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Series Editors’ Preface
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- By Monica S. Cyrino, none, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, none
- Edited by Meredith E. Safran
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- Book:
- Screening the Golden Ages of the Classical Tradition
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 23 November 2019
- Print publication:
- 31 July 2018, pp vii-viii
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
Screening Antiquity is a new series of cutting-edge academic monographs and edited volumes that present exciting and original research on the reception of the ancient world in film and television. It provides an important synergy of the latest international scholarly ideas about the onscreen conception of antiquity in popular culture and is the only book series to focus exclusively on screened representations of the ancient world.
The interaction between cinema, television, and historical representation is a growing field of scholarship and student engagement; many Classics and Ancient History departments in universities worldwide teach cinematic representations of the past as part of their programmes in Reception Studies. Scholars are now questioning how historical films and television series reflect the societies in which they were made, and speculate on how attitudes towards the past have been moulded in the popular imagination by their depiction in the movies. Screening Antiquity explores how these constructions came about and offers scope to analyse how and why the ancient past is filtered through onscreen representations in specific ways. The series highlights exciting and original publications that explore the representation of antiquity onscreen, and that employ modern theoretical and cultural perspectives to examine screened antiquity, including: stars and star text, directors and auteurs, cinematography, design and art direction, marketing, fans, and the online presence of the ancient world.
The series aims to present original research focused exclusively on the reception of the ancient world in film and television. In itself this is an exciting and original approach. There is no other book series that engages head-on with both big screen and small screen recreations of the past, yet their integral interactivity is clear to see: film popularity has a major impact on television productions and, for its part, television regularly influences cinema (including film spin-offs of popular television series). This is the first academic series to identify and encourage the holistic interactivity of these two major media institutions, and the first to promote interdisciplinary research in all the fields of Cinema Studies, Media Studies, Classics, and Ancient History.
Screening Antiquity explores the various facets of onscreen creations of the past, exploring the theme from multiple angles.
Series Editors’ Preface
- Edited by Antony Augoustakis, University of Illinois, Stacie Raucci, Union College, Schenectady, NY
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- Book:
- Epic Heroes on Screen
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 24 April 2021
- Print publication:
- 15 May 2018, pp vii-viii
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
Screening Antiquity is a new series of cutting-edge academic monographs and edited volumes that present exciting and original research on the reception of the ancient world in film and television. It provides an important synergy of the latest international scholarly ideas about the onscreen conception of antiquity in popular culture and is the only book series to focus exclusively on screened representations of the ancient world.
The interactions between cinema, television, and historical representation is a growing field of scholarship and student engagement; many Classics and Ancient History departments in universities worldwide teach cinematic representations of the past as part of their programs in Reception Studies. Scholars are now questioning how historical films and television series reflect the societies in which they were made, and speculate on how attitudes toward the past have been molded in the popular imagination by their depiction in the movies. Screening Antiquity explores how these constructions came about and offers scope to analyze how and why the ancient past is filtered through onscreen representations in specific ways. The series highlights exciting and original publications that explore the representation of antiquity onscreen, and that employ modern theoretical and cultural perspectives to examine screened antiquity, including stars and star text, directors and auteurs, cinematography, design and art direction, marketing, fans, and the online presence of the ancient world.
The series aims to present original research focused exclusively on the reception of the ancient world in film and television. In itself this is an exciting and original approach. There is no other book series that engages head-on with both big screen and small screen recreations of the past, yet their integral interactivity is clear to see: film popularity has a major impact on television productions and, for its part, television regularly influences cinema (including film spin-offs of popular television series). This is the first academic series to identify and encourage the holistic interactivity of these two major media institutions, and the first to promote interdisciplinary research in all the fields of Cinema Studies, Media Studies, Classics, and Ancient History.
6 - Russell Crowe and Maximal Projections in Noah (2014)
- Edited by Antony Augoustakis, University of Illinois, Stacie Raucci, Union College, Schenectady, NY
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- Book:
- Epic Heroes on Screen
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 24 April 2021
- Print publication:
- 15 May 2018, pp 93-110
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
If personality is an unbroken series of successful gestures, then there was something gorgeous about him …
(Narrator Nick Carraway, explaining the allure of Jay Gatsby, in F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby (1925))INTRODUCTION
This chapter explores how the lead actor performance of Russell Crowe in Darren Aronofsky's unconventional biblical epic Noah (2014) takes up Ridley Scott's blockbuster film Gladiator (2000) as a specific screen intertext by using what I call “maximal projections.” By coining the phrase “maximal projections,” I mean that Crowe plays the role of the Old Testament patriarch Noah using a series of deliberately referential gestures to his character of Maximus, the general turned gladiator, in the earlier film. Further, I maintain that Crowe makes this intentional artistic choice to invite the audience of Noah to recognize Maximus in his performance in the biblical epic in order to captivate and appeal to them. As film historian Jim Cullen observes:
Actors vividly display the act of choice central to the artistic process. Putting aside the fact that any acting performance includes countless renditions that are shot out of sequence or discarded on the cutting room floor, watching a movie involves witnessing an inexhaustible array of choices in language, posture, expression, and setting. A century of experience has taught us that some people make these choices so strikingly that we will watch them repeatedly not only in the same movie, but in movie after movie.
RUSSELL CROWE'S STAR TEXT
The casting of Crowe, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the role of Maximus in Gladiator, as the title patriarch in Noah raises the theoretical question of his celebrity “star text” that is being interpreted or “read” by the audience as they watch him on screen (Figures 6.1 and 6.2). As originally framed by Richard Dyer in his influential book Stars, an actor's distinct star image can both affect the production of meaning in a film and manipulate the arousal of emotions and expectations in viewers. That is, when a famous actor takes on a role, they bring one or more previous roles to the new performance; thus their star text powerfully influences how an audience engages with their previous roles within the new performance.
Series Editors’ Preface
- Edited by Fiona Hobden, University of Liverpool, Amanda Wrigley, University of Reading
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- Book:
- Ancient Greece on British Television
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 24 April 2021
- Print publication:
- 15 May 2018, pp ix-x
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
Screening Antiquity is a new series of cutting-edge academic monographs and edited volumes that present exciting and original research on the reception of the ancient world in film and television. It provides an important synergy of the latest international scholarly ideas about the onscreen conception of antiquity in popular culture and is the only book series to focus exclusively on screened representations of the ancient world.
The interactions between cinema, television, and historical representation is a growing field of scholarship and student engagement; many Classics and Ancient History departments in universities worldwide teach cinematic representations of the past as part of their programmes in Reception Studies. Scholars are now questioning how historical films and television series reflect the societies in which they were made, and speculate on how attitudes towards the past have been moulded in the popular imagination by their depiction in the movies. Screening Antiquity explores how these constructions came about and offers scope to analyse how and why the ancient past is filtered through onscreen representations in specific ways. The series highlights exciting and original publications that explore the representation of antiquity onscreen, and that employ modern theoretical and cultural perspectives to examine screened antiquity, including stars and star text, directors and auteurs, cinematography, design and art direction, marketing, fans, and the online presence of the ancient world.
The series aims to present original research focused exclusively on the reception of the ancient world in film and television. In itself this is an exciting and original approach. There is no other book series that engages head-on with both big screen and small screen recreations of the past, yet their integral interactivity is clear to see: film popularity has a major impact on television productions and, for its part, television regularly influences cinema (including film spin-offs of popular television series). This is the first academic series to identify and encourage the holistic interactivity of these two major media institutions, and the first to promote interdisciplinary research in all the fields of Cinema Studies, Media Studies, Classics, and Ancient History.
Screening Antiquity explores the various facets of onscreen creations of the past, exploring the theme from multiple angles.
Introduction: Reimagining a New Spartacus
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- By Antony Augoustakis, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, USA., Monica S. Cyrino, University of New Mexico, USA
- Edited by Antony Augoustakis, University of Illinois, Monica Cyrino, University of New Mexico
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- Book:
- STARZ Spartacus
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 27 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 27 April 2017, pp 1-14
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- Chapter
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Summary
The acclaimed and highly successful television series Spartacus, airing on the premium cable network STARZ, attracted a large fan base around the world, starting with its initial season Spartacus: Blood and Sand (2010). The first season was followed by the prequel season Spartacus: Gods of the Arena (2011), the second season Spartacus: Vengeance (2012), and the third and final season Spartacus: War of the Damned (2013), which narrates the last stand of the revolution organized by the Thracian slave, gladiator, and rebel leader Spartacus. This new reception of the centuries-old icon of Spartacus, both reimagined and distinctively idealized for a new millennium, draws from many of its predecessors on the big and small screen, most significantly Stanley Kubrick's 1960 film Spartacus, just as it pays visual and narrative homage to other incarnations and appropriations of ancient warrior and revenge-seeking figures, such as those depicted in Gladiator (2000) or 300 (2007); but STARZ Spartacus also evokes the thematic tropes of the critically lauded HBO series Rome (2005–7), on which it draws extensively for its portrayal of ancient Roman politics, society, women, and sexuality. Viewers of the new Spartacus are invited to appreciate the extreme sexualization of both the male and female characters, the nexus of complicated relationships formed among slaves or between slaves and masters, the surreal and gory representation of warfare, and the bloody, CGI-enhanced violence of the gladiatorial shows in the arena. To be sure, this is an utterly new and reimagined Spartacus, as the hero of the slave revolt is recast for a contemporary twenty-first-century audience. Modern spectators are invited to reimagine the Spartacus legend and connect with antiquity in novel and manifold ways. Moreover, the series vigorously follows the earlier Spartacus reception thread by highlighting the topic of slavery, a perennially favorite theme in the media that has recently surged as a “hot” topic for current onscreen entertainment: the fight for freedom continues to fascinate. The sociopolitical and economic context here is key to understanding the reception of the Spartacus story: in light of the global economic crisis, it can be argued that freedom is indeed acquiring a “post-political” dimension.
Series Editors' Preface
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- By Monica S. Cyrino, University of New Mexico, USA, Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
- Edited by Antony Augoustakis, University of Illinois, Monica Cyrino, University of New Mexico
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- Book:
- STARZ Spartacus
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 27 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 27 April 2017, pp vii-viii
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
Screening Antiquity is a new series of cutting-edge academic monographs and edited volumes that present exciting and original research on the reception of the ancient world in film and television. It provides an important synergy of the latest international scholarly ideas about the onscreen conception of antiquity in popular culture and is the only book series to focus exclusively on screened representations of the ancient world.
The interactions between cinema, television, and historical representation is a growing field of scholarship and student engagement; many Classics and Ancient History departments in universities worldwide teach cinematic representations of the past as part of their programmes in Reception Studies. Scholars are now questioning how historical films and television series reflect the societies in which they were made, and speculate on how attitudes towards the past have been moulded in the popular imagination by their depiction in the movies. Screening Antiquity explores how these constructions came about and offers scope to analyse how and why the ancient past is filtered through onscreen representations in specific ways. The series highlights exciting and original publications that explore the representation of antiquity onscreen, and that employ modern theoretical and cultural perspectives to examine screened antiquity, including: stars and star text, directors and auteurs, cinematography, design and art direction, marketing, fans, and the online presence of the ancient world.
The series aims to present original research focused exclusively on the reception of the ancient world in film and television. In itself this is an exciting and original approach. There is no other book series that engages head-on with both big screen and small screen recreations of the past, yet their integral interactivity is clear to see: film popularity has a major impact on television productions and for its part, television regularly influences cinema (including film spin-offs of popular television series). This is the first academic series to identify and encourage the holistic interactivity of these two major media institutions, and the first to promote interdisciplinary research in all the fields of Cinema Studies, Media Studies, Classics, and Ancient History.
Screening Antiquity explores the various facets of onscreen creations of the past, exploring the theme from multiple angles.
5 - Upward Mobility in the House of Batiatus
- from PART II - SOCIAL SPACES
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- By Monica S. Cyrino, University of New Mexico, USA
- Edited by Antony Augoustakis, University of Illinois, Monica Cyrino, University of New Mexico
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- Book:
- STARZ Spartacus
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 27 April 2017
- Print publication:
- 27 April 2017, pp 87-96
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- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
STARZ Spartacus offers a rousing contribution to our understanding of how specific threads of classical reception are constantly being rewoven to engage with contemporary issues, ideas, and concerns. As the publicity materials for the new series gamely promised, STARZ Spartacus would deliver a heady yet relevant mixture of politics, sex, and violence: “Ancient Rome is a place where the stakes couldn't be higher. The Republic's most elite citizens are thirsty for power, and they think nothing of using the gruesome entertainment of the gladiators’ arena to get what they want. Their ambition, treachery, and corruption are intimately tied to blood and death – and the fate of a gladiator.” The clear proposition was that Spartacus would cross the boundaries of time and culture from the ancient to the modern world in order to contend with issues of social status, power, and gender: “Rome burns with romance and adventure as today's actors bring epic times to life.”
The first season of the series, Spartacus: Blood and Sand (2010), unfurls in thirteen episodes, as it tells of the capture and enslavement of Spartacus in Thrace and his subsequent training as a gladiator at the provincial ludus of Quintus Lentulus Batiatus on the outskirts of Capua. Next comes Spartacus: Gods of the Arena (2011), a six-episode miniseries prequel to the first season, which fills in the back-story about the rise of the ruthless lanista Batiatus in the ultra-competitive local Campanian gladiator business. Over the course of nineteen powerful and unforgettable episodes, these two initial seasons of Spartacus focus on both the domestic physical setting and the shifting psychological contours of the House of Batiatus, as the household grows ever richer, more decadent, and more corrupt, and ultimately collapses. This chapter offers an exploration of the naked ambition and relentless social striving of Batiatus and his devoted wife, Lucretia, in the first two seasons of the series, and how the narrative premise of their intensely determined desire for upward mobility is woven into this particular incarnation of the Spartacus reception strand.
SPARTACUS AND CLASS
With its persistent emphasis on the rebel slaves and gladiators who rise up in resistance against the elite commanders of the invincible Roman military, the Spartacus reception tradition has often drawn extraordinary attention to the lives and experiences of the lower classes living in late Republican Rome.
Series Editors’ Preface
- Kirsten Day
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- Book:
- Cowboy Classics
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 23 September 2017
- Print publication:
- 27 May 2016, pp vi-vii
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- Chapter
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Summary
Screening Antiquity is a new series of cutting-edge academic monographs and edited volumes that present exciting and original research on the reception of the ancient world in film and television. It provides an important synergy of the latest international scholarly ideas about the onscreen conception of antiquity in popular culture and is the only book series to focus exclusively on screened representations of the ancient world.
The interactions between cinema, television, and historical representation is a growing field of scholarship and student engagement; many Classics and Ancient History departments in universities worldwide teach cinematic representations of the past as part of their programmes in Reception Studies. Scholars are now questioning how historical films and television series reflect the societies in which they were made, and speculate on how attitudes towards the past have been moulded in the popular imagination by their depiction in the movies. Screening Antiquity explores how these constructions came about and offers scope to analyse how and why the ancient past is filtered through onscreen representations in specific ways. The series highlights exciting and original publications that explore the representation of antiquity onscreen, and that employ modern theoretical and cultural perspectives to examine screened antiquity, including: stars and star text, directors and auteurs, cinematography, design and art direction, marketing, fans, and the online presence of the ancient world.
The series aims to present original research focused exclusively on the reception of the ancient world in film and television. In itself this is an exciting and original approach. There is no other book series that engages head-on with both big screen and small screen recreations of the past, yet their integral interactivity is clear to see: film popularity has a major impact on television productions and for its part, television regularly influences cinema (including film spin-offs of popular television series).
Series Editors’ Preface
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- By Monica S. Cyrino, Professor of Classics at the University of New Mexico, USA., Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones
- Edited by Monica Cyrino
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- Book:
- Rome Season Two
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 07 October 2017
- Print publication:
- 18 May 2015, pp vii-viii
-
- Chapter
- Export citation
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Summary
Screening Antiquity is a new series of cutting-edge academic monographs and edited volumes that present exciting and original research on the reception of the ancient world in film and television. It provides an important synergy of the latest international scholarly ideas about the onscreen conception of antiquity in popular culture and is the only book series to focus exclusively on screened representations of the ancient world.
The interaction between cinema, television, and historical representation is a growing field of scholarship and student engagement; many Classics and Ancient History departments in universities worldwide teach cinematic representations of the past as part of their programmes in Reception Studies. Scholars are now questioning how historical films and television series reflect the societies in which they are made, and speculate on how attitudes towards the past have been moulded in the popular imagination by their depiction in the movies. Screening Antiquity explores how these constructions came about and offers scope to analyse how and why the ancient past is filtered through onscreen representations in specific ways. The series highlights exciting and original publications that explore the representation of antiquity onscreen, and that employ modern theoretical and cultural perspectives to examine screened antiquity, including stars and star text, directors and auteurs, cinematography, design and art direction, marketing, fans, and the online presence of the ancient world.
The series aims to present original research focused exclusively on the reception of the ancient world in film and television. In itself this is an exciting and original approach. There is no other book series that engages head-on with both big screen and small screen recreations of the past, yet their integral interactivity is clear to see: film popularity has a major impact on television productions and, for its part, television regularly influences cinema (including film spin-offs of popular television series). This is the first academic series to identify and encourage the holistic interactivity of these two major media institutions, and the first to promote interdisciplinary research in all the fields of Cinema Studies, Media Studies, Classics, and Ancient History.
Screening Antiquity explores the various facets of onscreen creations of the past, exploring the theme from multiple angles.
Introduction: The Trials and Triumphs of Rome, Season Two
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- By Monica S. Cyrino, Professor of Classics at the University of New Mexico, USA.
- Edited by Monica Cyrino
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- Book:
- Rome Season Two
- Published by:
- Edinburgh University Press
- Published online:
- 07 October 2017
- Print publication:
- 18 May 2015, pp 1-10
-
- Chapter
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Summary
The plan was simple: the second season of HBO–BBC's Rome, scheduled to premiere in January of 2007, was going to build on the huge popular success of the critically acclaimed first season, weaving together “real” Roman historical events and people with compelling fictional subplots and characters into another set of powerful, pleasurable episodes. Critics were conspicuously excited by the narrative and dramatic prospects of the new season, with its combination of “sex, violence, and fancy book learnin’ – everybody wins.” Lisa Schwarzbaum of Entertainment Weekly declared: “Everything … is still reliably rotten, wantonly carnal, and spectacularly costumed as HBO and the BBC resume their dramatic collaboration on the world's largest standing film set at Italy's Cinecittà Studios.” Tad Friend of The New Yorker praised the series’ continued focus on character-driven storylines, especially its female protagonists: “Rome, in its new season … showcases its brusquest and most soldierly characters: its highborn women. The show's pitiless gorgons campaign ceaselessly to have their men crowned or killed, whichever.” And Gary Kamiya of Salon.com confessed he was “addicted” to the way the series shocked the past back to life and startled him out of his comfortable nest of modernity: “Rome is based on solid historical research. But what makes it draw imaginative blood is the fact that it's uncensored scholarship, audacious history. Rome is incredibly entertaining, while also being incredibly shocking. It's history porn.”
All this breathless anticipation was clearly due to the sensational achievement of the series’ first season, which aired in the autumn of 2005. The first season of Rome chronicled the trajectory of Julius Caesar's later career, as it followed the events that took place between Caesar's return to Rome after his conquest of Gaul in 52 bc and his assassination by senatorial conspirators in 44 bc. As the series begins, Caesar is planning to return to Rome after eight years of warfare to seek his political fortune, and the first season brilliantly narrates his conflict with Pompey, his dalliance with Cleopatra, and his ultimate betrayal by Brutus. The second season, which would open dramatically with Caesar dead on the Senate floor, was to chart the beginnings of the violent power struggle between Antony, Caesar's most trusted general and ally, and Octavian, his great-nephew and legal heir.
CINEMATIC GREEK WOMEN - K.P. Nikoloutsos (ed.) Ancient Greek Women in Film. Pp. xiv + 376, ills. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013. Cased, £80, US$160. ISBN: 978-0-19-967892-1.
- Monica S. Cyrino
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- Journal:
- The Classical Review / Volume 65 / Issue 1 / April 2015
- Published online by Cambridge University Press:
- 14 January 2015, pp. 291-293
- Print publication:
- April 2015
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