Haversack
One Too Many
- Messages
- 1,194
- Location
- Clipperton Island
Well. Last night I finally saw the restored version of Cecil B. DeMilles' Pre-Code, sin and salvation movie, _The Sign of the Cross_. Woof. Many people have written about how Charles Laughton and Claudette Colbert stole the show as Nero and his wife Poppea respectively. They did. However, the end of this movie has an impact that packs a whallop even today.
Laughton was gloriously languid, petulent, and corrupt. His jelly-boned sprawling mirrored the stiffness of his decision-making. You could see the incipient resentment in his timorous deferral to Poppea that would later lead the real-life Nero to stomp his wife to death. You got the idea that he really only cared about his reputation as an artist. The youths that handed him his fruit were just to stave off boredom.
Colbert was was not just sineously sexy and amoral, she was so relaxed and matter-of-fact about it that when she tells an upper-class female friend to take off her clothes and join her naked in the bath filled with asses' milk, it COULD be just to share gossip. Her calculated ordering that her rival for the affections of Marcus Superbus, the Christian girl Mercia, enter the arena alone after all the rest of her family had been killed by the lions showed that for Poppea, cruelty was a not an anodyne for boredom, but rather a tool to get her the sexual gratification which was.
Now these performances where not the scenes that were disturbing. They might not even get a PG-13 rating today. Even the Dance of the Naked Moon performed by Ancaria, ("the most 'talented' woman in Rome"), to seduce Mercia for Marcus at his 'Welcome Home' orgy might not qualify. What got a reaction from me was the afternoon program at the arena and the audience's reaction to it. It takes up the last 20 minutes of the movie and begins with the crowds entering the building and climbing to their seats. (We hear several times one family complaining to the father that they were too high and couldn't see anything.) DeMille also shows us the Playbill for the afternoon's entertainment, (in Latin dissolving to English), and delivers all of it. - Two Schools of Gladiators - Gauls vs. Thracians; a series of executions by an assortment of animals; some comic relief in the form of a battle between a group of amazon barbarians and African pygmies, and to conclude, the execution by Lions of 80 Christians. Wholesome family entertainment all. Educational as well. Anyway, the battles were battles. Nothing we haven't seen before. (Although in 1932 it was likely new). And the Christians to the Lions was heard from the holding cell and not seen. No. What was disturbing was the execution by animals. Men and women staked out or down to be killed an assortment of exotic animals. Tigers, Bulls, Crocodiles, Gorilla. While we are not shown the actual killing we are shown the approach and the sheer terror of the victim. (The crocodiles are the worst) Even to the point of the elephant placing its foot on the man's head. At the moment the elephant would shift its weight, we are shown individuals in the crowd. Some laugh. Some are bored. Some are disgusted. Some are visably arroused. It would both be interesting and, I think, disturbing to see the movie audience and their reaction to these scenes as well. Perhaps that is something Demille had in mind. (Although that would run counter to his reputed dictum of 'simple stories for simple people').
I am a little surprised at my reaction to these scenes. I am reasonably well-read in history. I know what was done and how common such things have been through time. And I've seen a few elephants in real life in my time, (no pun intended). But there seems to be a difference between knowing that execution by elephant was a common practice (at least in princely-state India), and 'seeing' it done. I think that only the addition of being there and being able to smell what happens would be worse. Except of course having it happen to you. And that is another of Demille's skills. The suggestion by sympathy of the audience imagining that they are the victim.
Even with the supposed conversion of Marcus and the triumph through martyrdom of the Christians, I can see why the Hays Office blew all safety seals when this movie hit the screens. It would now be interesing to see the heavily edited 1944 rerelease in which the Roman story is told within a framing device of a squadron of Allied bombers on its way to attack Fascist Italy.
Haversack.
Laughton was gloriously languid, petulent, and corrupt. His jelly-boned sprawling mirrored the stiffness of his decision-making. You could see the incipient resentment in his timorous deferral to Poppea that would later lead the real-life Nero to stomp his wife to death. You got the idea that he really only cared about his reputation as an artist. The youths that handed him his fruit were just to stave off boredom.
Colbert was was not just sineously sexy and amoral, she was so relaxed and matter-of-fact about it that when she tells an upper-class female friend to take off her clothes and join her naked in the bath filled with asses' milk, it COULD be just to share gossip. Her calculated ordering that her rival for the affections of Marcus Superbus, the Christian girl Mercia, enter the arena alone after all the rest of her family had been killed by the lions showed that for Poppea, cruelty was a not an anodyne for boredom, but rather a tool to get her the sexual gratification which was.
Now these performances where not the scenes that were disturbing. They might not even get a PG-13 rating today. Even the Dance of the Naked Moon performed by Ancaria, ("the most 'talented' woman in Rome"), to seduce Mercia for Marcus at his 'Welcome Home' orgy might not qualify. What got a reaction from me was the afternoon program at the arena and the audience's reaction to it. It takes up the last 20 minutes of the movie and begins with the crowds entering the building and climbing to their seats. (We hear several times one family complaining to the father that they were too high and couldn't see anything.) DeMille also shows us the Playbill for the afternoon's entertainment, (in Latin dissolving to English), and delivers all of it. - Two Schools of Gladiators - Gauls vs. Thracians; a series of executions by an assortment of animals; some comic relief in the form of a battle between a group of amazon barbarians and African pygmies, and to conclude, the execution by Lions of 80 Christians. Wholesome family entertainment all. Educational as well. Anyway, the battles were battles. Nothing we haven't seen before. (Although in 1932 it was likely new). And the Christians to the Lions was heard from the holding cell and not seen. No. What was disturbing was the execution by animals. Men and women staked out or down to be killed an assortment of exotic animals. Tigers, Bulls, Crocodiles, Gorilla. While we are not shown the actual killing we are shown the approach and the sheer terror of the victim. (The crocodiles are the worst) Even to the point of the elephant placing its foot on the man's head. At the moment the elephant would shift its weight, we are shown individuals in the crowd. Some laugh. Some are bored. Some are disgusted. Some are visably arroused. It would both be interesting and, I think, disturbing to see the movie audience and their reaction to these scenes as well. Perhaps that is something Demille had in mind. (Although that would run counter to his reputed dictum of 'simple stories for simple people').
I am a little surprised at my reaction to these scenes. I am reasonably well-read in history. I know what was done and how common such things have been through time. And I've seen a few elephants in real life in my time, (no pun intended). But there seems to be a difference between knowing that execution by elephant was a common practice (at least in princely-state India), and 'seeing' it done. I think that only the addition of being there and being able to smell what happens would be worse. Except of course having it happen to you. And that is another of Demille's skills. The suggestion by sympathy of the audience imagining that they are the victim.
Even with the supposed conversion of Marcus and the triumph through martyrdom of the Christians, I can see why the Hays Office blew all safety seals when this movie hit the screens. It would now be interesing to see the heavily edited 1944 rerelease in which the Roman story is told within a framing device of a squadron of Allied bombers on its way to attack Fascist Italy.
Haversack.
