Experiencing Antiquity in the Postwar Hollywood Epic
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Syracuse University SURFACE Dissertations - ALL SURFACE May 2018 History's Perilous Pleasures: Experiencing Antiquity in the Postwar Hollywood Epic Thomas Jefferson West III Syracuse University Follow this and additional works at: https://surface.syr.edu/etd Part of the Arts and Humanities Commons Recommended Citation West III, Thomas Jefferson, "History's Perilous Pleasures: Experiencing Antiquity in the Postwar Hollywood Epic" (2018). Dissertations - ALL. 882. https://surface.syr.edu/etd/882 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the SURFACE at SURFACE. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations - ALL by an authorized administrator of SURFACE. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract This dissertation focuses on the mid-20th Century historico-biblical epic—a film genre that flourished within Hollywood from 1949 to 1966 and which took as its subject the depiction of the ancient world—and reads this body of films as a mode of historical engagement. I argue that the historico-biblical epic takes the pressure of the terrifying possibility of the end of human history engendered by the atomic bomb and transmutes this into a series of dialectics, between agency and powerlessness, embodiment and transcendence, desire and punishment, imperial zenith and nadir. While antiquity seems to offer the modern world the ability to escape from the traumas of World War II, the imminence of a nuclear Armageddon, and the possibility of no future, the epic renders visible and forces an encounter with the very terrors it promises and seeks to escape. As such, it presents a portrait of an uneasy American culture struggling, and never quite succeeding, to make sense of its own position in time and history. Chapter one argues that the proliferation of atomic technologies in the postwar period engendered a profound eschatological fear in American culture, a fear reflected in the historico- biblical epic’s concern with heroic agency and impotence. This chapter draws on a wide variety of historical documents, including contemporary newspapers and magazines, the works of public intellectuals, and thinkers in the Christian press, all of whom struggled to make sense of the possibility of the end of history and whether it could (or should) be prevented through human intervention. I argue that the epic, including films such as The Ten Commandments (1956), Ben- Hur (1959), and Spartacus (1960), takes this terror and sublimates it into an ongoing narrative tension between agency and powerlessness, in which the male hero remains enmeshed in forces that exist beyond his control, his agency constantly displaced onto larger forces such as the will of God or onto a future the films seem reluctant to visually represent. Chapter two argues that the advent of widescreen, inaugurated with The Robe (1953), opened up new possibilities in the way in which the epic framed its temporal and embodied appeals and the way in which it sought to provide an escape from the terrors of modern history. Drawing on midcentury theological explorations of time, industrial and trade discussions of widescreen technology, as well as certain work on time and affect in recent film theory, I explore how the widescreen epic’s emphasis on immersion and embodied presence suggests the ability to escape modernity and experience the fulfillment offered by redemptive Christian time. Simultaneously, the genre’s emphasis on embodiment, both that of its on-screen, Christian convert heroes and the spectator sitting in the audience, draws attention to the limits of temporal transcendence. In chapter three, I shift into a discussion of the use of color in epic films such as Samson and Delilah (1949) and Quo Vadis (1951), arguing that color’s sensory address, combined with the genre’s emphasis on sexual and material excess, expresses a utopian wish to escape from the mesh of modern, linear time and escape into the perpetual present offered by sexual desire. Drawing on recent explorations undertaken in color theory and situating the films in the context of Cold War anxieties over sexuality, containment, and nuclear annihilation, I also show how the sexual excesses and deviance so conspicuously on display intertwine with the moralizing impulse of the films’ narratives, conjoining the pleasures of desire and death. Through this analysis, I demonstrate how these films expose the fractures in the not-yet-hegemonic ideology of containment. Chapter four moves into a discussion of imperial and geopolitical anxieties in later epics such as Cleopatra (1963) and The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964). These films provide a conflicted experience of history, one founded on a form of what I call “melancholic utopia,” a hopeful mourning for a brighter future that the films never bring to fruition. In these films, the hero’s aspirations unfold via spectacular displays of armies, vistas, and material wealth, which emerge at key points to create moments in which time is suspended and seemingly filled with vast historical potential. However, these films’ narratives, driven toward failure, suffuse these time-stopping, utopian spectacles with the despair of inevitable historical decline. These films thus provide an experience of history that holds the promise of infinite possibility in productive tension with a deferral of such potential. HISTORY’S PERILOUS PLEASURES: EXPERIENCING ANTIQUITY IN THE POSTWAR HOLLYWOOD EPIC by Thomas J. West III B.A., Marshall University, 2007 M.A., Syracuse University, 2011 Dissertation Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English. Syracuse University May 2018 Copyright © Thomas J. West III, 2018 All Rights Reserved Acknowledgments It seems fitting that a dissertation about the epic should basically become a cast of thousands but, when you’ve been blessed with so many great people in your life, you want to show appropriate (and suitably hyperbolic) appreciation. Mere words cannot express my gratitude to my co-adviser, Steven Cohan, for his never- ending support and rigorous feedback through every step of the writing of this dissertation. He had faith in this project from its beginnings and provided encouragement at key moments in its composition, and for that I am deeply thankful. Like every good adviser, he seemed to know what it was that I wanted to say before I knew it myself, but he always let me figure it out on my own. My other co-adviser, Roger Hallas, generously offered substantial commentary on each chapter, always pushing me to add more nuance to my arguments. This dissertation is a stronger piece of scholarship because of him. I am also grateful to Mike Goode, who brought his useful perspectives on history, adaptation, and experience to this project. Gratitude is also due to Carol Fadda-Conrey, who has been both an invaluable teaching mentor and a profound intellectual influence. Kirsten Day has brought the valuable perspective of a trained classicist to this examination of films set in antiquity. Thanks also to Dr. Gail Hamner for chairing this dissertation defense and for our many rich conversations. Special thanks are due to Kelly Overbay, Abigail Overbay, Melissa Welshans, and Bridget Kies. Kelly has been there from the very beginning of this graduate school journey, always ready with a shoulder to cry on or a wicked barb, depending on the needs of the moment. I couldn’t have done this without him. Abby has been one of the most supportive and enthusiastic friends I could ever desire. Melissa is, without doubt, one of the smartest, funniest, v and most unruly women I know, and she is a pearl without price. Bridget remains both a dear friend and a source of inspiration as one of the most driven and accomplished intellectual talents I’m privileged to know. This dissertation could not have been completed without Terri Zollo’s knowledge and expertise of all things bureaucratic; she managed to wrangle all of us into the same room at the same time on the same day and was always ready with a laugh or a word of encouragement during the final rush to the finish line. Many other faculty in the Department of English at Syracuse University have helped me along my graduate school journey, both during my time as a master’s student and throughout the doctoral process, in particular Crystal Bartolovich, Patty Roylance, Chris Hanson, Will Scheibel, Coran Klaver, Susan Edmunds, and Dympna Callaghan. This dissertation also benefited from a year-long dissertation fellowship provided by the Humanities Center at Syracuse University. I would therefore like to thank the staff of the Center for their help: Kelly Pickard, Diane Drake, and Kathleen Oliver. Special thanks to Vivian May, the director of the Humanities Center, who pushed me to make my work more accessible to those outside the discipline of film studies. I am also grateful to my many colleagues, past and present, in the Department of English at Syracuse University, who have patiently endured my many rambling conversations about this project (and my tendency to bring every conversation back around to it): Amy Burnette, Peter Katz, Lauren Cooper, Simon Staples-Vangel, Evan Hixon, Ashley O’Mara, Elizabeth Gleesing, Jordan Wood, Chris Barnes, Vicky Cheng, Noelle Hedgcock, John Sanders, Staci Stutsman, Max Cassity, Mark Muster, Alex O’Connell, Tyler Smart, Steve Doles, Wil Marple, Rachel Snyder- Lockman, Rhyse Curtis, Ian Brine, Laurel Ahnert, Kicia Sears, Adrienne Garcia-Specht, Megan Poole, Jillian Sherwin, and many others who I have probably (and inadvertently) forgotten. I vi must also thank those who are department-adjacent, including Anna Chovanec, Athena Mandros, Joe Kappes, Adam Curtis, and Whitney Muhlencamp Wood. I have been truly blessed to spend these last nine years with such wonderful, intelligent, kind, and funny people. Other people outside of English also deserve a shout-out, including Adam DJ Brett and Stephanie Wyatt.