The Fall of the Roman Empire.

"Before changes in film stock and lenses, as well as technique naturalized location shooting in the late 1960s and into the 1970s to such a degree that unless a movie is filmed somewhere particularly exotic many movie-goers rarely note the difference between scenes shot on a stage and shot on a real exterior, Anthony Mann was able to produce one of the last great majestic works of Hollywood location shooting: 1964's The Fall of the Roman Empire," writes Daniel Kasman in the Auteurs' Notebook. "One of the most visually tight three hour epics ever produced, Mann kept his Spanish locations constrained to a tense grandeur."

"[I]t's more a film about the contemplation of action than action itself," writes Glenn Kenny. "And the imagery, created by Mann once again in tandem with cinematographer Robert Krasker (they also worked together on El Cid) is always breathtaking."

"Both films benefit immensely from the sobriety and rigor Anthony Mann brings to a genre usually governed by mindless spectacle," adds Fernando F Croce in Slant, "though Fall hems closer to the director's obsessive theme of the system collapsing from within, a motif Mann explored in settings as diverse as the noir city (T-Men), the French Revolution (Reign of Terror), and the American frontier (The Man from Laramie).... Put bluntly, the difference between El Cid and Fall is the difference between faith in a concept of heroism that can transcend even death, and the realization that the fate of the world rests not in the hands of brave warriors but in those of devious schemers who speak softly and carry poisoned daggers."

"At the midway point, when the sky turns bright blue, the costumes grow more colorful, and the villain achieves his goals, the tone is warmer and the orchestra more expressive and jubilant," writes Jeremiah Kipp at the House Next Door. "That touch of irony makes The Fall of the Roman Empire feel modern, perhaps even more so than Gladiator, which is traditional, even conservative, in its values of family and self-reliance."

Posted by dwhudson at May 4, 2008 1:36 PM