp. BR95. Retrieved 2009-01-02.
2.Jump up ^ Gerald Bordman, "Stange, Stanislaus", The Oxford companion to American theatre, Oxford University Press, 1984.
3.Jump up ^ http://www.casttv.com/video/f987ap1/the-many-faces-of-ursus-ed-fury-dan-vadis-alan-steel-video
4.Jump up ^ Gesine Manuwald, Nero in Opera: Librettos as Transformations of Ancient Sources. (Tranformationen der Antike ; 24). Berlin: De Gruyter, 2013. ISBN 9783110317138
External links[edit]
Quo Vadis at Project Gutenberg, translated by Jeremiah Curtin (plain text and HTML)
Quo Vadis at Internet Archive and Google Books (various translations, scanned books original editions illustrated)
Quo Vadis at Google Books, translated by Dr. S. A. Binion and M. De Lipman
Quo Vadis at LibriVox (audiobook)
Quo Vadis, in Polish.
Quo Vadis, in Armenian.


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Quo Vadis (1951 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Quo Vadis
Poster - Quo Vadis (1951) 01.jpg
theatrical release poster

Directed by
Mervyn LeRoy
Produced by
Sam Zimbalist
Screenplay by
S. N. Behrman
 Sonya Levien
John Lee Mahin
Based on
Quo Vadis
 by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Starring
Robert Taylor
Deborah Kerr
Leo Genn
Peter Ustinov
Narrated by
Walter Pidgeon
Music by
Miklós Rózsa
Cinematography
Robert Surtees
 William V. Skall
Edited by
Ralph E. Winters
Distributed by
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Release dates

November 8, 1951 (US)


Running time
 171 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$7,623,000[1][2]
Box office
$21,037,000[2]
Quo Vadis (a Latin phrase meaning "Where are you going?") is a 1951 American epic film made by MGM in Technicolor. It was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and produced by Sam Zimbalist, from a screenplay by John Lee Mahin, S. N. Behrman and Sonya Levien, adapted from Henryk Sienkiewicz's classic novel Quo Vadis (1896). The novel had previously been made into an Italian film Quo Vadis (1924). The music score was by Miklós Rózsa and the cinematography by Robert Surtees and William V. Skall. The title refers to an incident in the apocryphal Acts of Peter; see Quo vadis?.
The film stars Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Leo Genn, and Peter Ustinov, and features Patricia Laffan, Finlay Currie, Felix Aylmer, and Abraham Sofaer. Sophia Loren and Carlo Pedersoli were both cast in the movie as uncredited extras, and Sergio Leone worked on it as an assistant director of the Italian company.[citation needed]


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Music
4 Production notes
5 Reception 5.1 Box office performance
5.2 Awards
6 Home media
7 Trivia
8 See also
9 References
10 External links

Plot[edit]
The action takes place in ancient Rome from AD 64–68, a period after Emperor Claudius' illustrious and powerful reign, during which the new corrupt and destructive Emperor Nero ascends to power and eventually threatens to destroy Rome's previous peaceful order. The main subject is the conflict between Christianity and the corruption of the Roman Empire, especially in the last period of the Julio-Claudian line. The characters and events depicted are a mixture of actual historical figures and situations and fictionalized ones.
The film tells the story of a Roman military commander, Marcus Vinicius (Robert Taylor), who is also the legate of the XIV Gemina, returning from the wars, who falls in love with a devout Christian, Lygia (Deborah Kerr), and slowly becomes intrigued by her religion. Their love story is told against the broader historical background of early Christianity and its persecution by Nero (Peter Ustinov). Though she grew up Roman as the adopted daughter of a retired general, Aulus Plautius (Felix Aylmer), Lygia is technically a hostage of Rome. Marcus persuades Nero to give her to him for services rendered. Lygia resents this, but still falls in love with Marcus.
Meanwhile, Nero's atrocities become increasingly more outrageous and his acts more insane. When he burns Rome and blames the Christians, Marcus goes off to save Lygia and her family. Nero captures them and all the Christians, and condemns them to be killed in the arena. However, Marcus's uncle, Petronius (Leo Genn), Nero's most trusted advisor, warns that the Christians will be made martyrs and, tired of Nero's insanity and suspecting that he might become a victim of his antics too, commits suicide by slitting his wrist artery, sending Nero a farewell letter in which he finally communicates his derisive opinions he had never been able to tell the emperor in fear of his own life. Marcus is arrested for trying to save Lygia. In prison, Saint Peter (Finlay Currie), who has also been arrested after returning to Rome upon a sign of the Lord, marries the couple; eventually, he is crucified upside-down as an ironic twist at the whim of Nero's guard.
Poppaea (Patricia Laffan), Nero's wife, who lusts after Marcus, devises a diabolical revenge for his rejection of her. Lygia is tied to a wooden stake in the arena. A wild bull is also placed there, and Lygia's bodyguard giant, Ursus (Buddy Baer) must try to kill it with his bare hands, otherwise Lygia will be gored to death. Marcus is tied to the spectator's box and forced to watch, much to the horror of his officers, who also attend the spectacle. When all seems hopeless, Ursus is able to break the bull's neck. Hugely impressed by Ursus's courage, the crowd exhorts Nero to spare them, which the emperor is not willing to do. However, Nero's four other retainers Seneca (Nicholas Hannen), architect Phaon (D. A. Clarke-Smith), Lucan (Alfredo Varelli), and Terpnos (Geoffrey Dunn) vouch for the mob's demands by putting their thumbs up as well. Marcus then breaks free of his bonds, leaps into the arena, frees Lygia with the help of his loyal troops from his legion, and announces that General Galba is at that moment marching on Rome, intent on replacing Nero.
The crowd, now firmly believing that Nero, and not the Christians, is responsible for the burning of Rome, revolts. Nero flees to his palace, where he strangles Poppaea to death, blaming her for attempting to scapegoat the Christians. Then Acte (Rosalie Crutchley), a palace slave who was once in unrequited love with Nero, appears and offers to aid him in ending his own life before the mob storms the palace. The cowardly Nero cannot bring himself to do it, so Acte drives the dagger into his chest, weeping over his demise.
Marcus, Lygia and Ursus are now free and leave Rome. By the roadside, Peter's crook, which he had left behind when he returned to Rome, has miraculously sprouted flowers. The radiant light intones, "I am the way, the truth, and the life."
Cast[edit]
Robert Taylor as Marcus Vinicius
Deborah Kerr as Lygia
Leo Genn as Petronius
Peter Ustinov as Nero
Patricia Laffan as Poppaea
Finlay Currie as Peter
Abraham Sofaer as Paul
Marina Berti as Eunice
Buddy Baer as Ursus
Felix Aylmer as Plautius
Nora Swinburne as Pomponia
Ralph Truman as Tigellinus
Norman Wooland as Nerva
Peter Miles as Nazarius
Geoffrey Dunn as Terpnos
Nicholas Hannen as Seneca
D.A. Clarke - Smith as Phaon
Rosalie Crutchley as Acte
John Ruddock as Chilo
Arthur Walge as Croton
Elspeth March as Miriam
Strelsa Brown as Rufia
Alfredo Varelli as Lucan
Roberto Ottaviano as Flavius
William Tubbs as Anaxander
Pietro Tordi as Galba
Clelia Matania as Parmenida
Music[edit]
The musical score by Miklós Rózsa is notable for its attention to historical authenticity. Rozsa incorporated a number of fragments of ancient Greek melodies into his own choral-orchestral score. New recordings were made by Rózsa with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (1977) and by Nic Raine, conducting the City of Prague Philharmonic (2012). Composer Bernard Hermann called it "The score of a lifetime."
Production notes[edit]



 Screenshot of Peter Ustinov from the trailer for the film Quo VadisThe film was originally cast in 1949 with Elizabeth Taylor as Lygia and Gregory Peck as Marcus Vinicius. When the production changed hands the following year, the roles went to Deborah Kerr and Robert Taylor. Elizabeth Taylor was also a Christian prisoner in arena, but uncredited.
Sophia Loren briefly appears uncredited as a slave. The Italian actor Bud Spencer also had an uncredited extra role as a Praetorian Guardsman.
The film holds a record for the most costumes used in one movie; 32,000.
The film was shot on location in Rome and in the Cinecittà Studios.
Peter Ustinov relates in his autobiography, Dear Me, that director Mervyn LeRoy summarized the manner in which he envisioned Ustinov should play the Emperor Nero, very salaciously, as "Nero...He plays with himself, nights." Ustinov, getting the director's gist, thereafter notes that this depraved manner was the basis of his creation of the character of Nero for the film.
At one point in the film Nero shows his court a scale model illustrating his plans for rebuilding Rome. This model was originally constructed by Mussolini's government for a 1937 exhibition of Roman architecture—the film's producers borrowed it from the postwar Italian government.[3][4]
The first usage of the phrase 'Hollywood on the Tiber', which has since come to refer to a golden era of American runaway film production in Italy was used as the title of an article in the June 26, 1950 issue of Time.[5]
Reception[edit]
Box office performance[edit]
The film was a commercial success. According to MGM records, during its initial theatrical release it earned $11,143,000 in the US and Canada and $9,894,000 elsewhere, making it the highest grossing film of 1951, and resulting in a profit to MGM of $5,440,000.[2]
Awards[edit]
Quo Vadis was nominated for eight Academy Awards: twice for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Leo Genn as Petronius and Peter Ustinov as Nero), and also for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color (William A. Horning, Cedric Gibbons, Edward Carfagno, Hugh Hunt), Best Cinematography, Color, Best Costume Design, Color, Best Film Editing, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, and Best Picture. However, the movie did not win a single Academy Award.[6]
Peter Ustinov won the Golden Globe Award Best Supporting Actor. The Golden Globe for Best Cinematography was won by Robert Surtees and William V. Skall. The film was also nominated for Best Motion Picture – Drama.
Home media[edit]
A 2-Disc Special Edition of the movie was released on DVD in the US on November 11, 2008 after a long photochemical restoration process.[citation needed] A high definition Blu-ray version was released March 17, 2009.[citation needed]
Trivia[edit]
Much of the footage of Rome burning was reused in director George Pal's 1961 MGM production Atlantis, the Lost Continent. Reportedly, at a preview screening, when patrons were asked to answer the question "What part of the film did you like best?" one responded by writing, "The part where Robert Taylor rescues Deborah Kerr." (Neither actor was in the new film.)[7]
See also[edit]
List of epic films
List of films set in ancient Rome
List of historical drama films
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Sheldon Hall, Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters: A Hollywood History Wayne State University Press, 2010 p 137
2.^ Jump up to: a b c The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
3.Jump up ^ Books.google.com. Books.google.com. Retrieved 2012-04-05.
4.Jump up ^ Books.google.com. Books.google.com. 2006-09-14. Retrieved 2012-04-05.
5.Jump up ^ Wrigley, Richard Cinematic Rome Troubador Publishing Ltd, 30/08/2008 p.52
6.Jump up ^ "NY Times: Quo Vadis". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-12-21.
7.Jump up ^ "Atlantis, the Lost Continent (1961) - Trivia". TCM.com. Retrieved 2012-04-05.
External links[edit]
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to Quo Vadis (film).
Quo Vadis at the Internet Movie Database
Quo Vadis at AllMovie
Quo Vadis at the TCM Movie Database


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Films directed by Mervyn LeRoy




















































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis































  


Categories: 1951 films
English-language films
American films
American epic films
Films based on actual events
Films based on novels
Films directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Films set in ancient Rome
Films set in the Roman Empire
Films set in Rome
Films set in the 1st century
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
Religious epic films
Films about Christianity
Films based on works by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Film scores by Miklós Rózsa
Depictions of Nero on film








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Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
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Quo Vadis (1951 film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


Quo Vadis
Poster - Quo Vadis (1951) 01.jpg
theatrical release poster

Directed by
Mervyn LeRoy
Produced by
Sam Zimbalist
Screenplay by
S. N. Behrman
 Sonya Levien
John Lee Mahin
Based on
Quo Vadis
 by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Starring
Robert Taylor
Deborah Kerr
Leo Genn
Peter Ustinov
Narrated by
Walter Pidgeon
Music by
Miklós Rózsa
Cinematography
Robert Surtees
 William V. Skall
Edited by
Ralph E. Winters
Distributed by
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer

Release dates

November 8, 1951 (US)


Running time
 171 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$7,623,000[1][2]
Box office
$21,037,000[2]
Quo Vadis (a Latin phrase meaning "Where are you going?") is a 1951 American epic film made by MGM in Technicolor. It was directed by Mervyn LeRoy and produced by Sam Zimbalist, from a screenplay by John Lee Mahin, S. N. Behrman and Sonya Levien, adapted from Henryk Sienkiewicz's classic novel Quo Vadis (1896). The novel had previously been made into an Italian film Quo Vadis (1924). The music score was by Miklós Rózsa and the cinematography by Robert Surtees and William V. Skall. The title refers to an incident in the apocryphal Acts of Peter; see Quo vadis?.
The film stars Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr, Leo Genn, and Peter Ustinov, and features Patricia Laffan, Finlay Currie, Felix Aylmer, and Abraham Sofaer. Sophia Loren and Carlo Pedersoli were both cast in the movie as uncredited extras, and Sergio Leone worked on it as an assistant director of the Italian company.[citation needed]


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Music
4 Production notes
5 Reception 5.1 Box office performance
5.2 Awards
6 Home media
7 Trivia
8 See also
9 References
10 External links

Plot[edit]
The action takes place in ancient Rome from AD 64–68, a period after Emperor Claudius' illustrious and powerful reign, during which the new corrupt and destructive Emperor Nero ascends to power and eventually threatens to destroy Rome's previous peaceful order. The main subject is the conflict between Christianity and the corruption of the Roman Empire, especially in the last period of the Julio-Claudian line. The characters and events depicted are a mixture of actual historical figures and situations and fictionalized ones.
The film tells the story of a Roman military commander, Marcus Vinicius (Robert Taylor), who is also the legate of the XIV Gemina, returning from the wars, who falls in love with a devout Christian, Lygia (Deborah Kerr), and slowly becomes intrigued by her religion. Their love story is told against the broader historical background of early Christianity and its persecution by Nero (Peter Ustinov). Though she grew up Roman as the adopted daughter of a retired general, Aulus Plautius (Felix Aylmer), Lygia is technically a hostage of Rome. Marcus persuades Nero to give her to him for services rendered. Lygia resents this, but still falls in love with Marcus.
Meanwhile, Nero's atrocities become increasingly more outrageous and his acts more insane. When he burns Rome and blames the Christians, Marcus goes off to save Lygia and her family. Nero captures them and all the Christians, and condemns them to be killed in the arena. However, Marcus's uncle, Petronius (Leo Genn), Nero's most trusted advisor, warns that the Christians will be made martyrs and, tired of Nero's insanity and suspecting that he might become a victim of his antics too, commits suicide by slitting his wrist artery, sending Nero a farewell letter in which he finally communicates his derisive opinions he had never been able to tell the emperor in fear of his own life. Marcus is arrested for trying to save Lygia. In prison, Saint Peter (Finlay Currie), who has also been arrested after returning to Rome upon a sign of the Lord, marries the couple; eventually, he is crucified upside-down as an ironic twist at the whim of Nero's guard.
Poppaea (Patricia Laffan), Nero's wife, who lusts after Marcus, devises a diabolical revenge for his rejection of her. Lygia is tied to a wooden stake in the arena. A wild bull is also placed there, and Lygia's bodyguard giant, Ursus (Buddy Baer) must try to kill it with his bare hands, otherwise Lygia will be gored to death. Marcus is tied to the spectator's box and forced to watch, much to the horror of his officers, who also attend the spectacle. When all seems hopeless, Ursus is able to break the bull's neck. Hugely impressed by Ursus's courage, the crowd exhorts Nero to spare them, which the emperor is not willing to do. However, Nero's four other retainers Seneca (Nicholas Hannen), architect Phaon (D. A. Clarke-Smith), Lucan (Alfredo Varelli), and Terpnos (Geoffrey Dunn) vouch for the mob's demands by putting their thumbs up as well. Marcus then breaks free of his bonds, leaps into the arena, frees Lygia with the help of his loyal troops from his legion, and announces that General Galba is at that moment marching on Rome, intent on replacing Nero.
The crowd, now firmly believing that Nero, and not the Christians, is responsible for the burning of Rome, revolts. Nero flees to his palace, where he strangles Poppaea to death, blaming her for attempting to scapegoat the Christians. Then Acte (Rosalie Crutchley), a palace slave who was once in unrequited love with Nero, appears and offers to aid him in ending his own life before the mob storms the palace. The cowardly Nero cannot bring himself to do it, so Acte drives the dagger into his chest, weeping over his demise.
Marcus, Lygia and Ursus are now free and leave Rome. By the roadside, Peter's crook, which he had left behind when he returned to Rome, has miraculously sprouted flowers. The radiant light intones, "I am the way, the truth, and the life."
Cast[edit]
Robert Taylor as Marcus Vinicius
Deborah Kerr as Lygia
Leo Genn as Petronius
Peter Ustinov as Nero
Patricia Laffan as Poppaea
Finlay Currie as Peter
Abraham Sofaer as Paul
Marina Berti as Eunice
Buddy Baer as Ursus
Felix Aylmer as Plautius
Nora Swinburne as Pomponia
Ralph Truman as Tigellinus
Norman Wooland as Nerva
Peter Miles as Nazarius
Geoffrey Dunn as Terpnos
Nicholas Hannen as Seneca
D.A. Clarke - Smith as Phaon
Rosalie Crutchley as Acte
John Ruddock as Chilo
Arthur Walge as Croton
Elspeth March as Miriam
Strelsa Brown as Rufia
Alfredo Varelli as Lucan
Roberto Ottaviano as Flavius
William Tubbs as Anaxander
Pietro Tordi as Galba
Clelia Matania as Parmenida
Music[edit]
The musical score by Miklós Rózsa is notable for its attention to historical authenticity. Rozsa incorporated a number of fragments of ancient Greek melodies into his own choral-orchestral score. New recordings were made by Rózsa with the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra (1977) and by Nic Raine, conducting the City of Prague Philharmonic (2012). Composer Bernard Hermann called it "The score of a lifetime."
Production notes[edit]



 Screenshot of Peter Ustinov from the trailer for the film Quo VadisThe film was originally cast in 1949 with Elizabeth Taylor as Lygia and Gregory Peck as Marcus Vinicius. When the production changed hands the following year, the roles went to Deborah Kerr and Robert Taylor. Elizabeth Taylor was also a Christian prisoner in arena, but uncredited.
Sophia Loren briefly appears uncredited as a slave. The Italian actor Bud Spencer also had an uncredited extra role as a Praetorian Guardsman.
The film holds a record for the most costumes used in one movie; 32,000.
The film was shot on location in Rome and in the Cinecittà Studios.
Peter Ustinov relates in his autobiography, Dear Me, that director Mervyn LeRoy summarized the manner in which he envisioned Ustinov should play the Emperor Nero, very salaciously, as "Nero...He plays with himself, nights." Ustinov, getting the director's gist, thereafter notes that this depraved manner was the basis of his creation of the character of Nero for the film.
At one point in the film Nero shows his court a scale model illustrating his plans for rebuilding Rome. This model was originally constructed by Mussolini's government for a 1937 exhibition of Roman architecture—the film's producers borrowed it from the postwar Italian government.[3][4]
The first usage of the phrase 'Hollywood on the Tiber', which has since come to refer to a golden era of American runaway film production in Italy was used as the title of an article in the June 26, 1950 issue of Time.[5]
Reception[edit]
Box office performance[edit]
The film was a commercial success. According to MGM records, during its initial theatrical release it earned $11,143,000 in the US and Canada and $9,894,000 elsewhere, making it the highest grossing film of 1951, and resulting in a profit to MGM of $5,440,000.[2]
Awards[edit]
Quo Vadis was nominated for eight Academy Awards: twice for Best Actor in a Supporting Role (Leo Genn as Petronius and Peter Ustinov as Nero), and also for Best Art Direction-Set Decoration, Color (William A. Horning, Cedric Gibbons, Edward Carfagno, Hugh Hunt), Best Cinematography, Color, Best Costume Design, Color, Best Film Editing, Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture, and Best Picture. However, the movie did not win a single Academy Award.[6]
Peter Ustinov won the Golden Globe Award Best Supporting Actor. The Golden Globe for Best Cinematography was won by Robert Surtees and William V. Skall. The film was also nominated for Best Motion Picture – Drama.
Home media[edit]
A 2-Disc Special Edition of the movie was released on DVD in the US on November 11, 2008 after a long photochemical restoration process.[citation needed] A high definition Blu-ray version was released March 17, 2009.[citation needed]
Trivia[edit]
Much of the footage of Rome burning was reused in director George Pal's 1961 MGM production Atlantis, the Lost Continent. Reportedly, at a preview screening, when patrons were asked to answer the question "What part of the film did you like best?" one responded by writing, "The part where Robert Taylor rescues Deborah Kerr." (Neither actor was in the new film.)[7]
See also[edit]
List of epic films
List of films set in ancient Rome
List of historical drama films
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Sheldon Hall, Epics, Spectacles, and Blockbusters: A Hollywood History Wayne State University Press, 2010 p 137
2.^ Jump up to: a b c The Eddie Mannix Ledger, Los Angeles: Margaret Herrick Library, Center for Motion Picture Study.
3.Jump up ^ Books.google.com. Books.google.com. Retrieved 2012-04-05.
4.Jump up ^ Books.google.com. Books.google.com. 2006-09-14. Retrieved 2012-04-05.
5.Jump up ^ Wrigley, Richard Cinematic Rome Troubador Publishing Ltd, 30/08/2008 p.52
6.Jump up ^ "NY Times: Quo Vadis". The New York Times. Retrieved 2008-12-21.
7.Jump up ^ "Atlantis, the Lost Continent (1961) - Trivia". TCM.com. Retrieved 2012-04-05.
External links[edit]
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to Quo Vadis (film).
Quo Vadis at the Internet Movie Database
Quo Vadis at AllMovie
Quo Vadis at the TCM Movie Database


[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Films directed by Mervyn LeRoy




















































[show]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Henryk Sienkiewicz's Quo Vadis































  


Categories: 1951 films
English-language films
American films
American epic films
Films based on actual events
Films based on novels
Films directed by Mervyn LeRoy
Films set in ancient Rome
Films set in the Roman Empire
Films set in Rome
Films set in the 1st century
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer films
Religious epic films
Films about Christianity
Films based on works by Henryk Sienkiewicz
Film scores by Miklós Rózsa
Depictions of Nero on film








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Create account
Log in



Article

Talk









Read

Edit

View history

















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The Last Temptation of Christ

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

This article is about the 1953 novel. For the 1988 film, see The Last Temptation of Christ (film).
The Last Temptation of Christ
First UK trans. edition cover - titled "The Last Temptation"
1st UK edition

Author
Nikos Kazantzakis
Original title
O Teleutaios Peirasmos
Translator
Peter A. Bien (US)
Country
Greece
Language
Greek
Genre
Religion, Historical novel
Publisher
Simon and Schuster (USA) & Bruno Cassirer (UK)

Publication date
 1960
Media type
Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages
506 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN
ISBN 0-684-85256-X
OCLC
38925790
The Last Temptation of Christ (or The Last Temptation) is a historical novel written by Nikos Kazantzakis, first published in 1953.[1] It was first published in English in 1960.[2] It follows the life of Jesus Christ from his perspective. The novel has been the subject of a great deal of controversy due to its subject matter, and appears regularly on lists of banned books.[3]
The central thesis of the book is that Jesus, while free from sin, was still subject to fear, doubt, depression, reluctance, and lust. Kazantzakis argues in the novel's preface that by facing and conquering all of man's weaknesses, Jesus struggled to do God's will, without ever giving in to the temptations of the flesh. The novel advances the argument that, had Jesus succumbed to any such temptation, especially the opportunity to save himself from the cross, his life would have held no more significance than that of any other philosopher.


Contents  [hide]
1 Film version
2 In popular culture
3 See also
4 References

Film version[edit]
Main article: The Last Temptation of Christ (film)
In 1988, an equally controversial film adaptation by Martin Scorsese was released. It stars Willem Dafoe as Jesus and Harvey Keitel as Judas Iscariot.[4]
In popular culture[edit]
It is discussed in The Da Vinci Code when in a flashback Sophie remembers her grandfather defending the film version. In the film Donnie Darko, it is one of the films on the marquee. This is a debated allusion to Donnie's decision to not avoid his death at the end of the movie.[5]
In The X Files episode "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati", Fox Mulder has a hallucination that Earth has been colonized by the aliens. His hallucination of the colonization bears a resemblance to the intended theme of the novel.[6]
See also[edit]

Portal icon Novels portal
The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
Temptation of Christ
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Athenai: Diphros, 1953.
2.Jump up ^ New York: Simon Schuster Inc., 1960.
3.Jump up ^ Bald, Margaret (2006). Literature Suppressed on Religious Grounds. Banned Books Volume 2 (revised ed.). New York: Facts on File. pp. 179–181. ISBN 9780816062690. OCLC 62090850.
4.Jump up ^ Deans, Jason (17 December 2003). "Scorsese movie tops TV complaints list". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 5 January 2009.
5.Jump up ^ Miesel, Sandra (31 August 2003). "Dismantling the Da Vinci Code". Crisis Magazine. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
6.Jump up ^ VanDerWerff, Todd (1 December 2012). "'The Sixth Extinction'/'The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati'". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 8 August 2013.



Stub icon This article about a historical novel of the 1960s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




  


Categories: 1960 novels
Greek literature
Greek novels
Historical novels
Modern Greek literature
Novelistic portrayals of Jesus
Novels adapted into films
Novels by Nikos Kazantzakis
Simon & Schuster books
1960s historical novel stubs







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The Last Temptation of Christ

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search

This article is about the 1953 novel. For the 1988 film, see The Last Temptation of Christ (film).
The Last Temptation of Christ
First UK trans. edition cover - titled "The Last Temptation"
1st UK edition

Author
Nikos Kazantzakis
Original title
O Teleutaios Peirasmos
Translator
Peter A. Bien (US)
Country
Greece
Language
Greek
Genre
Religion, Historical novel
Publisher
Simon and Schuster (USA) & Bruno Cassirer (UK)

Publication date
 1960
Media type
Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages
506 pp (first edition, hardback)
ISBN
ISBN 0-684-85256-X
OCLC
38925790
The Last Temptation of Christ (or The Last Temptation) is a historical novel written by Nikos Kazantzakis, first published in 1953.[1] It was first published in English in 1960.[2] It follows the life of Jesus Christ from his perspective. The novel has been the subject of a great deal of controversy due to its subject matter, and appears regularly on lists of banned books.[3]
The central thesis of the book is that Jesus, while free from sin, was still subject to fear, doubt, depression, reluctance, and lust. Kazantzakis argues in the novel's preface that by facing and conquering all of man's weaknesses, Jesus struggled to do God's will, without ever giving in to the temptations of the flesh. The novel advances the argument that, had Jesus succumbed to any such temptation, especially the opportunity to save himself from the cross, his life would have held no more significance than that of any other philosopher.


Contents  [hide]
1 Film version
2 In popular culture
3 See also
4 References

Film version[edit]
Main article: The Last Temptation of Christ (film)
In 1988, an equally controversial film adaptation by Martin Scorsese was released. It stars Willem Dafoe as Jesus and Harvey Keitel as Judas Iscariot.[4]
In popular culture[edit]
It is discussed in The Da Vinci Code when in a flashback Sophie remembers her grandfather defending the film version. In the film Donnie Darko, it is one of the films on the marquee. This is a debated allusion to Donnie's decision to not avoid his death at the end of the movie.[5]
In The X Files episode "The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati", Fox Mulder has a hallucination that Earth has been colonized by the aliens. His hallucination of the colonization bears a resemblance to the intended theme of the novel.[6]
See also[edit]

Portal icon Novels portal
The Gospel According to Jesus Christ
Temptation of Christ
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Athenai: Diphros, 1953.
2.Jump up ^ New York: Simon Schuster Inc., 1960.
3.Jump up ^ Bald, Margaret (2006). Literature Suppressed on Religious Grounds. Banned Books Volume 2 (revised ed.). New York: Facts on File. pp. 179–181. ISBN 9780816062690. OCLC 62090850.
4.Jump up ^ Deans, Jason (17 December 2003). "Scorsese movie tops TV complaints list". The Guardian (London). Retrieved 5 January 2009.
5.Jump up ^ Miesel, Sandra (31 August 2003). "Dismantling the Da Vinci Code". Crisis Magazine. Retrieved 8 August 2013.
6.Jump up ^ VanDerWerff, Todd (1 December 2012). "'The Sixth Extinction'/'The Sixth Extinction II: Amor Fati'". The A.V. Club. Retrieved 8 August 2013.



Stub icon This article about a historical novel of the 1960s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.




  


Categories: 1960 novels
Greek literature
Greek novels
Historical novels
Modern Greek literature
Novelistic portrayals of Jesus
Novels adapted into films
Novels by Nikos Kazantzakis
Simon & Schuster books
1960s historical novel stubs







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Edit links
This page was last modified on 5 April 2015, at 01:35.
Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. By using this site, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.
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The Last Temptation of Christ (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


The Last Temptation of Christ
Black thorns against a blood red background.
Theatrical release poster

Directed by
Martin Scorsese
Produced by
Barbara De Fina
 Harry Ulfland
Screenplay by
Paul Schrader
Uncredited:
 Martin Scorsese
Jay Cocks
Based on
The Last Temptation of Christ
 by Nikos Kazantzakis
Starring
Willem Dafoe
Harvey Keitel
Barbara Hershey
Harry Dean Stanton
David Bowie
Andre Gregory
Music by
Peter Gabriel
Cinematography
Michael Ballhaus
Edited by
Thelma Schoonmaker

Production
 company

Cineplex Odeon Films

Distributed by
Universal Pictures

Release dates

August 12, 1988


Running time
 162 minutes[1]
Country
United States
 Canada
Language
English
Budget
$7 million[2]
Box office
$8.8 million[3]
The Last Temptation of Christ is a 1988 American-Canadian epic drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. Written by Paul Schrader with uncredited rewrites from Scorsese and Jay Cocks, the film is a film adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis' controversial 1953 novel of the same name. The film, starring Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Barbara Hershey, Andre Gregory, Harry Dean Stanton, and David Bowie, was shot entirely in Morocco.
Like the novel, the film depicts the life of Jesus Christ and his struggle with various forms of temptation including fear, doubt, depression, reluctance and lust. This results in the book and film depicting Christ being tempted by imagining himself engaged in sexual activities, a notion that has caused outrage from some Christians. The film includes a disclaimer explaining that it departs from the commonly accepted Biblical portrayal of Jesus' life, and is not based on the Gospels.
Scorsese received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director, and Hershey's performance as Mary Magdalene earned her a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress nomination, while Keitel's performance as Judas earned him a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor nomination.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production 3.1 Music
4 Release 4.1 Attack on Saint Michel theater, Paris
4.2 Controversy
4.3 Home media
5 Reception 5.1 Box office
5.2 Critical response
6 References
7 External links

Plot[edit]
The film begins with a man whispering in despair, "The feeling begins. Very tender, very loving. Then the pain starts. Claws slip underneath the skin and tear their way up. Just before they reach my eyes, they dig in. And I remember. First I fasted for three months. I even whipped myself before I went to sleep. At first it worked. Then the pain came back. And the voices. They call me by the name: Jesus." Jesus of Nazareth is a carpenter in Roman-occupied Judea, torn between his own desires and his knowledge that God has a plan for him. This conflict results in self-loathing, and he collaborates with the Romans to crucify Jewish rebels.
Judas Iscariot, a friend of Jesus originally sent to kill him for collaboration, instead suspects that Jesus is the Messiah and asks him to lead a liberation war against the Romans. Jesus replies that his message is love of mankind; whereupon Judas joins Jesus in his ministry, but threatens to kill him if he strays from the purpose of rebellion. Jesus also has an undisclosed prior relationship with Mary Magdalene, a Jewish prostitute, who asks Jesus to stay with her, a request that he considers before leaving for a monastic community. Jesus later saves Mary from a mob gathered to stone her for prostitution and working on the sabbath. Jesus compels the mob to spare her life, asking "Who here has never sinned?", with Jesus offering two stones.[4] Later, Jesus preaches to the crowd using many of the parables from the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus acquires disciples, but remains uncertain of his role. He visits John the Baptist, who baptizes Jesus, and that night the two discuss their differing theologies and political views. John believes that one must first gain freedom from the Romans to achieve their end, while Jesus maintains that love is more important and people should tend to matters of the spirit. Jesus then goes into the desert to test God's connection to himself, where he is tempted by Satan as a cobra, a lion, and a pillar of flame, but resists each of these and instead envisions himself with an axe, being instructed by John the Baptist in answer to Jesus' dilemma of whether to choose the path of love (symbolized by the heart) or the path of violence (represented by the axe). Jesus returns from the desert to the home of Martha and Mary of Bethany (both sisters of Lazarus), who restore him to health and attempt to persuade him that the way to please God is to have a home, a marriage, and children. Jesus then appears to his waiting disciples to tear out his own heart and invites them to follow him. With newfound confidence he restores sight to a blind man, changes water into wine, and raises Lazarus from the dead.
Eventually his ministry reaches Jerusalem, where Jesus performs the Cleansing of the Temple and leads a small army to capture the temple by force, but halts on the steps to await a sign from God for what he must do next. He begins bleeding from his hands, which he recognizes as a sign that he must die on the cross to bring salvation to mankind. Confiding in Judas, he persuades the latter to give him to the Romans, despite Judas' inclination otherwise. Jesus convenes his disciples for Passover seder, later known as the Last Supper; whereupon Judas leads a contingent of soldiers to arrest Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, identifying him with a kiss. In the struggle to defend his master, Peter cuts off the ear of Malchus; whereupon Jesus reattaches it and turns himself over to the soldiers. Pontius Pilate confronts Jesus and tells him that he must be put to death because he represents a threat to the Roman Empire. Jesus is subsequently flogged and a crown of thorns is placed on his head. He is then crucified.
While on the cross, Jesus converses with a young girl who claims to be his guardian angel. She tells him that while he is the Son of God, he is not the Messiah, and that God is pleased with him, and wants him to be happy. She brings him down off the cross and, invisible to others, takes him to Mary Magdalene, whom he then marries. They are soon expecting a child and living an idyllic life; but she abruptly dies, and Jesus is consoled by his angel; next he takes Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, for his wives. He starts a family with them, having many children, and lives his life in peace. Jesus is then seen as an older man who encounters the apostle Paul preaching about the Messiah and tries to tell Paul that he is the man about whom Paul has been preaching. Paul (who in this film has slain the resurrected Lazarus) repudiates him, saying that even if Jesus had not died on the cross, his message was the truth, and nothing would stop him from proclaiming that. Jesus debates him, claiming that salvation cannot be founded on lies.
Near the end of his life, an elderly Jesus calls his former disciples to his deathbed. Peter, Nathaniel, and a scarred John visit their master as Jerusalem is in the throes of rebellion; whereupon Judas comes last and reveals that the youthful angel who released Jesus from the crucifixion is in fact Satan. Crawling back through the burning city of Jerusalem, Jesus reaches the site of his crucifixion and begs God to let him fulfill his purpose and to "let him be God's son."
Jesus then finds himself once more on the cross, having overcome the "last temptation" of escaping death, being married and raising a family, and the ensuing disaster that would have consequently encompassed mankind. Naked and bloody, Jesus cries out in ecstasy as he dies, "It is accomplished!", and the screen flickers to white.
Cast[edit]
Willem Dafoe as Jesus
Harvey Keitel as Judas Iscariot
Barbara Hershey as Mary Magdalene
Harry Dean Stanton as Saul/Paul of Tarsus
David Bowie as Pontius Pilate
Steve Shill as Centurion
Verna Bloom as Mary, mother of Jesus
Roberts Blossom as Aged Master
Barry Miller as Jeroboam
Gary Basaraba as Andrew
Irvin Kershner as Zebedee
Victor Argo as Peter
Paul Herman as Philip
John Lurie as James
Michael Been as John
Leo Burmester as Nathaniel
Andre Gregory as John the Baptist
Alan Rosenberg as Thomas
Nehemiah Persoff as Rabbi
Peter Berling as Beggar
Leo Marks as Voice of Satan
Juliette Caton as Girl Angel
Martin Scorsese (uncredited) as Isaiah
Production[edit]
Martin Scorsese had wanted to make a film version of Jesus' life since childhood. Scorsese optioned the novel The Last Temptation in the late 1970s, and he gave it to Paul Schrader to adapt. The Last Temptation was originally to be Scorsese's follow-up to The King of Comedy; production was slated to begin in 1983 for Paramount, with a budget of about $14 million and shot on location in Israel. The original cast included Aidan Quinn as Jesus, Sting as Pontius Pilate, Ray Davies as Judas Iscariot,[5] and Vanity as Mary Magdalene. Management at Paramount and its parent company, Gulf+Western grew uneasy due to the ballooning budget for the picture and protest letters received from religious groups. The project went into turnaround and was finally canceled in December 1983. Scorsese went on to make After Hours instead.
In 1986, Universal Studios became interested in the project. Scorsese offered to shoot the film in 58 days for $7 million,[2] and Universal greenlit the production. Critic and screenwriter Jay Cocks worked with Scorsese to revise Schrader's script. Aidan Quinn passed on the role of Jesus, and Scorsese recast Willem Dafoe in the part. Sting also passed on the role of Pilate, with the role being recast with David Bowie. Principal photography began in October 1987. The location shoot in Morocco (a first for Scorsese) was difficult, and the difficulties were compounded by the hurried schedule. "We worked in a state of emergency," Scorsese recalled. Scenes had to be improvised and worked out on the set with little deliberation, leading Scorsese to develop a minimalist aesthetic for the film. Shooting wrapped by December 25, 1987.
Music[edit]
The film's musical soundtrack, composed by Peter Gabriel, received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Score - Motion Picture in 1988 and was released on CD with the title Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ, which won a Grammy in 1990 for Best New Age Album. The film's score itself helped to popularize world music. Gabriel subsequently compiled an album called Passion - Sources, including additional material by various musicians that inspired him in composing the soundtrack, or which he sampled for the soundtrack.
Release[edit]
The film opened on August 12, 1988.[6] The film was later screened as a part of the Venice International Film Festival on September 7, 1988.[7] In response to the film's acceptance as a part of the film festival's lineup, director Franco Zeffirelli removed his film Young Toscanini from the program.[8]
Attack on Saint Michel theater, Paris[edit]
On October 22, 1988, a French Christian fundamentalist group launched Molotov cocktails inside the Parisian Saint Michel theater while it was showing the film. This attack injured thirteen people, four of whom were severely burned.[9][10] The Saint Michel theater was heavily damaged,[10] and reopened three years later after restoration. Following the attack, a representative of the film's distributor, United International Pictures, said, "The opponents of the film have largely won. They have massacred the film's success, and they have scared the public." Jack Lang, France's Minister of Culture, went to the St.-Michel theater after the fire, and said, "Freedom of speech is threatened, and we must not be intimidated by such acts."[10] The Archbishop of Paris, Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger, said "One doesn't have the right to shock the sensibilities of millions of people for whom Jesus is more important than their father or mother."[10] After the fire he condemned the attack, saying, "You don't behave as Christians but as enemies of Christ. From the Christian point of view, one doesn't defend Christ with arms. Christ himself forbade it."[10] The leader of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a self-described Christian group that had promised to stop the film from being shown, said, "We will not hesitate to go to prison if it is necessary."[10]
The attack was subsequently blamed on a Christian fundamentalist group linked to Bernard Antony, a representative of the far-right Front National to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, and the excommunicated followers of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.[9] Lefebvre had been excommunicated from the Catholic Church on July 2, 1988. Similar attacks against theatres included graffiti, setting off tear-gas canisters and stink bombs, and assaulting filmgoers.[9] At least nine people believed to be members of the Christian fundamentalist group were arrested.[9] Rene Remond, a historian, said of the Christian far-right, "It is the toughest component of the National Front and it is motivated more by religion than by politics. It has a coherent political philosophy that has not changed for 200 years: it is the rejection of the revolution, of the republic and of modernism."[9]
Controversy[edit]
The Last Temptation of Christ‍ '​s eponymous final sequence depicts the crucified Jesus—tempted by what turns out to be Satan in the form of a beautiful, androgynous child—experiencing a dream or alternative reality where he comes down from the cross, marries Mary Magdalene (and later Mary and Martha), and lives out his life as a full mortal man. He learns on his deathbed that he was deceived by Satan and begs God to let him "be [God's] son," at which point he finds himself once again on the cross. At other points in the film, Jesus is depicted as building crosses for the Romans, being tormented by the voice of God, and lamenting the many sins he believes he has committed.
Because of these departures from the gospel narratives—and especially a brief scene wherein Jesus and Mary Magdalene consummate their marriage—several Christian fundamentalist groups organized vocal protests and boycotts of the film prior to and upon its release. One protest, organized by a religious Californian radio station, gathered 600 protesters to picket the headquarters of Universal Studios' parent company MCA;[11] one of the protestors dressed as MCA's Chairman Lew Wasserman and pretended to drive nails through Jesus' hands into a wooden cross.[6] Evangelist Bill Bright offered to buy the film's negative from Universal in order to destroy it.[11][12] The protests were effective in convincing several theater chains not to screen the film;[11] one of those chains, General Cinemas, later apologized to Scorsese for doing so.[6]
In some countries, including Turkey, Mexico, Chile, and Argentina, the film was banned or censored for several years. As of July 2010, the film continues to be banned in the Philippines and Singapore.[13]
Home media[edit]
Although Last Temptation was released on VHS and Laserdisc, many video rental stores, including the then-dominant Blockbuster Video, declined to carry it for rental as a result of the film's controversial reception.[14] In 1997, the Criterion Collection issued a special edition of Last Temptation on Laserdisc, which Criterion re-issued on DVD in 2000 and on Blu-ray disc in Region A in March 2012.[15]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
The Last Temptation of Christ opened in 123 theaters on August 12, 1988 and grossed $401,211 in its opening weekend. At the end of its run, it had grossed $8,373,585 domestically and $487,867 in Mexico for a worldwide total of $8,861,452.[3]
Critical response[edit]
The film has been positively supported by film critics and some religious leaders. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 83% of 48 film critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 7.3 out of 10.[16] Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 80 based on 18 reviews.[17]
In his review of the film, Roger Ebert, who gave the film four out of four stars, writes that Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader "paid Christ the compliment of taking him and his message seriously, and they have made a film that does not turn him into a garish, emasculated image from a religious postcard. Here he is flesh and blood, struggling, questioning, asking himself and his father which is the right way, and finally, after great suffering, earning the right to say, on the cross, 'It is accomplished.'"[18] Ebert later included the film in his list of "Great Movies".[19]
Writers at NNDB claim that "Paul Schrader's screenplay and Willem Dafoe's performance made perhaps the most honestly Christ-like portrayal of Jesus ever filmed."[20]
Christian film critic Steven D. Greydanus has condemned the film, writing, "Poisonous morally and spiritually, it is also worthless as art or entertainment, at least on any theory of art as an object of appreciation. As an artifact of technical achievement, it may be well made; but as a film, it is devoid of redeeming merit."[21] A review associated with Catholic News Service claims that Last Temptation "fails because of artistic inadequacy rather than anti-religious bias."[22]

Portal icon 1980s portal
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (18)". British Board of Film Classification. September 2, 1988. Retrieved October 23, 2014.
2.^ Jump up to: a b "Last Temptation Turns Twenty-Five". Christianity Today. August 7, 2013. Retrieved October 23, 2014.
3.^ Jump up to: a b "The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)". Box Office Mojo. Internet Movie Database. Retrieved October 21, 2014.
4.Jump up ^ "The Last Temptation of Christ - clip - Jesus defends Mary". YouTube. 7 September 2007. Retrieved 19 December 2011.
5.Jump up ^ Revealed in an interview with Mark Lawson on Front Row, BBC Radio 4, September 23, 2008.
6.^ Jump up to: a b c Kelly, M. (1991). Martin Scorsese: A Journey. New York, Thunder's Mouth Press.
7.Jump up ^ "Venice Festival Screens Scorsese's 'Last Temptation'". Los Angeles Times. September 9, 1988. Retrieved December 9, 2012.
8.Jump up ^ "Zeffirelli Protests 'Temptation of Christ'". The New York Times. August 3, 1988. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
9.^ Jump up to: a b c d e James M. Markham (1988-11-09). "Religious War Ignites Anew in France". New York Times.
10.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Steven Greenhouse (1988-10-25). "Police Suspect Arson In Fire at Paris Theater". New York Times.
11.^ Jump up to: a b c WGBH. "Culture Shock Flashpoints: Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ". Public Broadcasting Systems. Retrieved April 20, 2012.
12.Jump up ^ http://articles.latimes.com/1988-07-22/local/me-7602_1_universal-pictures
13.Jump up ^ Certification page at the Internet Movie Database
14.Jump up ^ Martin Scorsese, et al. (1997). The Last Temptation of Christ [audio commentary] (Laserdisc/DVD/Blu-ray Disc). New York: The Criterion Collection.
15.Jump up ^ Katz, Josh (December 15, 2011). "Criterion Blu-ray in March: Scorsese, Kalatozov, Hegedus & Pennebaker, Baker, Lean (Updated)". Blu-ray.com. Retrieved February 17, 2013.
16.Jump up ^ "The Last Temptation of Christ". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 10 December 2012.
17.Jump up ^ "The Last Temptation of Christ". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 10 December 2012.
18.Jump up ^ Ebert, Roger (7 January 1998). "The Last Temptation of Christ". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 11 December 2012.
19.Jump up ^ Great Movies Roger Ebert
20.Jump up ^ Martin Scorsese Biography
21.Jump up ^ "The Last Temptation of Christ: An Essay in Film Criticism and Faith". Decentfilms.com. Retrieved 2013-06-10.
22.Jump up ^ "USCCB - (Film and Broadcasting) - Last Temptation of Christ, The". Old.usccb.org. Retrieved 2013-06-10.
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Last Temptation of Christ (film)
The Last Temptation of Christ at the Internet Movie Database
The Last Temptation of Christ at Box Office Mojo
The Last Temptation of Christ at Rotten Tomatoes
The Last Temptation of Christ at Metacritic
"Criterion Collection Essay". Retrieved 8 May 2012.
Pictures of opening day protests against "Last Temptation of Christ" at Wide Angle/Closeup
"Identity and Ethnicity in Peter Gabriel’s Sound Track for The Last Temptation of Christ'' by Eftychia Papanikolaou; chapter in Scandalizing Jesus?: Kazantzakis’s 'The Last Temptation of Christ' Fifty Years On, edited by Darren J. N. Middleton, with a contribution by Martin Scorsese, 217-228. New York and London: Continuum, 2005.





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Categories: 1988 films
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The Last Temptation of Christ (film)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Jump to: navigation, search


The Last Temptation of Christ
Black thorns against a blood red background.
Theatrical release poster

Directed by
Martin Scorsese
Produced by
Barbara De Fina
 Harry Ulfland
Screenplay by
Paul Schrader
Uncredited:
 Martin Scorsese
Jay Cocks
Based on
The Last Temptation of Christ
 by Nikos Kazantzakis
Starring
Willem Dafoe
Harvey Keitel
Barbara Hershey
Harry Dean Stanton
David Bowie
Andre Gregory
Music by
Peter Gabriel
Cinematography
Michael Ballhaus
Edited by
Thelma Schoonmaker

Production
 company

Cineplex Odeon Films

Distributed by
Universal Pictures

Release dates

August 12, 1988


Running time
 162 minutes[1]
Country
United States
 Canada
Language
English
Budget
$7 million[2]
Box office
$8.8 million[3]
The Last Temptation of Christ is a 1988 American-Canadian epic drama film directed by Martin Scorsese. Written by Paul Schrader with uncredited rewrites from Scorsese and Jay Cocks, the film is a film adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis' controversial 1953 novel of the same name. The film, starring Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Barbara Hershey, Andre Gregory, Harry Dean Stanton, and David Bowie, was shot entirely in Morocco.
Like the novel, the film depicts the life of Jesus Christ and his struggle with various forms of temptation including fear, doubt, depression, reluctance and lust. This results in the book and film depicting Christ being tempted by imagining himself engaged in sexual activities, a notion that has caused outrage from some Christians. The film includes a disclaimer explaining that it departs from the commonly accepted Biblical portrayal of Jesus' life, and is not based on the Gospels.
Scorsese received an Academy Award nomination for Best Director, and Hershey's performance as Mary Magdalene earned her a Golden Globe for Best Supporting Actress nomination, while Keitel's performance as Judas earned him a Golden Raspberry Award for Worst Supporting Actor nomination.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Cast
3 Production 3.1 Music
4 Release 4.1 Attack on Saint Michel theater, Paris
4.2 Controversy
4.3 Home media
5 Reception 5.1 Box office
5.2 Critical response
6 References
7 External links

Plot[edit]
The film begins with a man whispering in despair, "The feeling begins. Very tender, very loving. Then the pain starts. Claws slip underneath the skin and tear their way up. Just before they reach my eyes, they dig in. And I remember. First I fasted for three months. I even whipped myself before I went to sleep. At first it worked. Then the pain came back. And the voices. They call me by the name: Jesus." Jesus of Nazareth is a carpenter in Roman-occupied Judea, torn between his own desires and his knowledge that God has a plan for him. This conflict results in self-loathing, and he collaborates with the Romans to crucify Jewish rebels.
Judas Iscariot, a friend of Jesus originally sent to kill him for collaboration, instead suspects that Jesus is the Messiah and asks him to lead a liberation war against the Romans. Jesus replies that his message is love of mankind; whereupon Judas joins Jesus in his ministry, but threatens to kill him if he strays from the purpose of rebellion. Jesus also has an undisclosed prior relationship with Mary Magdalene, a Jewish prostitute, who asks Jesus to stay with her, a request that he considers before leaving for a monastic community. Jesus later saves Mary from a mob gathered to stone her for prostitution and working on the sabbath. Jesus compels the mob to spare her life, asking "Who here has never sinned?", with Jesus offering two stones.[4] Later, Jesus preaches to the crowd using many of the parables from the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus acquires disciples, but remains uncertain of his role. He visits John the Baptist, who baptizes Jesus, and that night the two discuss their differing theologies and political views. John believes that one must first gain freedom from the Romans to achieve their end, while Jesus maintains that love is more important and people should tend to matters of the spirit. Jesus then goes into the desert to test God's connection to himself, where he is tempted by Satan as a cobra, a lion, and a pillar of flame, but resists each of these and instead envisions himself with an axe, being instructed by John the Baptist in answer to Jesus' dilemma of whether to choose the path of love (symbolized by the heart) or the path of violence (represented by the axe). Jesus returns from the desert to the home of Martha and Mary of Bethany (both sisters of Lazarus), who restore him to health and attempt to persuade him that the way to please God is to have a home, a marriage, and children. Jesus then appears to his waiting disciples to tear out his own heart and invites them to follow him. With newfound confidence he restores sight to a blind man, changes water into wine, and raises Lazarus from the dead.
Eventually his ministry reaches Jerusalem, where Jesus performs the Cleansing of the Temple and leads a small army to capture the temple by force, but halts on the steps to await a sign from God for what he must do next. He begins bleeding from his hands, which he recognizes as a sign that he must die on the cross to bring salvation to mankind. Confiding in Judas, he persuades the latter to give him to the Romans, despite Judas' inclination otherwise. Jesus convenes his disciples for Passover seder, later known as the Last Supper; whereupon Judas leads a contingent of soldiers to arrest Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, identifying him with a kiss. In the struggle to defend his master, Peter cuts off the ear of Malchus; whereupon Jesus reattaches it and turns himself over to the soldiers. Pontius Pilate confronts Jesus and tells him that he must be put to death because he represents a threat to the Roman Empire. Jesus is subsequently flogged and a crown of thorns is placed on his head. He is then crucified.
While on the cross, Jesus converses with a young girl who claims to be his guardian angel. She tells him that while he is the Son of God, he is not the Messiah, and that God is pleased with him, and wants him to be happy. She brings him down off the cross and, invisible to others, takes him to Mary Magdalene, whom he then marries. They are soon expecting a child and living an idyllic life; but she abruptly dies, and Jesus is consoled by his angel; next he takes Mary and Martha, the sisters of Lazarus, for his wives. He starts a family with them, having many children, and lives his life in peace. Jesus is then seen as an older man who encounters the apostle Paul preaching about the Messiah and tries to tell Paul that he is the man about whom Paul has been preaching. Paul (who in this film has slain the resurrected Lazarus) repudiates him, saying that even if Jesus had not died on the cross, his message was the truth, and nothing would stop him from proclaiming that. Jesus debates him, claiming that salvation cannot be founded on lies.
Near the end of his life, an elderly Jesus calls his former disciples to his deathbed. Peter, Nathaniel, and a scarred John visit their master as Jerusalem is in the throes of rebellion; whereupon Judas comes last and reveals that the youthful angel who released Jesus from the crucifixion is in fact Satan. Crawling back through the burning city of Jerusalem, Jesus reaches the site of his crucifixion and begs God to let him fulfill his purpose and to "let him be God's son."
Jesus then finds himself once more on the cross, having overcome the "last temptation" of escaping death, being married and raising a family, and the ensuing disaster that would have consequently encompassed mankind. Naked and bloody, Jesus cries out in ecstasy as he dies, "It is accomplished!", and the screen flickers to white.
Cast[edit]
Willem Dafoe as Jesus
Harvey Keitel as Judas Iscariot
Barbara Hershey as Mary Magdalene
Harry Dean Stanton as Saul/Paul of Tarsus
David Bowie as Pontius Pilate
Steve Shill as Centurion
Verna Bloom as Mary, mother of Jesus
Roberts Blossom as Aged Master
Barry Miller as Jeroboam
Gary Basaraba as Andrew
Irvin Kershner as Zebedee
Victor Argo as Peter
Paul Herman as Philip
John Lurie as James
Michael Been as John
Leo Burmester as Nathaniel
Andre Gregory as John the Baptist
Alan Rosenberg as Thomas
Nehemiah Persoff as Rabbi
Peter Berling as Beggar
Leo Marks as Voice of Satan
Juliette Caton as Girl Angel
Martin Scorsese (uncredited) as Isaiah
Production[edit]
Martin Scorsese had wanted to make a film version of Jesus' life since childhood. Scorsese optioned the novel The Last Temptation in the late 1970s, and he gave it to Paul Schrader to adapt. The Last Temptation was originally to be Scorsese's follow-up to The King of Comedy; production was slated to begin in 1983 for Paramount, with a budget of about $14 million and shot on location in Israel. The original cast included Aidan Quinn as Jesus, Sting as Pontius Pilate, Ray Davies as Judas Iscariot,[5] and Vanity as Mary Magdalene. Management at Paramount and its parent company, Gulf+Western grew uneasy due to the ballooning budget for the picture and protest letters received from religious groups. The project went into turnaround and was finally canceled in December 1983. Scorsese went on to make After Hours instead.
In 1986, Universal Studios became interested in the project. Scorsese offered to shoot the film in 58 days for $7 million,[2] and Universal greenlit the production. Critic and screenwriter Jay Cocks worked with Scorsese to revise Schrader's script. Aidan Quinn passed on the role of Jesus, and Scorsese recast Willem Dafoe in the part. Sting also passed on the role of Pilate, with the role being recast with David Bowie. Principal photography began in October 1987. The location shoot in Morocco (a first for Scorsese) was difficult, and the difficulties were compounded by the hurried schedule. "We worked in a state of emergency," Scorsese recalled. Scenes had to be improvised and worked out on the set with little deliberation, leading Scorsese to develop a minimalist aesthetic for the film. Shooting wrapped by December 25, 1987.
Music[edit]
The film's musical soundtrack, composed by Peter Gabriel, received a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Original Score - Motion Picture in 1988 and was released on CD with the title Passion: Music for The Last Temptation of Christ, which won a Grammy in 1990 for Best New Age Album. The film's score itself helped to popularize world music. Gabriel subsequently compiled an album called Passion - Sources, including additional material by various musicians that inspired him in composing the soundtrack, or which he sampled for the soundtrack.
Release[edit]
The film opened on August 12, 1988.[6] The film was later screened as a part of the Venice International Film Festival on September 7, 1988.[7] In response to the film's acceptance as a part of the film festival's lineup, director Franco Zeffirelli removed his film Young Toscanini from the program.[8]
Attack on Saint Michel theater, Paris[edit]
On October 22, 1988, a French Christian fundamentalist group launched Molotov cocktails inside the Parisian Saint Michel theater while it was showing the film. This attack injured thirteen people, four of whom were severely burned.[9][10] The Saint Michel theater was heavily damaged,[10] and reopened three years later after restoration. Following the attack, a representative of the film's distributor, United International Pictures, said, "The opponents of the film have largely won. They have massacred the film's success, and they have scared the public." Jack Lang, France's Minister of Culture, went to the St.-Michel theater after the fire, and said, "Freedom of speech is threatened, and we must not be intimidated by such acts."[10] The Archbishop of Paris, Jean-Marie Cardinal Lustiger, said "One doesn't have the right to shock the sensibilities of millions of people for whom Jesus is more important than their father or mother."[10] After the fire he condemned the attack, saying, "You don't behave as Christians but as enemies of Christ. From the Christian point of view, one doesn't defend Christ with arms. Christ himself forbade it."[10] The leader of Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a self-described Christian group that had promised to stop the film from being shown, said, "We will not hesitate to go to prison if it is necessary."[10]
The attack was subsequently blamed on a Christian fundamentalist group linked to Bernard Antony, a representative of the far-right Front National to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, and the excommunicated followers of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre.[9] Lefebvre had been excommunicated from the Catholic Church on July 2, 1988. Similar attacks against theatres included graffiti, setting off tear-gas canisters and stink bombs, and assaulting filmgoers.[9] At least nine people believed to be members of the Christian fundamentalist group were arrested.[9] Rene Remond, a historian, said of the Christian far-right, "It is the toughest component of the National Front and it is motivated more by religion than by politics. It has a coherent political philosophy that has not changed for 200 years: it is the rejection of the revolution, of the republic and of modernism."[9]
Controversy[edit]
The Last Temptation of Christ‍ '​s eponymous final sequence depicts the crucified Jesus—tempted by what turns out to be Satan in the form of a beautiful, androgynous child—experiencing a dream or alternative reality where he comes down from the cross, marries Mary Magdalene (and later Mary and Martha), and lives out his life as a full mortal man. He learns on his deathbed that he was deceived by Satan and begs God to let him "be [God's] son," at which point he finds himself once again on the cross. At other points in the film, Jesus is depicted as building crosses for the Romans, being tormented by the voice of God, and lamenting the many sins he believes he has committed.
Because of these departures from the gospel narratives—and especially a brief scene wherein Jesus and Mary Magdalene consummate their marriage—several Christian fundamentalist groups organized vocal protests and boycotts of the film prior to and upon its release. One protest, organized by a religious Californian radio station, gathered 600 protesters to picket the headquarters of Universal Studios' parent company MCA;[11] one of the protestors dressed as MCA's Chairman Lew Wasserman and pretended to drive nails through Jesus' hands into a wooden cross.[6] Evangelist Bill Bright offered to buy the film's negative from Universal in order to destroy it.[11][12] The protests were effective in convincing several theater chains not to screen the film;[11] one of those chains, General Cinemas, later apologized to Scorsese for doing so.[6]
In some countries, including Turkey, Mexico, Chile, and Argentina, the film was banned or censored for several years. As of July 2010, the film continues to be banned in the Philippines and Singapore.[13]
Home media[edit]
Although Last Temptation was released on VHS and Laserdisc, many video rental stores, including the then-dominant Blockbuster Video, declined to carry it for rental as a result of the film's controversial reception.[14] In 1997, the Criterion Collection issued a special edition of Last Temptation on Laserdisc, which Criterion re-issued on DVD in 2000 and on Blu-ray disc in Region A in March 2012.[15]
Reception[edit]
Box office[edit]
The Last Temptation of Christ opened in 123 theaters on August 12, 1988 and grossed $401,211 in its opening weekend. At the end of its run, it had grossed $8,373,585 domestically and $487,867 in Mexico for a worldwide total of $8,861,452.[3]
Critical response[edit]
The film has been positively supported by film critics and some religious leaders. Review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports that 83% of 48 film critics have given the film a positive review, with a rating average of 7.3 out of 10.[16] Metacritic, which assigns a weighted average score out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, gives the film a score of 80 based on 18 reviews.[17]
In his review of the film, Roger Ebert, who gave the film four out of four stars, writes that Scorsese and screenwriter Paul Schrader "paid Christ the compliment of taking him and his message seriously, and they have made a film that does not turn him into a garish, emasculated image from a religious postcard. Here he is flesh and blood, struggling, questioning, asking himself and his father which is the right way, and finally, after great suffering, earning the right to say, on the cross, 'It is accomplished.'"[18] Ebert later included the film in his list of "Great Movies".[19]
Writers at NNDB claim that "Paul Schrader's screenplay and Willem Dafoe's performance made perhaps the most honestly Christ-like portrayal of Jesus ever filmed."[20]
Christian film critic Steven D. Greydanus has condemned the film, writing, "Poisonous morally and spiritually, it is also worthless as art or entertainment, at least on any theory of art as an object of appreciation. As an artifact of technical achievement, it may be well made; but as a film, it is devoid of redeeming merit."[21] A review associated with Catholic News Service claims that Last Temptation "fails because of artistic inadequacy rather than anti-religious bias."[22]

Portal icon 1980s portal
References[edit]
1.Jump up ^ "THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST (18)". British Board of Film Classification. September 2, 1988. Retrieved October 23, 2014.
2.^ Jump up to: a b "Last Temptation Turns Twenty-Five". Christianity Today. August 7, 2013. Retrieved October 23, 2014.
3.^ Jump up to: a b "The Last Temptation of Christ (1988)". Box Office Mojo. Internet Movie Database. Retrieved October 21, 2014.
4.Jump up ^ "The Last Temptation of Christ - clip - Jesus defends Mary". YouTube. 7 September 2007. Retrieved 19 December 2011.
5.Jump up ^ Revealed in an interview with Mark Lawson on Front Row, BBC Radio 4, September 23, 2008.
6.^ Jump up to: a b c Kelly, M. (1991). Martin Scorsese: A Journey. New York, Thunder's Mouth Press.
7.Jump up ^ "Venice Festival Screens Scorsese's 'Last Temptation'". Los Angeles Times. September 9, 1988. Retrieved December 9, 2012.
8.Jump up ^ "Zeffirelli Protests 'Temptation of Christ'". The New York Times. August 3, 1988. Retrieved 9 December 2012.
9.^ Jump up to: a b c d e James M. Markham (1988-11-09). "Religious War Ignites Anew in France". New York Times.
10.^ Jump up to: a b c d e f Steven Greenhouse (1988-10-25). "Police Suspect Arson In Fire at Paris Theater". New York Times.
11.^ Jump up to: a b c WGBH. "Culture Shock Flashpoints: Martin Scorsese's The Last Temptation of Christ". Public Broadcasting Systems. Retrieved April 20, 2012.
12.Jump up ^ http://articles.latimes.com/1988-07-22/local/me-7602_1_universal-pictures
13.Jump up ^ Certification page at the Internet Movie Database
14.Jump up ^ Martin Scorsese, et al. (1997). The Last Temptation of Christ [audio commentary] (Laserdisc/DVD/Blu-ray Disc). New York: The Criterion Collection.
15.Jump up ^ Katz, Josh (December 15, 2011). "Criterion Blu-ray in March: Scorsese, Kalatozov, Hegedus & Pennebaker, Baker, Lean (Updated)". Blu-ray.com. Retrieved February 17, 2013.
16.Jump up ^ "The Last Temptation of Christ". Rotten Tomatoes. Flixster. Retrieved 10 December 2012.
17.Jump up ^ "The Last Temptation of Christ". Metacritic. CBS Interactive. Retrieved 10 December 2012.
18.Jump up ^ Ebert, Roger (7 January 1998). "The Last Temptation of Christ". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved 11 December 2012.
19.Jump up ^ Great Movies Roger Ebert
20.Jump up ^ Martin Scorsese Biography
21.Jump up ^ "The Last Temptation of Christ: An Essay in Film Criticism and Faith". Decentfilms.com. Retrieved 2013-06-10.
22.Jump up ^ "USCCB - (Film and Broadcasting) - Last Temptation of Christ, The". Old.usccb.org. Retrieved 2013-06-10.
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: The Last Temptation of Christ (film)
The Last Temptation of Christ at the Internet Movie Database
The Last Temptation of Christ at Box Office Mojo
The Last Temptation of Christ at Rotten Tomatoes
The Last Temptation of Christ at Metacritic
"Criterion Collection Essay". Retrieved 8 May 2012.
Pictures of opening day protests against "Last Temptation of Christ" at Wide Angle/Closeup
"Identity and Ethnicity in Peter Gabriel’s Sound Track for The Last Temptation of Christ'' by Eftychia Papanikolaou; chapter in Scandalizing Jesus?: Kazantzakis’s 'The Last Temptation of Christ' Fifty Years On, edited by Darren J. N. Middleton, with a contribution by Martin Scorsese, 217-228. New York and London: Continuum, 2005.





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Categories: 1988 films
English-language films
1980s drama films
American films
American drama films
American epic films
American independent films
Canadian films
Canadian drama films
Films directed by Martin Scorsese
Adaptations of works by Nikos Kazantzakis
Biographical films about Jesus
Depictions of John the Baptist
Films based on novels
Films shot in Morocco
Portrayals of the Virgin Mary in film
Religious epic films
Universal Pictures films
Canadian independent films
Screenplays by Paul Schrader
The Devil in fiction
Film scores by Peter Gabriel
Canadian epic films





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The Fall of the Roman Empire (film)

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The Fall of the Roman Empire
Fall of roman empire (1964).jpeg
Original film poster by Renato Fratini

Directed by
Anthony Mann
Produced by
Samuel Bronston
Written by
Ben Barzman
 Basilio Franchina
Philip Yordan
Starring
Sophia Loren
Stephen Boyd
Alec Guinness
James Mason
Christopher Plummer
Mel Ferrer
Omar Sharif
Music by
Dimitri Tiomkin
Cinematography
Robert Krasker
Edited by
Robert Lawrence

Production
 company

Samuel Bronston Productions

Distributed by
Paramount Pictures (US)
Rank Organization (UK)

Release dates

March 24, 1964 (UK)
March 26, 1964 (US)


Running time
 188 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$20 million
Box office
$1,875,000 (US/ Canada)[1]
The Fall of the Roman Empire is a 1964 epic film starring Sophia Loren, Stephen Boyd, Alec Guinness, James Mason, Christopher Plummer, Mel Ferrer and Omar Sharif. It was directed by Anthony Mann and produced by Samuel Bronston, with a screenplay by Ben Barzman, Basilio Franchina and Philip Yordan.
The film was a financial failure at the box-office. However, it is considered unusually intelligent and thoughtful for a film of the contemporary sword and sandal genre and also enjoys a 100% "Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
The film's name is a misnomer, as actually the Roman Empire survived for centuries after the period depicted in the film - even though historians consider it the beginning of Rome's decline.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Production
3 Musical score
4 Cast 4.1 Cast notes
5 Awards
6 Novelization
7 Home media
8 See also
9 References
10 External links

Plot[edit]
In the winter of 180 A.D., the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (Guinness) fights to keep Germanic barbarians from invading his northern territories on the Danube frontier. His deputies are the Greek ex-slave Timonides (Mason), a closet Christian, and the stern and honest general Gaius Livius (Boyd). Livius has close connections with the imperial family, being the lover of Aurelius' philosopher daughter Lucilla (Loren) and a friend of her brother Commodus (Plummer). Nevertheless, he is amazed to hear that Aurelius wants to make him his heir. Despite his military obligations the emperor has egalitarian ideals, dreaming of a day when Rome grants equal rights to men of all nations. He knows that he will not live to achieve this end, and trusts Livius to do so more than his charismatic but brutal son. The discovery that his father has effectively disinherited him hurts Commodus immensely, and damages the almost brotherly relationship he had enjoyed with Livius.
Aurelius summons all the governors of the Roman empire to his headquarters, intending to announce Livius' future accession. Before he can do so he is poisoned by Commodus' cronies, who hope to secure their own political future by putting their friend on the throne. Sure enough, Livius feels that a non-aristocrat such as himself would never be accepted as emperor without Aurelius' explicit backing; he lets his old friend take the position instead. Commodus, who was not part of the murder plot, is left feeling helplessly angry at his deceased father. He dedicates himself to undoing all Aurelius' policies; this involves blatant favoritism towards Rome and Italy, which are enriched by ferocious taxation of the provinces that were to be their equals.
Meanwhile Livius' army scores an important victory on the frontier, capturing the German chieftain Ballomar and his aides. Timonides wins the Germans' trust by successfully undergoing an ordeal, having his hand thrust in a fire; with his help, Livius decides to put Aurelius' policy into effect despite disapproval from Commodus. Lucilla helps convince Livius to defy the emperor, since she loved her father as much as Commodus hates him. A speech by Timonides persuades the Roman Senate to let the German captives become peaceful farmers on Italian land, thereby encouraging their fellow barbarians to cooperate with Rome instead of fighting it. Commodus is furious, and sends Livius back to his frontier post in what is effectively a sentence of banishment. Lucilla is forced to go to Armenia, with whose king she shares a loveless political marriage.
Commodus is compelled to recall Livius in order to put down a rebellion by Rome's eastern provinces. When he arrives at the sight of the unrest, Livius is horrified to find that Lucilla is behind it. She tries to persuade him to join her in making a splinter state, free of her brother's influence, but he feels that Roman civilization will collapse if it is broken into pieces. The issue is settled in an unexpected manner when Lucilla's husband calls in Rome's archenemy the Persians to help the rebelling forces fight Livius. The sight of the dreaded Persian cavalry so panics the defecting Romans that they go back over to Livius, swelling his army and allowing him to score an immense victory. The king of Armenia is killed, and Commodus sends word that Livius is to be made joint ruler of Rome. The condition for this reward, however, is that Livius is to wreak hideous punishments on the populations of the disloyal provinces.
Rejecting this latest piece of brutality, Livius and Lucilla take their army to Rome and order Commodus to abdicate. He responds by bribing away the soldiers' loyalty and massacring Timonides and the population of the German colony (the latter action ensuring centuries of future hostility between Romans and Germans). The fawning Senate declares Commodus a god, and Livius and Lucilla are sentenced to be burned alive as human sacrifices to the new deity. This victory for Commodus is accompanied by a terrible private discovery—he is not of royal blood, being the product of illicit sex between his promiscuous mother Faustina Minor and the gladiator Verulus, who has since served as the emperor's bodyguard. His mind unhinged by this great shame, Commodus makes the bizarre decision of challenging Livius to a duel for the throne. The two fight with javelins in the Roman Forum, and Livius eventually runs Commodus through. The Senate hastily offer to make Livius emperor, but he refuses; the Roman government is now too corrupt for him to fix. He slips away with Lucilla, leaving Commodus' old advisers to bicker about who will take the emperor's place.
A voice-over epilogue states that this political infighting continued for the rest of Roman history, leading to the imperial government's eventual collapse.
Production[edit]
The Fall of the Roman Empire was one of Samuel Bronston's superproductions in Spain, with Marcus Aurelius's winter camp on the Danube shot in snow in the Sierra de Guadarrama, northern Madrid. The 'Battle of the Four Armies' involved 8,000 soldiers including 1,200 cavalry and was shot on an undulating plain at Manzanares el Real which allowed large numbers of soldiers to be visible over a long distance. The film's reconstruction of the Roman Forum at Las Matas near Madrid, at 400 x 230 meters (1312 x 754 feet) holds the record for the largest outdoor film set. The various ancient Rome settings covered 55 acres (220,000 m2).
The film was shot in 70mm Ultra Panavision by Robert Krasker, and the historian Will Durant was engaged to advise on period detail and plot.
The film was a costly financial failure for producer Samuel Bronston who, after making such epics as John Paul Jones (1959), King of Kings (1961), El Cid (1961), and 55 Days at Peking (1963) had to stop all business activities. A bankruptcy notice in the New York Times on 6 August 1965, stated the cost of The Fall of the Roman Empire at $18,436,625. He announced his return with a planned epic about Isabella of Spain, but the film was never made.
This was one of the few Ultra Panavision 70 films not exhibited in Cinerama.
In later years, Miramax would acquire the US distribution rights to the film. After the founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein split with Miramax parent Disney, they formed the Weinstein Company, who currently owns US distribution rights.
UK distribution rights would pass to PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and subsequently Universal Studios.
Musical score[edit]
Dimitri Tiomkin's score, which is one of the notable features of the film, is more than 150 minutes in length. It is scored for a large orchestra, including an important part for cathedral organ. Several cues are extended compositions in their own right. These include Pax Romana in which Marcus Aurelius summons the governors of all the Roman provinces. Although Christopher Palmer stated in his book on film music, The Composer in Hollywood, that it was a march, the cue is actually in the style of a bolero. Other notable cues include those for The Roman Forum, composed to accompany Commodus's triumphal return to Rome as the newly installed Emperor; a percussive scherzo for a barbarian attack by Ballomar's army; the Tarantella danced by the Roman mob on the evening presaging the gladiatorial combat between Livius and Commodus (which seems to be modelled on the Tarantella movement from the Piano Concerto of Tiomkin's teacher Ferruccio Busoni). The score was recorded by the Sinfonia of London (uncredited) at Shepperton Studios. The music editor was George Korngold, son of Erich Wolfgang Korngold. A sound track album was released by Columbia Records to coincide with the release of the film.

[show]The Fall of the Roman Empire: Limited Edition[2]







  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Cast[edit]

Actor
Role
Sophia Loren Lucilla
Christopher Plummer Commodus
Alec Guinness Marcus Aurelius
James Mason Timonides
Stephen Boyd Livius
Anthony Quayle Verulus
John Ireland Ballomar
Omar Sharif Sohaemus, King of Armenia
Mel Ferrer Cleander
Eric Porter Julianus
Finlay Currie Senator
Andrew Keir Polybius
Douglas Wilmer Pescennius Niger
George Murcell Victorinus
Norman Wooland Virgilianus
Cast notes[edit]
It was envisioned that Charlton Heston would be cast as Livius, but he turned it down after finding out that Sophia Loren would be the leading lady. (Heston had co-starred with Loren in El Cid and had not got on well with her. Thus, he had no desire to work with her again.) The part had also been offered to Kirk Douglas, who turned it down as well. Stephen Boyd, who played opposite to Heston in Ben-Hur, ultimately got the part.
Richard Harris was originally cast as Commodus, but he was replaced by Christopher Plummer. Harris would later play the role of Marcus Aurelius in the 2000 film Gladiator.
Alec Guinness was cast as Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and during the production he became good friends with Sophia Loren. On an evening out Loren persuaded Guinness to dance "The Twist" with her, which he did for the first time in his life. On the flight to Spain, one of the film's writers struck up a conversation with Guinness after seeing him working with the script; the actor stated that he disliked his lines and was rewriting them before starting memorization.
Sara Montiel was offered the role of Lucilla but turned it down. Loren, who took the part, was the highest paid cast member at $1 million.
Awards[edit]
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score (nominated & won)
Academy Award for Best Music, Score – Substantially Original (nominated)



 Cover of the novelization.
Novelization[edit]
A novel based on the film is The Fall of the Roman Empire by Harry Whittington (Fawcett Publications, Inc. & Frederick Muller Ltd., 1964).
Home media[edit]
The first English-language DVD release was the basic theatrical release of the film, running for 2 hours 52 minutes, was first issued on DVD in 2004. A French DVD release, with sub-titles and/or French dubbing, and a full stereo soundtrack in both, had appeared in 2001. A deluxe edition containing two-disks and a limited collector's edition containing three disks were released on April 29, 2008, but they do not feature lost footage discovered too late to be included. This footage will be featured in an upcoming edition.[3] The most complete version of the film was released on Super 8mm in the early 1990s, extracted from a 16mm print.[4] The Blu-ray Disc was released in the United Kingdom on May 16, 2011.
See also[edit]
Gladiator - an epic film set at the same point in Roman history made in 2000
List of films set in ancient Rome
List of Roman Emperors
The Five Good Emperors, of which Marcus Aurelius was the last
Decline of the Roman Empire
References[edit]


 This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2012)
1.Jump up ^ "Big Rental Pictures of 1964", Variety, January 6, 1965 p 39. Please note this figure is rentals accruing to distributors not total gross.
2.Jump up ^ "The Fall of the Roman Empire: Limited Edition". La-La Land Records. Retrieved October 19, 2012.
3.Jump up ^ http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00125WAXM
4.Jump up ^ Winkler, Martin M. (editor, 2009). The Fall of the Roman Empire: Film and History (p. XIII). West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.
External links[edit]
The Fall of the Roman Empire at the Internet Movie Database
The Fall of the Roman Empire at AllMovie
Movie stills
New York Times film review


[hide]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Films directed by Anthony Mann


Dr. Broadway (1942) ·
 Moonlight in Havana (1942) ·
 Strangers in the Night (1944) ·
 The Great Flamarion (1945) ·
 Two O'Clock Courage (1945) ·
 Sing Your Way Home (1945) ·
 The Bamboo Blonde (1946) ·
 Strange Impersonation (1946) ·
 Desperate (1947) ·
 Railroaded! (1947) ·
 T-Men (1947) ·
 Raw Deal (1948) ·
 Reign of Terror (1949) ·
 Border Incident (1949) ·
 Side Street (1950) ·
 Winchester '73 (1950) ·
 The Furies (1950) ·
 Devil's Doorway (1950) ·
 The Tall Target (1951) ·
 Bend of the River (1952) ·
 The Naked Spur (1953) ·
 Thunder Bay (1953) ·
 The Glenn Miller Story (1954) ·
 The Far Country (1954) ·
 Strategic Air Command (1955) ·
 The Man from Laramie (1955) ·
 The Last Frontier (1955) ·
 Serenade (1956) ·
 Men in War (1957) ·
 The Tin Star (1957) ·
 God's Little Acre (1958) ·
 Man of the West (1958) ·
 Cimarron (1960) ·
 El Cid (1961) ·
 The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) ·
 The Heroes of Telemark (1965) ·
 A Dandy in Aspic (1968)
 

  


Categories: 1964 films
English-language films
American films
American epic films
Films directed by Anthony Mann
Films set in ancient Rome
Films set in the Roman Empire
Films set in the 2nd century
Nerva–Antonine dynasty
Royal Family of Emesa
Paramount Pictures films
Samuel Bronston Productions films
Films shot in Madrid
Films shot in Spain
Films set in classical antiquity
Biographical films about Roman emperors
Film scores by Dimitri Tiomkin







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The Fall of the Roman Empire (film)

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Jump to: navigation, search


The Fall of the Roman Empire
Fall of roman empire (1964).jpeg
Original film poster by Renato Fratini

Directed by
Anthony Mann
Produced by
Samuel Bronston
Written by
Ben Barzman
 Basilio Franchina
Philip Yordan
Starring
Sophia Loren
Stephen Boyd
Alec Guinness
James Mason
Christopher Plummer
Mel Ferrer
Omar Sharif
Music by
Dimitri Tiomkin
Cinematography
Robert Krasker
Edited by
Robert Lawrence

Production
 company

Samuel Bronston Productions

Distributed by
Paramount Pictures (US)
Rank Organization (UK)

Release dates

March 24, 1964 (UK)
March 26, 1964 (US)


Running time
 188 minutes
Country
United States
Language
English
Budget
$20 million
Box office
$1,875,000 (US/ Canada)[1]
The Fall of the Roman Empire is a 1964 epic film starring Sophia Loren, Stephen Boyd, Alec Guinness, James Mason, Christopher Plummer, Mel Ferrer and Omar Sharif. It was directed by Anthony Mann and produced by Samuel Bronston, with a screenplay by Ben Barzman, Basilio Franchina and Philip Yordan.
The film was a financial failure at the box-office. However, it is considered unusually intelligent and thoughtful for a film of the contemporary sword and sandal genre and also enjoys a 100% "Fresh" rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
The film's name is a misnomer, as actually the Roman Empire survived for centuries after the period depicted in the film - even though historians consider it the beginning of Rome's decline.


Contents  [hide]
1 Plot
2 Production
3 Musical score
4 Cast 4.1 Cast notes
5 Awards
6 Novelization
7 Home media
8 See also
9 References
10 External links

Plot[edit]
In the winter of 180 A.D., the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius (Guinness) fights to keep Germanic barbarians from invading his northern territories on the Danube frontier. His deputies are the Greek ex-slave Timonides (Mason), a closet Christian, and the stern and honest general Gaius Livius (Boyd). Livius has close connections with the imperial family, being the lover of Aurelius' philosopher daughter Lucilla (Loren) and a friend of her brother Commodus (Plummer). Nevertheless, he is amazed to hear that Aurelius wants to make him his heir. Despite his military obligations the emperor has egalitarian ideals, dreaming of a day when Rome grants equal rights to men of all nations. He knows that he will not live to achieve this end, and trusts Livius to do so more than his charismatic but brutal son. The discovery that his father has effectively disinherited him hurts Commodus immensely, and damages the almost brotherly relationship he had enjoyed with Livius.
Aurelius summons all the governors of the Roman empire to his headquarters, intending to announce Livius' future accession. Before he can do so he is poisoned by Commodus' cronies, who hope to secure their own political future by putting their friend on the throne. Sure enough, Livius feels that a non-aristocrat such as himself would never be accepted as emperor without Aurelius' explicit backing; he lets his old friend take the position instead. Commodus, who was not part of the murder plot, is left feeling helplessly angry at his deceased father. He dedicates himself to undoing all Aurelius' policies; this involves blatant favoritism towards Rome and Italy, which are enriched by ferocious taxation of the provinces that were to be their equals.
Meanwhile Livius' army scores an important victory on the frontier, capturing the German chieftain Ballomar and his aides. Timonides wins the Germans' trust by successfully undergoing an ordeal, having his hand thrust in a fire; with his help, Livius decides to put Aurelius' policy into effect despite disapproval from Commodus. Lucilla helps convince Livius to defy the emperor, since she loved her father as much as Commodus hates him. A speech by Timonides persuades the Roman Senate to let the German captives become peaceful farmers on Italian land, thereby encouraging their fellow barbarians to cooperate with Rome instead of fighting it. Commodus is furious, and sends Livius back to his frontier post in what is effectively a sentence of banishment. Lucilla is forced to go to Armenia, with whose king she shares a loveless political marriage.
Commodus is compelled to recall Livius in order to put down a rebellion by Rome's eastern provinces. When he arrives at the sight of the unrest, Livius is horrified to find that Lucilla is behind it. She tries to persuade him to join her in making a splinter state, free of her brother's influence, but he feels that Roman civilization will collapse if it is broken into pieces. The issue is settled in an unexpected manner when Lucilla's husband calls in Rome's archenemy the Persians to help the rebelling forces fight Livius. The sight of the dreaded Persian cavalry so panics the defecting Romans that they go back over to Livius, swelling his army and allowing him to score an immense victory. The king of Armenia is killed, and Commodus sends word that Livius is to be made joint ruler of Rome. The condition for this reward, however, is that Livius is to wreak hideous punishments on the populations of the disloyal provinces.
Rejecting this latest piece of brutality, Livius and Lucilla take their army to Rome and order Commodus to abdicate. He responds by bribing away the soldiers' loyalty and massacring Timonides and the population of the German colony (the latter action ensuring centuries of future hostility between Romans and Germans). The fawning Senate declares Commodus a god, and Livius and Lucilla are sentenced to be burned alive as human sacrifices to the new deity. This victory for Commodus is accompanied by a terrible private discovery—he is not of royal blood, being the product of illicit sex between his promiscuous mother Faustina Minor and the gladiator Verulus, who has since served as the emperor's bodyguard. His mind unhinged by this great shame, Commodus makes the bizarre decision of challenging Livius to a duel for the throne. The two fight with javelins in the Roman Forum, and Livius eventually runs Commodus through. The Senate hastily offer to make Livius emperor, but he refuses; the Roman government is now too corrupt for him to fix. He slips away with Lucilla, leaving Commodus' old advisers to bicker about who will take the emperor's place.
A voice-over epilogue states that this political infighting continued for the rest of Roman history, leading to the imperial government's eventual collapse.
Production[edit]
The Fall of the Roman Empire was one of Samuel Bronston's superproductions in Spain, with Marcus Aurelius's winter camp on the Danube shot in snow in the Sierra de Guadarrama, northern Madrid. The 'Battle of the Four Armies' involved 8,000 soldiers including 1,200 cavalry and was shot on an undulating plain at Manzanares el Real which allowed large numbers of soldiers to be visible over a long distance. The film's reconstruction of the Roman Forum at Las Matas near Madrid, at 400 x 230 meters (1312 x 754 feet) holds the record for the largest outdoor film set. The various ancient Rome settings covered 55 acres (220,000 m2).
The film was shot in 70mm Ultra Panavision by Robert Krasker, and the historian Will Durant was engaged to advise on period detail and plot.
The film was a costly financial failure for producer Samuel Bronston who, after making such epics as John Paul Jones (1959), King of Kings (1961), El Cid (1961), and 55 Days at Peking (1963) had to stop all business activities. A bankruptcy notice in the New York Times on 6 August 1965, stated the cost of The Fall of the Roman Empire at $18,436,625. He announced his return with a planned epic about Isabella of Spain, but the film was never made.
This was one of the few Ultra Panavision 70 films not exhibited in Cinerama.
In later years, Miramax would acquire the US distribution rights to the film. After the founders Bob and Harvey Weinstein split with Miramax parent Disney, they formed the Weinstein Company, who currently owns US distribution rights.
UK distribution rights would pass to PolyGram Filmed Entertainment and subsequently Universal Studios.
Musical score[edit]
Dimitri Tiomkin's score, which is one of the notable features of the film, is more than 150 minutes in length. It is scored for a large orchestra, including an important part for cathedral organ. Several cues are extended compositions in their own right. These include Pax Romana in which Marcus Aurelius summons the governors of all the Roman provinces. Although Christopher Palmer stated in his book on film music, The Composer in Hollywood, that it was a march, the cue is actually in the style of a bolero. Other notable cues include those for The Roman Forum, composed to accompany Commodus's triumphal return to Rome as the newly installed Emperor; a percussive scherzo for a barbarian attack by Ballomar's army; the Tarantella danced by the Roman mob on the evening presaging the gladiatorial combat between Livius and Commodus (which seems to be modelled on the Tarantella movement from the Piano Concerto of Tiomkin's teacher Ferruccio Busoni). The score was recorded by the Sinfonia of London (uncredited) at Shepperton Studios. The music editor was George Korngold, son of Erich Wolfgang Korngold. A sound track album was released by Columbia Records to coincide with the release of the film.

[show]The Fall of the Roman Empire: Limited Edition[2]







  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
Cast[edit]

Actor
Role
Sophia Loren Lucilla
Christopher Plummer Commodus
Alec Guinness Marcus Aurelius
James Mason Timonides
Stephen Boyd Livius
Anthony Quayle Verulus
John Ireland Ballomar
Omar Sharif Sohaemus, King of Armenia
Mel Ferrer Cleander
Eric Porter Julianus
Finlay Currie Senator
Andrew Keir Polybius
Douglas Wilmer Pescennius Niger
George Murcell Victorinus
Norman Wooland Virgilianus
Cast notes[edit]
It was envisioned that Charlton Heston would be cast as Livius, but he turned it down after finding out that Sophia Loren would be the leading lady. (Heston had co-starred with Loren in El Cid and had not got on well with her. Thus, he had no desire to work with her again.) The part had also been offered to Kirk Douglas, who turned it down as well. Stephen Boyd, who played opposite to Heston in Ben-Hur, ultimately got the part.
Richard Harris was originally cast as Commodus, but he was replaced by Christopher Plummer. Harris would later play the role of Marcus Aurelius in the 2000 film Gladiator.
Alec Guinness was cast as Emperor Marcus Aurelius, and during the production he became good friends with Sophia Loren. On an evening out Loren persuaded Guinness to dance "The Twist" with her, which he did for the first time in his life. On the flight to Spain, one of the film's writers struck up a conversation with Guinness after seeing him working with the script; the actor stated that he disliked his lines and was rewriting them before starting memorization.
Sara Montiel was offered the role of Lucilla but turned it down. Loren, who took the part, was the highest paid cast member at $1 million.
Awards[edit]
Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score (nominated & won)
Academy Award for Best Music, Score – Substantially Original (nominated)



 Cover of the novelization.
Novelization[edit]
A novel based on the film is The Fall of the Roman Empire by Harry Whittington (Fawcett Publications, Inc. & Frederick Muller Ltd., 1964).
Home media[edit]
The first English-language DVD release was the basic theatrical release of the film, running for 2 hours 52 minutes, was first issued on DVD in 2004. A French DVD release, with sub-titles and/or French dubbing, and a full stereo soundtrack in both, had appeared in 2001. A deluxe edition containing two-disks and a limited collector's edition containing three disks were released on April 29, 2008, but they do not feature lost footage discovered too late to be included. This footage will be featured in an upcoming edition.[3] The most complete version of the film was released on Super 8mm in the early 1990s, extracted from a 16mm print.[4] The Blu-ray Disc was released in the United Kingdom on May 16, 2011.
See also[edit]
Gladiator - an epic film set at the same point in Roman history made in 2000
List of films set in ancient Rome
List of Roman Emperors
The Five Good Emperors, of which Marcus Aurelius was the last
Decline of the Roman Empire
References[edit]


 This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (August 2012)
1.Jump up ^ "Big Rental Pictures of 1964", Variety, January 6, 1965 p 39. Please note this figure is rentals accruing to distributors not total gross.
2.Jump up ^ "The Fall of the Roman Empire: Limited Edition". La-La Land Records. Retrieved October 19, 2012.
3.Jump up ^ http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00125WAXM
4.Jump up ^ Winkler, Martin M. (editor, 2009). The Fall of the Roman Empire: Film and History (p. XIII). West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.
External links[edit]
The Fall of the Roman Empire at the Internet Movie Database
The Fall of the Roman Empire at AllMovie
Movie stills
New York Times film review


[hide]
v ·
 t ·
 e
 
Films directed by Anthony Mann


Dr. Broadway (1942) ·
 Moonlight in Havana (1942) ·
 Strangers in the Night (1944) ·
 The Great Flamarion (1945) ·
 Two O'Clock Courage (1945) ·
 Sing Your Way Home (1945) ·
 The Bamboo Blonde (1946) ·
 Strange Impersonation (1946) ·
 Desperate (1947) ·
 Railroaded! (1947) ·
 T-Men (1947) ·
 Raw Deal (1948) ·
 Reign of Terror (1949) ·
 Border Incident (1949) ·
 Side Street (1950) ·
 Winchester '73 (1950) ·
 The Furies (1950) ·
 Devil's Doorway (1950) ·
 The Tall Target (1951) ·
 Bend of the River (1952) ·
 The Naked Spur (1953) ·
 Thunder Bay (1953) ·
 The Glenn Miller Story (1954) ·
 The Far Country (1954) ·
 Strategic Air Command (1955) ·
 The Man from Laramie (1955) ·
 The Last Frontier (1955) ·
 Serenade (1956) ·
 Men in War (1957) ·
 The Tin Star (1957) ·
 God's Little Acre (1958) ·
 Man of the West (1958) ·
 Cimarron (1960) ·
 El Cid (1961) ·
 The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) ·
 The Heroes of Telemark (1965) ·
 A Dandy in Aspic (1968)
 

  


Categories: 1964 films
English-language films
American films
American epic films
Films directed by Anthony Mann
Films set in ancient Rome
Films set in the Roman Empire
Films set in the 2nd century
Nerva–Antonine dynasty
Royal Family of Emesa
Paramount Pictures films
Samuel Bronston Productions films
Films shot in Madrid
Films shot in Spain
Films set in classical antiquity
Biographical films about Roman emperors
Film scores by Dimitri Tiomkin







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This page was last modified on 21 April 2015, at 02:41.
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The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

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Jump to: navigation, search

This article is about the book. For the historical events, see History of the Roman Empire and Fall of the Western Roman Empire. For the historiography spawned by Gibbon's theories, see Decline of the Roman Empire. For publication details and chapter listings, see Outline of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Author
Edward Gibbon
Country
England
Language
English
Subject
History of the Roman Empire
Publisher
Strahan & Cadell, London

Publication date
 1776–89
Media type
Print
LC Class
DG311



 Edward Gibbon (1737–1794).
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (sometimes shortened to Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) is a book of history written by the English historian Edward Gibbon, which traces the trajectory of Western civilization (as well as the Islamic and Mongolian conquests) from the height of the Roman Empire to the fall of Byzantium. It was published in six volumes. Volume I was published in 1776 and went through six printings.[1] Volumes II and III were published in 1781;[2][3] volumes IV, V, and VI in 1788–89.[4][5][6] The original volumes were published in quarto sections, a common publishing practice of the time. The work covers the history of the Roman Empire, Europe, and the Catholic Church from 98 to 1590 and discusses the decline of the Roman Empire in the East and West. Because of its relative objectivity and heavy use of primary sources, unusual at the time, its methodology became a model for later historians. This led to Gibbon being called the first "modern historian of ancient Rome".[7]


Contents  [hide]
1 Thesis
2 Style 2.1 Citations
3 Controversy: chapters XV, XVI
4 Criticism 4.1 Christianity as a contributor to the fall and to stability
4.2 Misinterpretation of Byzantium
5 Gibbon's reflections
6 Editions
7 Legacy
8 See also
9 Notes
10 Further reading
11 External links

Thesis[edit]
Gibbon offers an explanation for the fall of the Roman Empire, a task made difficult by a lack of comprehensive written sources, though he was not the only historian to tackle the subject.[8]
According to Gibbon, the Roman Empire succumbed to barbarian invasions in large part due to the gradual loss of civic virtue among its citizens.[9] They had become weak, outsourcing their duty to defend their empire to barbarian mercenaries, who then became so numerous and ingrained that they were able to take over the Empire. Romans, he believed, had become effeminate, unwilling to live a tougher, "manly" military lifestyle. In addition, Gibbon argued that Christianity created a belief that a better life existed after death, which fostered an indifference to the present among Roman citizens, thus sapping their desire to sacrifice for a larger purpose. He also believed that Christianity's comparative pacifism tended to hamper the traditional Roman martial spirit. Finally, like other Enlightenment thinkers and British citizens of the age steeped in institutional anti-Catholicism, Gibbon held in contempt the Middle Ages as a priest-ridden, superstitious Dark Age. It was not until his own era, the "Age of Reason," with its emphasis on rational thought, it was believed, that human history could resume its progress.[10]
Gibbon saw the Praetorian Guard as the primary catalyst of the empire's initial decay and eventual collapse, a seed planted by Augustus when the empire was established. His writings cite repeated examples of the Praetorian Guard abusing their power with calamitous results, including numerous instances of imperial assassination and incessant demands for increased pay.
Style[edit]
Gibbon's style is frequently distinguished by an ironically detached and somewhat dispassionate yet critical tone. He occasionally lapsed into moralization and aphorism.
"[A]s long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters".
"The influence of the clergy, in an age of superstition, might be usefully employed to assert the rights of mankind; but so intimate is the connection between the throne and the altar, that the banner of the church has very seldom been seen on the side of the people" (Chapter Three p. 52).
"History...is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortune of mankind" (ibid. p. 69).
"If we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery [of gunpowder] with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind" (Chapter 65,p. 68).[Page numbers in which edition? clarification needed]
Citations[edit]
Gibbon provides the reader with a glimpse of his thought process with extensive notes along the body of the text, a precursor to the modern use of footnotes. Gibbon's footnotes are famous for their idiosyncratic and often humorous style, and have been called "Gibbon's table talk." They provide an entertaining moral commentary on both ancient Rome and 18th-century Great Britain. This technique enabled Gibbon to compare ancient Rome to modern times. Gibbon's work advocates a rationalist and progressive view of history.
Gibbon's citations provide in-depth detail regarding his use of sources for his work, which included documents dating back to ancient Rome. The detail within his asides and his care in noting the importance of each document is a precursor to modern-day historical footnoting methodology.
The work is notable for its erratic but exhaustively documented notes and research. John Bury, following him 113 years later with his own "History of the Later Roman Empire", commended the depth and accuracy of Gibbon's work. Unusually for 18th century historians, Gibbon was not content with second-hand accounts when the primary sources were accessible. "I have always endeavoured", Gibbon wrote, "to draw from the fountain-head; that my curiosity, as well as a sense of duty, has always urged me to study the originals; and that, if they have sometimes eluded my search, I have carefully marked the secondary evidence, on whose faith a passage or a fact were reduced to depend."[11] The Decline and Fall is a literary monument and a massive step forward in historical method.[12]
Controversy: chapters XV, XVI[edit]
Volume I was originally published in sections, as was common for large works at the time. The first two were well received and widely praised. The last quarto in Volume I, especially Chapters XV and XVI, were highly controversial, and Gibbon was attacked as a "paganist". Gibbon challenged Church history by estimating far smaller numbers of Christian martyrs than had been traditionally accepted. The Church's version of its early history had rarely been questioned before. For Gibbon, however, the Church writings were secondary sources, and he shunned them in favour of primary sources contemporary to the period he was chronicling.
He compared the reigns of Diocletian (284–305) and Charles V (1519–1556), noting superficial similarities. Both were plagued by continual war and compelled to excessive taxation, both chose to abdicate as Emperors at roughly the same age, and both chose to lead a quiet life upon their retirement. However, Gibbon argues that these similarities are only superficial and that the underlying context and character of the two rulers is markedly different.
Criticism[edit]
Numerous tracts were published criticizing his work and in response, Gibbon defended his work with the 1779 publication of, A Vindication ... of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.[13] His remarks on Christianity aroused particularly vigorous attacks, but in the mid-twentieth century, at least one author claimed that "church historians allow the substantial justness of [Gibbon's] main positions."[14]
Christianity as a contributor to the fall and to stability[edit]

"As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal that the introduction, or at least the abuse of Christianity, had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. Faith, zeal, curiosity, and more earthly passions of malice and ambition, kindled the flame of theological discord; the church, and even the state, were distracted by religious factions, whose conflicts were sometimes bloody and always implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted from camps to synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new species of tyranny; and the persecuted sects became the secret enemies of their country. Yet party-spirit, however pernicious or absurd, is a principle of union as well as of dissension. The bishops, from eighteen hundred pulpits, inculcated the duty of passive obedience to a lawful and orthodox sovereign; their frequent assemblies and perpetual correspondence maintained the communion of distant churches; and the benevolent temper of the Gospel was strengthened, though confirmed, by the spiritual alliance of the Catholics. The sacred indolence of the monks was devoutly embraced by a servile and effeminate age; but if superstition had not afforded a decent retreat, the same vices would have tempted the unworthy Romans to desert, from baser motives, the standard of the republic. Religious precepts are easily obeyed which indulge and sanctify the natural inclinations of their votaries; but the pure and genuine influence of Christianity may be traced in its beneficial, though imperfect, effects on the barbarian proselytes of the North. If the decline of the Roman empire was hastened by the conversion of Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the fall, and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors." (chap. 39).[15]
Voltaire was deemed to have influenced Gibbon's claiming that Christianity was a contributor to the fall of the Roman Empire:

As Christianity advances, disasters befall the [Roman] empire —arts, science, literature, decay —barbarism and all its revolting concomitants are made to seem the consequences of its decisive triumph —and the unwary reader is conducted, with matchless dexterity, to the desired conclusion —the abominable Manicheism of Candide, and, in fact, of all the productions of Voltaire's historic school —viz., "that instead of being a merciful, ameliorating, and benignant visitation, the religion of Christians would rather seem to be a scourge sent on man by the author of all evil."[16]
Historians such as David S. Potter and Fergus Millar dispute claims that the Empire fell as a result of a kind of lethargy towards current affairs brought on by Constantine's support of Christianity and its eventual adoption as the official state religion by Emperor Theodosius I.[17] They claim that such a view is "vague" and has little real evidence to support it. Others such as J.B. Bury, who wrote a history of the later Empire, claimed there is "no evidence" to support Gibbon's claims of Christian apathy towards the Empire:

"It has often been alleged that Christianity in its political effects was a disintegrating force and tended to weaken the power of Rome to resist her enemies. It is difficult to see that it had any such tendency, so long as the Church itself was united. Theological heresies were indeed to prove a disintegrating force in the East in the seventh century, when differences in doctrine which had alienated the Christians in Egypt and Syria from the government of Constantinople facilitated the conquests of the Saracens. But after the defeat of Arianism, there was no such vital or deep-reaching division in the West, and the effect of Christianity was to unite, not to sever, to check, rather than to emphasise, national or sectional feeling. In the political calculations of Constantine it was probably this ideal of unity, as a counterpoise to the centrifugal tendencies which had been clearly revealed in the third century, that was the great recommendation of the religion which he raised to power. Nor is there the least reason to suppose that Christian teaching had the practical effect of making men less loyal to the Empire or less ready to defend it. The Christians were as pugnacious as the pagans. Some might read Augustine's City of God with edification, but probably very few interpreted its theory with such strict practical logic as to be indifferent to the safety of the Empire. Hardly the author himself, though this has been disputed."[18]
Today, historians tend to analyze economic and military factors in the decline of Rome.[19]
Furthermore, Gibbon has been criticized for his portrayal of Paganism as tolerant and Christianity as intolerant. In an article that appeared in 1996 in the journal Past & Present, H.A. Drake challenges an understanding of religious persecution in ancient Rome, which he considers to be the "conceptual scheme" that was used by historians to deal with the topic for the last 200 years, and whose most eminent representative is Gibbon. Gibbon had written:
"The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosophers as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful".
Drake counters:
"With such deft strokes, Gibbon enters into a conspiracy with his readers: unlike the credulous masses, he and we are cosmopolitans who know the uses of religion as an instrument of social control. So doing, Gibbon skirts a serious problem: for three centuries prior to Constantine, the tolerant pagans who people the Decline and Fall were the authors of several major persecutions, in which Christians were the victims. ...Gibbon covered this embarrassing hole in his argument with an elegant demur. Rather than deny the obvious, he adroitly masked the question by transforming his Roman magistrates into models of Enlightenment rulers — reluctant persecutors, too sophisticated to be themselves religious zealots."
Misinterpretation of Byzantium[edit]
Others such as John Julius Norwich, despite their admiration for his furthering of historical methodology, consider Gibbon's hostile views on the Byzantine Empire flawed and blame him somewhat for the lack of interest shown in the subject throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.[20] This view might well be admitted by Gibbon himself: "But it is not my intention to expatiate with the same minuteness on the whole series of the Byzantine history."[21] However one recent scholar of Byzantium says, "Gibbon and Lebeau were genuine historians — and Gibbon a very great one — and their works, in spite of factual inadequacy, rank high for their presentation of their material."[22]
Gibbon's reflections[edit]
Gibbon's initial plan was to write a history "of the decline and fall of the city of Rome", and only later expanded his scope to the whole Roman Empire.[23]
Although he published other books, Gibbon devoted much of his life to this one work (1772–1789). His autobiography Memoirs of My Life and Writings is devoted largely to his reflections on how the book virtually became his life. He compared the publication of each succeeding volume to a newborn child.[24]
Editions[edit]
Gibbon continued to revise and change his work even after publication. The complexities of the problem are addressed in Womersley's introduction and appendices to his complete edition.
In-print complete editions J.B. Bury, ed., 7 volumes (London: Methuen, 1909–1914), currently reprinted (New York: AMS Press, 1974). Until Womersley, this was the essential edition, but now nearing age 100, the historical analysis/commentary is dated. [ISBN 0-404-02820-9].
Hugh Trevor-Roper, ed., 6 volumes (New York: Everyman's Library, 1993–1994). from the Bury text and with Gibbon's own notes, but without Bury's, many of which are superseded by more recent research. [ISBN 0-679-42308-7 (vols. 1–3); ISBN 0-679-43593-X (vols. 4–6)].
David Womersley, ed., 3 volumes. hardback-(London: Allen Lane, 1994); paperback-(New York: Penguin Books, 2005;1994). The current essential edition[citation needed], the most faithful to Gibbon's original text[citation needed]. The ancient Greek quotations are not as accurate as in Bury, but an otherwise excellent work with complete footnotes and bibliographical information for Gibbon's cryptic footnote notations[citation needed]. Includes the original index, and the Vindication (1779) which Gibbon wrote in response to attacks on his caustic portrayal of Christianity. The 2005 print includes minor revisions and a new chronology. [ISBN 0-7139-9124-0 (3360 p.); ISBN 0-14-043393-7 (v.1, 1232 p.); ISBN 0-14-043394-5 (v.2, 1024 p.); ISBN 0-14-043395-3 (v.3, 1360 p.)]
In-print abridgements David Womersley, ed., 1 volume (New York: Penguin Books, 2000). Includes all footnotes and eleven of the original seventy-one chapters. [ISBN 0-14-043764-9, 848 p.]
Hans-Friedrich Mueller, ed., one volume abridgment (New York: Random House, 2003). Includes excerpts from all seventy-one chapters. It eliminates footnotes, geographic surveys, details of battle formations, long narratives of military campaigns, ethnographies and genealogies, but retains the narrative from start to finish. Based on the Rev. H.H. [Dean] Milman edition of 1845 (see also Gutenberg etext edition). [ISBN 0-375-75811-9, (trade paper, 1312 p.); ISBN 0-345-47884-3 (mass market paper, 1536 p.)]

Legacy[edit]
Variations on the series title (including using "Rise and Fall" in place of "Decline and Fall") have been used by other writers:
An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. Designed To Shew How The Prosperity Of The British Empire May Be Prolonged (1805), William Playfair
The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire (1970), John Toland (author)
The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1868), Jefferson Davis
Decline and Fall (1928), Evelyn Waugh
The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), by the satirist Will Cuppy
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1959), William Shirer
The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler (1961), William Shirer
The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1975), David Nobbs
The Decline and Fall of Science (1976), Celia Green
The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire (1977), Lord Kinross
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church (1983), Malachi Martin
Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire (1986), Hans Eysenck
The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (1990), David Cannadine
The Decline and Fall of Roman Britain (2000), Neil Faulkner
The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America (2003), David Carlin
The Decline and Fall of the British Empire (2007), Piers Brendon
Decline and Fall of the American Republic (2010), Bruce Ackerman
and in music albums:
Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (1969), The Kinks
The Rise And Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972), David Bowie
and in film titles:
The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
The Decline of Western Civilization (1981), Penelope Spheeris
The Decline of the American Empire (1986), Denys Arcand
and in television:
Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire (2006)
The title and author are also cited in Noël Coward's comedic poem "I Went to a Marvellous Party".[25] And in the poem "The Foundation of Science Fiction Success", Isaac Asimov acknowledged that his Foundation series—an epic tale of the fall and rebuilding of a galactic empire—was written "with a tiny bit of cribbin' / from the works of Edward Gibbon".
See also[edit]
Decline of the Roman Empire
Outline of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Edward Gibbon (1776). The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire I. W. Strahan and T. Cadell.
2.Jump up ^ Edward Gibbon (1781). The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire II.
3.Jump up ^ Edward Gibbon (1781). The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire III.
4.Jump up ^ Edward Gibbon (1788). The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire IV. Strahan and Cadell.
5.Jump up ^ Edward Gibbon (1788). The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire V. W. Strahan and T. Cadell.
6.Jump up ^ Edward Gibbon (1788). The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire VI.
7.Jump up ^ David S. Potter (2006-05-22). A Companion to the Roman Empire. Wiley. p. 100. ISBN 978-0-631-22644-4.
8.Jump up ^ see for example Henri Pirenne's (1862–1935) famous thesis published in the early 20th century. As for sources more recent than the ancients, Gibbon certainly drew on Montesquieu's short essay, Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence, and on previous work published by Bossuet (1627-1704) in his Histoire universelle à Monseigneur le dauphin (1763). see Pocock, EEG. for Bousset, pp. 65, 145; for Montesquieu, pp. 85–88, 114, 223.
9.Jump up ^ J.G.A. Pocock, "Between Machiavelli and Hume: Gibbon as Civic Humanist and Philosophical Historian," Daedalus 105,3(1976), 153–169; and in Further reading: Pocock, EEG, 303–304; FDF, 304–306.
10.Jump up ^ J.G.A. Pocock, "Between Machiavelli and Hume: Gibbon as Civic Humanist and Philosophical Historian," Daedulus 105,3(1976), 153–169; and in Further reading: Pocock, EEG, 303–304; FDF, 304–306.
11.Jump up ^ Preface to Gibbon's Volume the Fourth in David Womersley ed., Edward Gibbon - The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 2 (New York: Penguin Books, 1994), p. 520.
12.Jump up ^ In the early 20th century, biographer Sir Leslie Stephen ["Gibbon, Edward (1737–1794)," Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 7, (Oxford, 1921), p. 1134.] summarized The History's reputation as a work of unmatched erudition, a degree of professional esteem which remains as strong today as it was then:
The criticisms upon his book...are nearly unanimous. In accuracy, thoroughness, lucidity, and comprehensive grasp of a vast subject, the History is unsurpassable. It is the one English history which may be regarded as definitive. ...Whatever its shortcomings, the book is artistically imposing as well as historically unimpeachable as a vast panorama of a great period.
13.Jump up ^ Edward Gibbon (1779). A vindication of some passages in the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire: By the author.. Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell, in the Strand.
14.Jump up ^ The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. IV, eds. S.M. Jackson, et al. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1952), 483–484. online.
15.Jump up ^ General Observations On The Fall Of The Roman Empire In The West. Fall In The West — The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon. At Christian Classics Ethereal Library, Calvin College Computer Science. http://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/volume1/chap39.htm
16.Jump up ^ Dublin review: a quarterly and critical journal. Burns, Oates and Washbourne. 1840. pp. 208–. JItKAAAAcAAJ. "p. 208 image at Google Books"
17.Jump up ^ “Theodosius and the Relationship Between Church and State” http://www.sau.edu/The_Academy_for_the_Study_of_St_Ambrose_of_Milan/Students_and_Scholars/Joosten.html
18.Jump up ^ J.B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire, from Arcadius to Irene (395 A. D. to 800 A. D.). (London and New York: Macmillan and Co., 1889), 319–320.
19.Jump up ^ Ramsay MacMullen, Corruption and the Decline of Rome. (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1988); Thomas S. Burns, Barbarians Within the Gates of Rome: Study of Roman Military Policy and the Barbarians, ca. 375–425 AD. (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1995).
20.Jump up ^ John Julius Norwich, Byzantium (New York: Knopf, 1989); Byzantium: the apogee (London and New York: Viking Press, 1991).
21.Jump up ^ Preface of 1782 online.
22.Jump up ^ Georgije Ostrogorski History of the Byzantine State (1986) p 5 online
23.Jump up ^ Gibbon, Edward (1781). The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 3. chapter 36, footnote 43. "If I prosecute this History, I shall not be unmindful of the decline and fall of the city of Rome; an interesting object, to which my plan was originally confined."
24.Jump up ^ Patricia B. Craddock, Edward Gibbon, Luminous Historian. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1989), 249–266.
25.Jump up ^ Link to notes on the poem here [1]. Excerpt: "If you have any mind at all, Gibbon's divine Decline and Fall, Seems pretty flimsy, No more than a whimsy... ."
Further reading[edit]
Brownley, Martine W. "Appearance and Reality in Gibbon's History," Journal of the History of Ideas 38,4 (1977), 651–666.
Brownley, Martine W. "Gibbon's Artistic and Historical Scope in the Decline and Fall," Journal of the History of Ideas 42,4(1981), 629–642.
Cosgrove, Peter. Impartial Stranger: History and Intertextuality in Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Newark: Associated University Presses, 1999); [ISBN 0-87413-658-X].
Craddock, Patricia. "Historical Discovery and Literary Invention in Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall'," Modern Philology 85,4(May 1988), 569–587.
Drake, H.A., "Lambs into Lions: explaining early Christian intolerance," Past and Present 153(1996), 3–36. Oxford Journals
Furet, Francois. "Civilization and Barbarism in Gibbon's History," Daedalus 105,3(1976), 209–216.
Gay, Peter. Style in History (New York: Basic Books, 1974); [ISBN 0-465-08304-8].
Ghosh, Peter R. "Gibbon's Dark Ages: Some Remarks on the Genesis of the Decline and Fall," Journal of Roman Studies 73(1983), 1–23.
Homer-Dixon, Thomas "The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization", 2007 [ISBN 978-0-676-97723-3] Chapter 3 pp. 57–60
Kelly, Christopher. "A Grand Tour: Reading Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall'," Greece & Rome 2nd ser., 44,1 (Apr. 1997), 39–58.
Momigliano, Arnaldo. "Eighteenth-Century Prelude to Mr. Gibbon," in Pierre Ducrey et al., eds., Gibbon et Rome à la lumière de l'historiographie moderne (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1977).
Momigliano, Arnaldo. "Gibbon from an Italian Point of View," in G.W. Bowersock et al., eds., Edward Gibbon and the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1977).
Momigliano, Arnaldo. "Declines and Falls," American Scholar 49(Winter 1979), 37–51.
Momigliano, Arnaldo. "After Gibbon's Decline and Fall," in Kurt Weitzmann, ed. Age of Spirituality : a symposium (Princeton: 1980); [ISBN 0-89142-039-8].
Pocock, J.G.A. Barbarism and Religion, 4 vols. all Cambridge Univ. Press. vol. 1, The Enlightenments of Edward Gibbon, 1737–1764, 1999 [hb: ISBN 0-521-63345-1]. cited as "Pocock, EEG";
vol. 2, Narratives of Civil Government, 1999 [hb: ISBN 0-521-64002-4];
vol. 3, The First Decline and Fall, 2003 [pb: ISBN 0-521-82445-1]. cited as "Pocock, FDF."
vol. 4, Barbarians, Savages and Empires, 2005 [hb: ISBN 0-521-85625-6].
The Work of J.G.A. Pocock: Edward Gibbon section.
Roberts, Charlotte Edward Gibbon and the Shape of History. 2014 Oxford University Press 9780198704836
Trevor-Roper, H.R. "Gibbon and the Publication of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776–1976," Journal of Law and Economics 19,3 (Oct. 1976), 489–505.
Womersley, David. The Transformation of 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' (Cambridge: 1988).
Womersley, David, ed. Religious Scepticism: Contemporary Responses to Gibbon (Bristol, England: Thoemmes Press, 1997).
Wootton, David. "Narrative, Irony, and Faith in Gibbon's Decline and Fall," History and Theory 33,4 (Dec., 1994), 77–105.
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire author record at Project Gutenberg. Based on the Rev. H.H. Milman edition of 1845.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire from the Online Library of Liberty. The J. B. Bury edition, in 12 volumes.
Memoirs of My Life and Writings at Project Gutenberg
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Google Book Search (pdf version)
Full text at Christian Classics Etheral Library
EdwardGibbonStudies.com: Web Center for Edward Gibbon Studies
DeclineandFallResources.com: Maps, Translations, Illustrations
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Audiobook from the Internet Archive.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1 vol. 2 vol. 3 vol. 4 vol. 5 vol. 6: audio recordings at Librivox.org
  


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The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

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This article is about the book. For the historical events, see History of the Roman Empire and Fall of the Western Roman Empire. For the historiography spawned by Gibbon's theories, see Decline of the Roman Empire. For publication details and chapter listings, see Outline of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire

Author
Edward Gibbon
Country
England
Language
English
Subject
History of the Roman Empire
Publisher
Strahan & Cadell, London

Publication date
 1776–89
Media type
Print
LC Class
DG311



 Edward Gibbon (1737–1794).
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (sometimes shortened to Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire) is a book of history written by the English historian Edward Gibbon, which traces the trajectory of Western civilization (as well as the Islamic and Mongolian conquests) from the height of the Roman Empire to the fall of Byzantium. It was published in six volumes. Volume I was published in 1776 and went through six printings.[1] Volumes II and III were published in 1781;[2][3] volumes IV, V, and VI in 1788–89.[4][5][6] The original volumes were published in quarto sections, a common publishing practice of the time. The work covers the history of the Roman Empire, Europe, and the Catholic Church from 98 to 1590 and discusses the decline of the Roman Empire in the East and West. Because of its relative objectivity and heavy use of primary sources, unusual at the time, its methodology became a model for later historians. This led to Gibbon being called the first "modern historian of ancient Rome".[7]


Contents  [hide]
1 Thesis
2 Style 2.1 Citations
3 Controversy: chapters XV, XVI
4 Criticism 4.1 Christianity as a contributor to the fall and to stability
4.2 Misinterpretation of Byzantium
5 Gibbon's reflections
6 Editions
7 Legacy
8 See also
9 Notes
10 Further reading
11 External links

Thesis[edit]
Gibbon offers an explanation for the fall of the Roman Empire, a task made difficult by a lack of comprehensive written sources, though he was not the only historian to tackle the subject.[8]
According to Gibbon, the Roman Empire succumbed to barbarian invasions in large part due to the gradual loss of civic virtue among its citizens.[9] They had become weak, outsourcing their duty to defend their empire to barbarian mercenaries, who then became so numerous and ingrained that they were able to take over the Empire. Romans, he believed, had become effeminate, unwilling to live a tougher, "manly" military lifestyle. In addition, Gibbon argued that Christianity created a belief that a better life existed after death, which fostered an indifference to the present among Roman citizens, thus sapping their desire to sacrifice for a larger purpose. He also believed that Christianity's comparative pacifism tended to hamper the traditional Roman martial spirit. Finally, like other Enlightenment thinkers and British citizens of the age steeped in institutional anti-Catholicism, Gibbon held in contempt the Middle Ages as a priest-ridden, superstitious Dark Age. It was not until his own era, the "Age of Reason," with its emphasis on rational thought, it was believed, that human history could resume its progress.[10]
Gibbon saw the Praetorian Guard as the primary catalyst of the empire's initial decay and eventual collapse, a seed planted by Augustus when the empire was established. His writings cite repeated examples of the Praetorian Guard abusing their power with calamitous results, including numerous instances of imperial assassination and incessant demands for increased pay.
Style[edit]
Gibbon's style is frequently distinguished by an ironically detached and somewhat dispassionate yet critical tone. He occasionally lapsed into moralization and aphorism.
"[A]s long as mankind shall continue to bestow more liberal applause on their destroyers than on their benefactors, the thirst of military glory will ever be the vice of the most exalted characters".
"The influence of the clergy, in an age of superstition, might be usefully employed to assert the rights of mankind; but so intimate is the connection between the throne and the altar, that the banner of the church has very seldom been seen on the side of the people" (Chapter Three p. 52).
"History...is, indeed, little more than the register of the crimes, follies, and misfortune of mankind" (ibid. p. 69).
"If we contrast the rapid progress of this mischievous discovery [of gunpowder] with the slow and laborious advances of reason, science, and the arts of peace, a philosopher, according to his temper, will laugh or weep at the folly of mankind" (Chapter 65,p. 68).[Page numbers in which edition? clarification needed]
Citations[edit]
Gibbon provides the reader with a glimpse of his thought process with extensive notes along the body of the text, a precursor to the modern use of footnotes. Gibbon's footnotes are famous for their idiosyncratic and often humorous style, and have been called "Gibbon's table talk." They provide an entertaining moral commentary on both ancient Rome and 18th-century Great Britain. This technique enabled Gibbon to compare ancient Rome to modern times. Gibbon's work advocates a rationalist and progressive view of history.
Gibbon's citations provide in-depth detail regarding his use of sources for his work, which included documents dating back to ancient Rome. The detail within his asides and his care in noting the importance of each document is a precursor to modern-day historical footnoting methodology.
The work is notable for its erratic but exhaustively documented notes and research. John Bury, following him 113 years later with his own "History of the Later Roman Empire", commended the depth and accuracy of Gibbon's work. Unusually for 18th century historians, Gibbon was not content with second-hand accounts when the primary sources were accessible. "I have always endeavoured", Gibbon wrote, "to draw from the fountain-head; that my curiosity, as well as a sense of duty, has always urged me to study the originals; and that, if they have sometimes eluded my search, I have carefully marked the secondary evidence, on whose faith a passage or a fact were reduced to depend."[11] The Decline and Fall is a literary monument and a massive step forward in historical method.[12]
Controversy: chapters XV, XVI[edit]
Volume I was originally published in sections, as was common for large works at the time. The first two were well received and widely praised. The last quarto in Volume I, especially Chapters XV and XVI, were highly controversial, and Gibbon was attacked as a "paganist". Gibbon challenged Church history by estimating far smaller numbers of Christian martyrs than had been traditionally accepted. The Church's version of its early history had rarely been questioned before. For Gibbon, however, the Church writings were secondary sources, and he shunned them in favour of primary sources contemporary to the period he was chronicling.
He compared the reigns of Diocletian (284–305) and Charles V (1519–1556), noting superficial similarities. Both were plagued by continual war and compelled to excessive taxation, both chose to abdicate as Emperors at roughly the same age, and both chose to lead a quiet life upon their retirement. However, Gibbon argues that these similarities are only superficial and that the underlying context and character of the two rulers is markedly different.
Criticism[edit]
Numerous tracts were published criticizing his work and in response, Gibbon defended his work with the 1779 publication of, A Vindication ... of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.[13] His remarks on Christianity aroused particularly vigorous attacks, but in the mid-twentieth century, at least one author claimed that "church historians allow the substantial justness of [Gibbon's] main positions."[14]
Christianity as a contributor to the fall and to stability[edit]

"As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal that the introduction, or at least the abuse of Christianity, had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire. The clergy successfully preached the doctrines of patience and pusillanimity; the active virtues of society were discouraged; and the last remains of military spirit were buried in the cloister: a large portion of public and private wealth was consecrated to the specious demands of charity and devotion; and the soldiers' pay was lavished on the useless multitudes of both sexes who could only plead the merits of abstinence and chastity. Faith, zeal, curiosity, and more earthly passions of malice and ambition, kindled the flame of theological discord; the church, and even the state, were distracted by religious factions, whose conflicts were sometimes bloody and always implacable; the attention of the emperors was diverted from camps to synods; the Roman world was oppressed by a new species of tyranny; and the persecuted sects became the secret enemies of their country. Yet party-spirit, however pernicious or absurd, is a principle of union as well as of dissension. The bishops, from eighteen hundred pulpits, inculcated the duty of passive obedience to a lawful and orthodox sovereign; their frequent assemblies and perpetual correspondence maintained the communion of distant churches; and the benevolent temper of the Gospel was strengthened, though confirmed, by the spiritual alliance of the Catholics. The sacred indolence of the monks was devoutly embraced by a servile and effeminate age; but if superstition had not afforded a decent retreat, the same vices would have tempted the unworthy Romans to desert, from baser motives, the standard of the republic. Religious precepts are easily obeyed which indulge and sanctify the natural inclinations of their votaries; but the pure and genuine influence of Christianity may be traced in its beneficial, though imperfect, effects on the barbarian proselytes of the North. If the decline of the Roman empire was hastened by the conversion of Constantine, his victorious religion broke the violence of the fall, and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors." (chap. 39).[15]
Voltaire was deemed to have influenced Gibbon's claiming that Christianity was a contributor to the fall of the Roman Empire:

As Christianity advances, disasters befall the [Roman] empire —arts, science, literature, decay —barbarism and all its revolting concomitants are made to seem the consequences of its decisive triumph —and the unwary reader is conducted, with matchless dexterity, to the desired conclusion —the abominable Manicheism of Candide, and, in fact, of all the productions of Voltaire's historic school —viz., "that instead of being a merciful, ameliorating, and benignant visitation, the religion of Christians would rather seem to be a scourge sent on man by the author of all evil."[16]
Historians such as David S. Potter and Fergus Millar dispute claims that the Empire fell as a result of a kind of lethargy towards current affairs brought on by Constantine's support of Christianity and its eventual adoption as the official state religion by Emperor Theodosius I.[17] They claim that such a view is "vague" and has little real evidence to support it. Others such as J.B. Bury, who wrote a history of the later Empire, claimed there is "no evidence" to support Gibbon's claims of Christian apathy towards the Empire:

"It has often been alleged that Christianity in its political effects was a disintegrating force and tended to weaken the power of Rome to resist her enemies. It is difficult to see that it had any such tendency, so long as the Church itself was united. Theological heresies were indeed to prove a disintegrating force in the East in the seventh century, when differences in doctrine which had alienated the Christians in Egypt and Syria from the government of Constantinople facilitated the conquests of the Saracens. But after the defeat of Arianism, there was no such vital or deep-reaching division in the West, and the effect of Christianity was to unite, not to sever, to check, rather than to emphasise, national or sectional feeling. In the political calculations of Constantine it was probably this ideal of unity, as a counterpoise to the centrifugal tendencies which had been clearly revealed in the third century, that was the great recommendation of the religion which he raised to power. Nor is there the least reason to suppose that Christian teaching had the practical effect of making men less loyal to the Empire or less ready to defend it. The Christians were as pugnacious as the pagans. Some might read Augustine's City of God with edification, but probably very few interpreted its theory with such strict practical logic as to be indifferent to the safety of the Empire. Hardly the author himself, though this has been disputed."[18]
Today, historians tend to analyze economic and military factors in the decline of Rome.[19]
Furthermore, Gibbon has been criticized for his portrayal of Paganism as tolerant and Christianity as intolerant. In an article that appeared in 1996 in the journal Past & Present, H.A. Drake challenges an understanding of religious persecution in ancient Rome, which he considers to be the "conceptual scheme" that was used by historians to deal with the topic for the last 200 years, and whose most eminent representative is Gibbon. Gibbon had written:
"The various modes of worship which prevailed in the Roman world were all considered by the people as equally true; by the philosophers as equally false; and by the magistrate as equally useful".
Drake counters:
"With such deft strokes, Gibbon enters into a conspiracy with his readers: unlike the credulous masses, he and we are cosmopolitans who know the uses of religion as an instrument of social control. So doing, Gibbon skirts a serious problem: for three centuries prior to Constantine, the tolerant pagans who people the Decline and Fall were the authors of several major persecutions, in which Christians were the victims. ...Gibbon covered this embarrassing hole in his argument with an elegant demur. Rather than deny the obvious, he adroitly masked the question by transforming his Roman magistrates into models of Enlightenment rulers — reluctant persecutors, too sophisticated to be themselves religious zealots."
Misinterpretation of Byzantium[edit]
Others such as John Julius Norwich, despite their admiration for his furthering of historical methodology, consider Gibbon's hostile views on the Byzantine Empire flawed and blame him somewhat for the lack of interest shown in the subject throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries.[20] This view might well be admitted by Gibbon himself: "But it is not my intention to expatiate with the same minuteness on the whole series of the Byzantine history."[21] However one recent scholar of Byzantium says, "Gibbon and Lebeau were genuine historians — and Gibbon a very great one — and their works, in spite of factual inadequacy, rank high for their presentation of their material."[22]
Gibbon's reflections[edit]
Gibbon's initial plan was to write a history "of the decline and fall of the city of Rome", and only later expanded his scope to the whole Roman Empire.[23]
Although he published other books, Gibbon devoted much of his life to this one work (1772–1789). His autobiography Memoirs of My Life and Writings is devoted largely to his reflections on how the book virtually became his life. He compared the publication of each succeeding volume to a newborn child.[24]
Editions[edit]
Gibbon continued to revise and change his work even after publication. The complexities of the problem are addressed in Womersley's introduction and appendices to his complete edition.
In-print complete editions J.B. Bury, ed., 7 volumes (London: Methuen, 1909–1914), currently reprinted (New York: AMS Press, 1974). Until Womersley, this was the essential edition, but now nearing age 100, the historical analysis/commentary is dated. [ISBN 0-404-02820-9].
Hugh Trevor-Roper, ed., 6 volumes (New York: Everyman's Library, 1993–1994). from the Bury text and with Gibbon's own notes, but without Bury's, many of which are superseded by more recent research. [ISBN 0-679-42308-7 (vols. 1–3); ISBN 0-679-43593-X (vols. 4–6)].
David Womersley, ed., 3 volumes. hardback-(London: Allen Lane, 1994); paperback-(New York: Penguin Books, 2005;1994). The current essential edition[citation needed], the most faithful to Gibbon's original text[citation needed]. The ancient Greek quotations are not as accurate as in Bury, but an otherwise excellent work with complete footnotes and bibliographical information for Gibbon's cryptic footnote notations[citation needed]. Includes the original index, and the Vindication (1779) which Gibbon wrote in response to attacks on his caustic portrayal of Christianity. The 2005 print includes minor revisions and a new chronology. [ISBN 0-7139-9124-0 (3360 p.); ISBN 0-14-043393-7 (v.1, 1232 p.); ISBN 0-14-043394-5 (v.2, 1024 p.); ISBN 0-14-043395-3 (v.3, 1360 p.)]
In-print abridgements David Womersley, ed., 1 volume (New York: Penguin Books, 2000). Includes all footnotes and eleven of the original seventy-one chapters. [ISBN 0-14-043764-9, 848 p.]
Hans-Friedrich Mueller, ed., one volume abridgment (New York: Random House, 2003). Includes excerpts from all seventy-one chapters. It eliminates footnotes, geographic surveys, details of battle formations, long narratives of military campaigns, ethnographies and genealogies, but retains the narrative from start to finish. Based on the Rev. H.H. [Dean] Milman edition of 1845 (see also Gutenberg etext edition). [ISBN 0-375-75811-9, (trade paper, 1312 p.); ISBN 0-345-47884-3 (mass market paper, 1536 p.)]

Legacy[edit]
Variations on the series title (including using "Rise and Fall" in place of "Decline and Fall") have been used by other writers:
An Inquiry into the Permanent Causes of the Decline and Fall of Powerful and Wealthy Nations. Designed To Shew How The Prosperity Of The British Empire May Be Prolonged (1805), William Playfair
The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire (1970), John Toland (author)
The Rise and Fall of the Confederate Government (1868), Jefferson Davis
Decline and Fall (1928), Evelyn Waugh
The Decline and Fall of Practically Everybody (1950), by the satirist Will Cuppy
The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1959), William Shirer
The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler (1961), William Shirer
The Fall and Rise of Reginald Perrin (1975), David Nobbs
The Decline and Fall of Science (1976), Celia Green
The Ottoman Centuries: The Rise and Fall of the Turkish Empire (1977), Lord Kinross
The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church (1983), Malachi Martin
Decline and Fall of the Freudian Empire (1986), Hans Eysenck
The Decline and Fall of the British Aristocracy (1990), David Cannadine
The Decline and Fall of Roman Britain (2000), Neil Faulkner
The Decline and Fall of the Catholic Church in America (2003), David Carlin
The Decline and Fall of the British Empire (2007), Piers Brendon
Decline and Fall of the American Republic (2010), Bruce Ackerman
and in music albums:
Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) (1969), The Kinks
The Rise And Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972), David Bowie
and in film titles:
The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
The Decline of Western Civilization (1981), Penelope Spheeris
The Decline of the American Empire (1986), Denys Arcand
and in television:
Ancient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire (2006)
The title and author are also cited in Noël Coward's comedic poem "I Went to a Marvellous Party".[25] And in the poem "The Foundation of Science Fiction Success", Isaac Asimov acknowledged that his Foundation series—an epic tale of the fall and rebuilding of a galactic empire—was written "with a tiny bit of cribbin' / from the works of Edward Gibbon".
See also[edit]
Decline of the Roman Empire
Outline of The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
Notes[edit]
1.Jump up ^ Edward Gibbon (1776). The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire I. W. Strahan and T. Cadell.
2.Jump up ^ Edward Gibbon (1781). The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire II.
3.Jump up ^ Edward Gibbon (1781). The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire III.
4.Jump up ^ Edward Gibbon (1788). The History Of The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire IV. Strahan and Cadell.
5.Jump up ^ Edward Gibbon (1788). The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire V. W. Strahan and T. Cadell.
6.Jump up ^ Edward Gibbon (1788). The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire VI.
7.Jump up ^ David S. Potter (2006-05-22). A Companion to the Roman Empire. Wiley. p. 100. ISBN 978-0-631-22644-4.
8.Jump up ^ see for example Henri Pirenne's (1862–1935) famous thesis published in the early 20th century. As for sources more recent than the ancients, Gibbon certainly drew on Montesquieu's short essay, Considérations sur les causes de la grandeur des Romains et de leur décadence, and on previous work published by Bossuet (1627-1704) in his Histoire universelle à Monseigneur le dauphin (1763). see Pocock, EEG. for Bousset, pp. 65, 145; for Montesquieu, pp. 85–88, 114, 223.
9.Jump up ^ J.G.A. Pocock, "Between Machiavelli and Hume: Gibbon as Civic Humanist and Philosophical Historian," Daedalus 105,3(1976), 153–169; and in Further reading: Pocock, EEG, 303–304; FDF, 304–306.
10.Jump up ^ J.G.A. Pocock, "Between Machiavelli and Hume: Gibbon as Civic Humanist and Philosophical Historian," Daedulus 105,3(1976), 153–169; and in Further reading: Pocock, EEG, 303–304; FDF, 304–306.
11.Jump up ^ Preface to Gibbon's Volume the Fourth in David Womersley ed., Edward Gibbon - The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 2 (New York: Penguin Books, 1994), p. 520.
12.Jump up ^ In the early 20th century, biographer Sir Leslie Stephen ["Gibbon, Edward (1737–1794)," Dictionary of National Biography, vol. 7, (Oxford, 1921), p. 1134.] summarized The History's reputation as a work of unmatched erudition, a degree of professional esteem which remains as strong today as it was then:
The criticisms upon his book...are nearly unanimous. In accuracy, thoroughness, lucidity, and comprehensive grasp of a vast subject, the History is unsurpassable. It is the one English history which may be regarded as definitive. ...Whatever its shortcomings, the book is artistically imposing as well as historically unimpeachable as a vast panorama of a great period.
13.Jump up ^ Edward Gibbon (1779). A vindication of some passages in the fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of The history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire: By the author.. Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell, in the Strand.
14.Jump up ^ The New Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia of Religious Knowledge, vol. IV, eds. S.M. Jackson, et al. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Baker Book House, 1952), 483–484. online.
15.Jump up ^ General Observations On The Fall Of The Roman Empire In The West. Fall In The West — The Decline And Fall Of The Roman Empire by Edward Gibbon. At Christian Classics Ethereal Library, Calvin College Computer Science. http://www.ccel.org/g/gibbon/decline/volume1/chap39.htm
16.Jump up ^ Dublin review: a quarterly and critical journal. Burns, Oates and Washbourne. 1840. pp. 208–. JItKAAAAcAAJ. "p. 208 image at Google Books"
17.Jump up ^ “Theodosius and the Relationship Between Church and State” http://www.sau.edu/The_Academy_for_the_Study_of_St_Ambrose_of_Milan/Students_and_Scholars/Joosten.html
18.Jump up ^ J.B. Bury, History of the Later Roman Empire, from Arcadius to Irene (395 A. D. to 800 A. D.). (London and New York: Macmillan and Co., 1889), 319–320.
19.Jump up ^ Ramsay MacMullen, Corruption and the Decline of Rome. (New Haven: Yale Univ. Press, 1988); Thomas S. Burns, Barbarians Within the Gates of Rome: Study of Roman Military Policy and the Barbarians, ca. 375–425 AD. (Bloomington: Indiana Univ. Press, 1995).
20.Jump up ^ John Julius Norwich, Byzantium (New York: Knopf, 1989); Byzantium: the apogee (London and New York: Viking Press, 1991).
21.Jump up ^ Preface of 1782 online.
22.Jump up ^ Georgije Ostrogorski History of the Byzantine State (1986) p 5 online
23.Jump up ^ Gibbon, Edward (1781). The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire 3. chapter 36, footnote 43. "If I prosecute this History, I shall not be unmindful of the decline and fall of the city of Rome; an interesting object, to which my plan was originally confined."
24.Jump up ^ Patricia B. Craddock, Edward Gibbon, Luminous Historian. (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 1989), 249–266.
25.Jump up ^ Link to notes on the poem here [1]. Excerpt: "If you have any mind at all, Gibbon's divine Decline and Fall, Seems pretty flimsy, No more than a whimsy... ."
Further reading[edit]
Brownley, Martine W. "Appearance and Reality in Gibbon's History," Journal of the History of Ideas 38,4 (1977), 651–666.
Brownley, Martine W. "Gibbon's Artistic and Historical Scope in the Decline and Fall," Journal of the History of Ideas 42,4(1981), 629–642.
Cosgrove, Peter. Impartial Stranger: History and Intertextuality in Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Newark: Associated University Presses, 1999); [ISBN 0-87413-658-X].
Craddock, Patricia. "Historical Discovery and Literary Invention in Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall'," Modern Philology 85,4(May 1988), 569–587.
Drake, H.A., "Lambs into Lions: explaining early Christian intolerance," Past and Present 153(1996), 3–36. Oxford Journals
Furet, Francois. "Civilization and Barbarism in Gibbon's History," Daedalus 105,3(1976), 209–216.
Gay, Peter. Style in History (New York: Basic Books, 1974); [ISBN 0-465-08304-8].
Ghosh, Peter R. "Gibbon's Dark Ages: Some Remarks on the Genesis of the Decline and Fall," Journal of Roman Studies 73(1983), 1–23.
Homer-Dixon, Thomas "The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilization", 2007 [ISBN 978-0-676-97723-3] Chapter 3 pp. 57–60
Kelly, Christopher. "A Grand Tour: Reading Gibbon's 'Decline and Fall'," Greece & Rome 2nd ser., 44,1 (Apr. 1997), 39–58.
Momigliano, Arnaldo. "Eighteenth-Century Prelude to Mr. Gibbon," in Pierre Ducrey et al., eds., Gibbon et Rome à la lumière de l'historiographie moderne (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1977).
Momigliano, Arnaldo. "Gibbon from an Italian Point of View," in G.W. Bowersock et al., eds., Edward Gibbon and the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1977).
Momigliano, Arnaldo. "Declines and Falls," American Scholar 49(Winter 1979), 37–51.
Momigliano, Arnaldo. "After Gibbon's Decline and Fall," in Kurt Weitzmann, ed. Age of Spirituality : a symposium (Princeton: 1980); [ISBN 0-89142-039-8].
Pocock, J.G.A. Barbarism and Religion, 4 vols. all Cambridge Univ. Press. vol. 1, The Enlightenments of Edward Gibbon, 1737–1764, 1999 [hb: ISBN 0-521-63345-1]. cited as "Pocock, EEG";
vol. 2, Narratives of Civil Government, 1999 [hb: ISBN 0-521-64002-4];
vol. 3, The First Decline and Fall, 2003 [pb: ISBN 0-521-82445-1]. cited as "Pocock, FDF."
vol. 4, Barbarians, Savages and Empires, 2005 [hb: ISBN 0-521-85625-6].
The Work of J.G.A. Pocock: Edward Gibbon section.
Roberts, Charlotte Edward Gibbon and the Shape of History. 2014 Oxford University Press 9780198704836
Trevor-Roper, H.R. "Gibbon and the Publication of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776–1976," Journal of Law and Economics 19,3 (Oct. 1976), 489–505.
Womersley, David. The Transformation of 'The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' (Cambridge: 1988).
Womersley, David, ed. Religious Scepticism: Contemporary Responses to Gibbon (Bristol, England: Thoemmes Press, 1997).
Wootton, David. "Narrative, Irony, and Faith in Gibbon's Decline and Fall," History and Theory 33,4 (Dec., 1994), 77–105.
External links[edit]
 Wikiquote has quotations related to: The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
 Wikimedia Commons has media related to The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire author record at Project Gutenberg. Based on the Rev. H.H. Milman edition of 1845.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire from the Online Library of Liberty. The J. B. Bury edition, in 12 volumes.
Memoirs of My Life and Writings at Project Gutenberg
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Google Book Search (pdf version)
Full text at Christian Classics Etheral Library
EdwardGibbonStudies.com: Web Center for Edward Gibbon Studies
DeclineandFallResources.com: Maps, Translations, Illustrations
Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Audiobook from the Internet Archive.
The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, vol. 1 vol. 2 vol. 3 vol. 4 vol. 5 vol. 6: audio recordings at Librivox.org
  


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