Ancient Rome, with its emperors, splendor, cruelty and power has captured the popular imagination for centuries and has been a common genre for films since the beginning of cinema. The film industry has continued to resurrect ancient Rome on the big screen to address significant issues of contemporary culture, from national identity and civil rights, to questions of religion, gender and race. Films such as the Italian silent classic The Last Days of Pompeii, Hollywood’s Cleopatra and Spartacus as well as Fellini’s trilogy to Rome (La Dolce Vita, Satyricon and Roma) are considered “classics” today and since Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000), a popular “renaissance” of films dedicated to antiquity has emerged. By viewing ancient Rome through Italian and Hollywood cinema, this course will explore how films are used to both entertain audiences and address political and social concerns of the present. Through readings, careful analysis of films, and class lectures, the course will examine how cinematic traditions have deconstructed and reconstructed concepts of ancient Italy for the wider imagination (an imagination that varies and changes with time). The class addresses questions such as why or how do contemporary audiences relate to ancient Rome? How historically accurate are films of ancient Rome – does that matter? How powerful is the cinema as a learning tool for ancient history? And more importantly, how do these films contribute to modern concepts of Italy today.

Required text: Wyke, Maria. 1997. Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, Cinema and History. Routledge. ISBN 0-415-90614-8
A course reader will be required as well and made available at Copy Central on Bancroft.
Prerequisite: None. Taught in English with readings in English.