Spartacus

Uh, yes, Julie.

You're Spartacus.

Are you Spartacus?

No, I'm Spartacus.

Exactly.

Yes, I am.

I'm Spartacus.

Uh, yeah.

So if our opinions...

What is this, like Spartacus? I'm the great albums.

I am the great albums.

I hope everybody stands up right now and says, I am the great albums.

Um, I think his movies are uniformly extraordinary.

Even, even Spartacus, which I don't really consider to be a Stanley Kubrick film-

Right

... and I frankly don't really like it all that much, even that I think is great, uh, although not nearly as great as other films.

Yeah

...

it really reminded me of the scene in Spartacus, right? With, uh-

Oh

Mm.

Spartacus was one of those films that got restored in the '90s.

But Cleopatra, there hasn't been much footage that has showed up from those, those cuts, which is a real shame.

'Cause we know that the original director's cut was a lot longer than what we now have.

Hmm.

And Plutarch is one of those writers who near and dear to my heart, Dr. G, because I feel like he has often inspired cinematic adaptations.

I think his writing is at the heart of most popular versions of Spartacus' story.

Not that he writes about Spartacus personally, but he writes about Crassus, and Spartacus comes up whilst he's doing that.

Classic films.

And finally, as composer, I couldn't help but mention, Dr. G, that Alex North is the composer for Cleopatra because he was also the composer on Spartacus.

Ah, all right.

Another golden era film veteran in the wings.

It definitely

did.

And I think, look, this is why I particularly gravitate towards this movie because, as you know, you might have heard, I wrote a little bit on Spartacus in my time.

And one of the things that I like about Spartacus is that it's a piece of history that was pieced together by multiple people.

One, we'll get to in a minute.

But the other is the fucking I am Spartacus thing that Right? What is

that?

I hate it

I thought it was like a white man thing.

Is that not? Because, okay, it has to be.

Because that whole premise of what's your Roman Empire and why white men especially are obsessed with Rome in general because I hear it more than I would like and I'm like why I don't get it so and then Spartacus that was a pretty they keep remaking those same movies over and over again I don't know

explain it

Is there catharsis? Maybe there's not enough catharsis here.

There's, there's references to heroes from history, Spartacus, uh, Gandalf, John Proctor, et cetera, Sydney Carton.

But as soon as you start l- uh, in a sense comparing, uh, Mickey Madison and her whistleblower, Frances Haugen, to some of the greatest cinematic, uh, ra- ra- rabble-rousing films of all time, that's maybe not a smart thing to do within your film.

[laughs] That is not rising to those levels.