I know one when I see one!
Jul 22 '00 (Updated Jul 13 '07)
The Bottom Line All should be seen!
I grew up during the "golden age" of the Hollywood epic, long wide-screen historical pictures that aimed to vanquish the competition of television. Now television has won so completely that we try to watch the great (and not-so-great) epics on small screens. Well, if at all possible, one should try to see these films in theaters, even though they are on video/DVD!
I'm told the first movie I saw was "The Robe." I have no memory of it from then (but found it bloated or worse seeing it as an adult. The first epic I remember was a re-release of Cecil de Mille's (1956) "Ten Commandments" (a fairly entertaining romp). I'd date the end of this golden age to David Lean's "Doctor Zhivago" (1965). It certainly has historical sweep and great cinematography, but is lacking an epic hero. Neither Omar Sharif nor Tom Courtenay comes across as heroic. Maybe Julie Christie's Lara?
I think that there should be a hero who succeeds, but such a requirement would disqualify the prototype great epics from that golden age: "Lawrence of Arabia" (David Lean, 1962) and "Spartacus" (Stanley Kubrick, 1960). So I decided that the criteria for epic are historical sweep, visual grandeur, and some heroism, however crazy or ultimately unsuccessful.
Thus, "Lawrence of Arabia" can top the list despite Lawrence's ultimate failure. The film has a splendid cast. It made Peter O'Toole and Omar Sharif instant stars. Rather overlooked was Alec Guiness's savvy sheikh. Also Arthur Kennedy's myth-making journalist (based on Lowell Thomas). What I remembered best from seeing the movie as a twelve-year old was the tiny speck of a rider in the huge desert vista growing until it became Omar Sharif's introduction to the world audience. The scene was still plenty impressive when I saw "Lawrence" again on a big screen a few years ago.
"Spartacus" has a more straightforward hero. I mean Kirk Douglas, though Woody Strode is something of the prior hero making Spartacus's revolt possible. This film also has a splendid supporting cast having a great time, including Laurence Olivier, Charles Laughton, Peter Ustinov, and slave-boy Tony Curtis. Jean Simmons also appears. The battle scenes aren't particularly memorable, but the gladiator training and public performances are.
What Western to include? Howard Hawks's (1948) "Red River," for sure. A cattle drive is not as elevated an endeavor as the goals of many epics, but this film is about an ultimately successful one. All the better that success requires Montgomery Clift superseding John Wayne! The sibling rivalry appears to have been mangled by censorship concerns (the "let me see your pistol" exchange survived), but the Oedipal drama remains. Hawks fashioned the cranky aging persona that served John Wayne very well as he aged.
Unfortunately, John Ford's most direct attempt at an epic set in the American West, "Cheyenne Autumn" is not very good (amusing as Sal Mineo is. . . maybe I can get "Exodus" onto the list to include him?). My other western is Serge Leone's "Once Upon a Time in the West." (1968). It certainly looks epic, but Charles Bronson seems too reactive to count as an epic hero. Henry Fonda makes a superb epic villain, along with a fairly monstrous Jason Robards. I can get around the hero problem by nominating Claudia Cardinale as the epic hero there. She's almost as emotionally flat as Bronson, but her persistence and bravery ultimately succeed.
Henry Fonda. Yeah! The young hero. . . with him I can get a John Ford film on my list: "Grapes of Wrath" (1940). Sweep? Well, there's the wind, and the journey from Oklahoma to California and the elevated diction of John Carradine, the fervor of Fonda's Tom Joad and the over-the-top matriarch Ma Joad of Jane Darwell. (Although Alain Delon makes an epic sacrifice in "Rocco and His Brothers," the 1960 film is not an epic, since it does not include the trip from the south to Milan.)
The flashiest female hero (of sorts) in an epic has to be Vivien Leigh's "Scarlett O'Hara" in "Gone with the Wind" (1939). D. W. Griffith was right to complain that he did more with less (in his film of "The Klansman," "Birth of a[n Aryan terrorist] Nation). The film is not just long, but positively diffuse. Still, Leigh and Clark Gable throw off so many sparks they could have burned Atlanta by themselves. And there are other memorable performances (including Hattie McDaniel and Butterfly McQueen). As cinema this is the worst film to make my list.
I know that I should include Abel Gance's (1925) "Napoleon," but I don't remember it well enough to do so. Instead, I'll include Sergei Eisenstein's awe-inspiring "Ivan the Terrible." Like Scarlett, surviving is a major challenge for Ivan. Alexander Nevsky is a more straightforward, uncomplicated epic hero, and that earlier Eisenstein film has one of the great battles in cinematic history (the battle on the ice), but the two parts of "Ivan" are plenty grandiose and include a far more complex hero.
If a ruthless, murderous czar can be an epic hero, I have to consider "Triumph of the Will" (1934). It was certainly conceived by Fraulein Riefenstahl as an epic (though at the time, instant history/mythologizing) and it has some of the photogenic crowd scenes that are practically defining of "epic." Fortunately for me, Riefentahl went on to make "Olympia," about the 1936 summer Olympiad. It is at least as stunningly photographed and celebrates athletes (of all races) rather than Adolf Hitler.
If I can consider "Triumph of the Will," I have to consider Coppola's "The Godfather" (1972-1990), especially part II with the greatest temporal sweep). An epic of crime? The initiation into the family business of Michael Corleone (Al Pacino) doesn't feel epic. Tragic, maybe. There's an epic wedding, but put the trilogy together and it can move to my list of anti-epics.
Gillo Pontecorvo shows the costs of the slave revolt in "Burn!" (1970) more vividly than even the mass crucifixion at the end of "Spartacus." Despite the very mannered performance of Marlon Brando, a complex villain played by a great actor is useful in epic-making. Brando is never less than interesting in "Burn!" And it has a completely satisfying epic hero in Evaristo Marquez: charismatic in victory, dignified in defeat (looking like a younger Nelson Mandela), pained and eventually clear-eyed about the limited options (in the world economy and locally) and ainguished about the difficult-to-justify sufferings of the masses. Pontecorvo's earlier epic of revolt, "The Battle of Algiers" does not have so clear a hero (or complex a villain). If I could remember more of it, I might include the Cuban epic "Lucia," as well.
From there, I move to the smallest scale epic: Robert Bresson's "A Man Escaped." ("Un Condamne à mort echappé," 1957). Who know is he's a hero? Since he is a Resistance member condemned to death by the Gestapo, we assume so, and his doggedness seems heroic. The scope is very narrow, yet for triumph of the human spirit who could suggest a better exemplar than this film? G. W. Pabst's "Kameradschaft" (Comradeship, 1931), perhaps? Also centering on digging!
I desperately want to include a Kurosawa film. As far as epic productions, "Kagemusha" and "Ran" could easily make the list, but they are epics of folly (hence, on my list of great anti-epics). "Throne of Blood" is a stunning-looking film from Kurosawa's black-and-white days with a larger-than-life performance by Toshiro Mifune as a Japanese Macbeth. "The hidden fortress" has sort of an epic quest (an influence on "Star Wars"). However, my pick is "Seven Samurai" (1954). It's long. It's elevated. It has multiple heroes. It has excellent battle scenes. It's a great and absorbing film, whether it can fit strict criteria for "epic" or not. And it is probably the best film about the establishment of governance ever.
Rather than epicness, I'll rank order my dozen picks as cinema:
A Man Escaped
Olympia
Seven Samurai
Ivan the Terrible
Lawrence of Arabia
Burn!
The Grapes of Wrath
Once Upon a Time in the West
Red River
Comradeship
Spartacus
Gone with the Wind
and some honorable mentions:
Drums (1938) the Zoltan Korda movie with the immortal Sabu and Raymond Massey
Qin Song (The Emperor's Shadow) Zhou Xiaowen's 1996 story of the first Chinese Emperor
Joseph Mankewicz's 1953 Julius Caesar with Marlon Brando as Marc Antony
Once Upon a Time in America (Sergio Leone's gangster epic) and the "Godfather" trilogy of Frances Ford Coppola
The English Patient (the flying over Tunisia part is perfect epic material, and the romances are epic)
Glory (superb performances, so-so action)
The Killing Fields (a journey through hell has to be epic, doesn't it?)
Napoléon (Abel Gance's 1927 silent film)
Die Nibelung (Fritz Lang's astounding two-part silent adaptation from 1924: Siegfried and Krimhilde's Revenge)
maybe Warren Beatty's "Reds"? ("Doctor Zhivago" is an anti-epic)
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