The 1960 Film Spartacus, By Stanley Kubrick

The 1960 film Spartacus, directed by Stanley Kubrick’s illustrates the retelling of the story of a slave that had led a revolt. This revolt turned into a major war known as the Third Servile War between the superior powers of the Roman Republic. Kubrick’s version of the film precisely portrays the story of Spartacus, but there are elements that embellish the conception of slavery to appeal to an American audience in the 1960s. These embellishments would include the contrast between the characterization of the Roman Republic and the slaves by trying to parallel and show America’s perception of freedom from the British, as well as the concept of the slave revolt as a form of empathy towards communism.
The film Spartacus begins by presenting
Especially since much of the 1960s enclosed around McCarthyism and the Red scare. The film depicts the affluent as unappealing to the audience, such that the characters are with limited humanity. This is most illustrated in the scene of the fight between Draba and Spartacus; in which Draba was being compelled to kill Spartacus by the elite, only to be killed by Crassus. If the audience were to identify with the slaves because they align with American ideals as aforementioned, then the audience would then have to make the connection that the wealthy were equivalent to being cruel. Furthermore, the film parallels to the Marxist understanding of class warfare and the oppression of the middle class, through a system that is manipulative of slaves. In one of the final scenes in which the slaves could save their lives in exchange for Spartacus, they chose to stand in solidarity with him was and illustrate the idea of community. Ultimately, the idea that the community would be above that of the individual, a central value in communist thought. Lastly, the overemphasis of the slave revolt was to serve the purpose to empathize to communist thought is in the framework of the screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. In which Trumbo was one of the “Hollywood Ten,” whom were figures in the movie industry who were condemned and "blacklisted"