The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964)
Directed by Anthony Mann
In the year 180 A.D. Germanic tribes are about to invade the Roman empire from the north. In the midst of this crisis ailing emperor Marcus Aurelius has to make a decision about his successor between his son Commodus, who is obsessed by power, and the loyal general Gaius Livius.
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What critics compared The Fall of the Roman Empire to
A Cinemascope epic retrofitted for the CGI age, Gladiator combines the autumnal Rome setting of The Fall Of The Roman Empire with the gladiatorial theatrics and populist politics of Spartacus and the nobleman-made-lowly plot of Ben-Hur .
Ridley Scott and the boys from DreamWorks produced the first genuine Roman epic since 1964's The Fall of the Roman Empire with this virtual remake that deals with the transition of power from the sage-like Marcus Aurelius to his monstrous son, Commodus.
Comparisons to Spartacus and The Fall of the Roman Empire are overzealous, but Gladiator does have enough going on both inside and outside the heads of the protagonists to keep us thinking and feeling.
It is, of course, all part of Tarantino’s quest to make The Hateful Eight an event, along with the 187-minute running time, a 12-minute intermission and the decision to shoot in Ultra Panavision 70, as favoured by mid-20th-century epics like Ben-Hur , The Fall Of The Roman Empire and The Greatest Story Ever Told (well, if it’s good enough for God…).
To eyes old enough to remember luxuriating in the brilliance of Ultra Panavision 70 in its heyday (on films including Ben-Hur, Mutiny on the Bounty and The Fall of the Roman Empire), The Hateful Eight offers a different sort of experience.
Based on sci-fi books by Edgar Rice Burroughs , primarily his “Princess From Mars,” the film is about a former Confederate soldier, Taylor Kitsch ’s John Carter, who ends up on Mars and ends up embroiled in a galactic war that looks like a cross between “ The Empire Strikes Back ” and “The Fall of the Roman Empire.”