Pagans and Christians


The propagandist use of Roman history was a prolific theme in the evolution of early cinema in Italy and then in America. This was largely due to Catholic banks who gave financial backing to films that exposed pagan tyranny against Christians. (see Maria Wyke, Projecting the Past: Ancient Rome, Cinema, and History. New York: Routledge, 1997). This resulted in a proliferation of scripts that juxtaposed Christian kindness, self-sacrifice and martyrdom, with brutally repressive pagan regimes intent upon gratuitous violence and hedonistic pleasure.

Given this subtext, Lytton's literary and Briullov’s pictorial Christianised account of the final days of Pompeii and not Pacini’s Operatic Christian free pagan romance dominated later film versions of the city's final moments. The 1959 French-Italian film adaptation of Lytton’s novel The Last Days of Pompeii gives centre stage to an absurdly crude Christian persecution plot, whilst at the same time mimicking many of the characteristics associated with Hollywood cowboy and indian films. This bizarre piece of slippage is partially explained by the fact that the movies co-director was Sergio Leone, who later became the famous spaghetti western director. The opening sequence of the film shows masked riders using bows and arrows to kill the inhabitants of an isolated villa (fig.1). Before leaving with their spoils they identify themselves as Christians by daubing the sign of the cross on the walls of the villa (fig.2). The attackers turn out to be Roman soldiers paid to discredit the local Christian community, even though no such community existed in Pompeii. The film uses numerous figurative images extracted from identifiable wall-paintings such as those found in the Villa of the Mysteries, and then strategically places them in order to reinforce both the violent and sexual nature of the action taking place in front of them (fig.3&4).

Promoting political and religious agendas was very much part of Italy’s early film culture. Catholic financed films pitted Christian salvation against the evils of Imperial Rome, whilst Fascist films depicted conquering pagans as National heroes. Cabiria, Giovanni Pastrone’s jingoistic account of the subjugation of Carthage, was used by Mussolini to give legitimacy to his North Africa campaign. These competing ideologies fought out their propagandist battles on film sets that appropriated Pompeian wall-painting in order to provide historical legitimacy. Federico Fellini’s film Roma, (1972), contains sequences that satirise Christian and Fascist propagandist filmmaking techniques used in early Italian cinema. In the first of these sequences we are shown a caricature of a Catholic family about to serve dinner. When the Pope’s voice is heard on the radio the women and children immediately drop to their knees and begin praying to the radio. On witnessing this the father gesticulates angrily because his food is not being served. A following sequence shows the same family jostling to obtain cinema seats in order to watch, open-mouthed and tearful-eyed, a silent film that melodramatically depicts Christian martyrdom at the hands of gladiators and lions. An effete Roman Prince melodramatically chooses death with a poor beautiful Christian girl rather than consort with the evil Empress (fig.5&6).

Roman Wall-Painting and Film Culture
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Dionysiac Frieze 3
Gladiatorial scenes from Felini's Roma 6
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