Watched Spartacus last week, and it simply marvellous. Its been more than 60 years since it released, and this movie did great for me. Watched this for Stanley Kubrick, following his filmography for a while and his ambiguous portrayal amused me. I hadn’t much expectation on this, but i saw some resemblance of this on some movies Ive watched earlier. Many of the scenes left me curious of how they’d done this like, a big smoke to the clouds from mountains on the back. I thought that was a set, but the smoke really moved upwards. In a particular scene where Spartacus talks to Varinia about how he felt about life and things he wanted to learn. Great sequence to remind about something on life. If you guys know about this movie’s references or anything related please share. Thank you.
While Kubrick directed Spartacus, Kubrick himself did not consider it was a Kubrick Movie.
He did not control the script. He had no control over the production or the final cut. The original director was fired from the production and Kubrick was brought in on the suggestion of Kirk Douglas as they had worked together three years before on Paths of Glory.
While the finished product is excellent. IIRC Kubrick hated being a gun for hire and the studio meddling in the production was a big reason that he never worked on another film without having full control of the production.