Glistening in its uniquely statuesque way, Rome seemed to await only a hero's arrival
Rome in a hot autumn sun looked more like its legend than any visitor has a right to expect. Glistening in its uniquely statuesque way – a Hollywood epic setting sprung to life – the city seemed to await only a hero's arrival: an epic-sized hero who wouldn't be dwarfed or made to sound inflated like Mussolini. This made it a testing place in which to meet the present heavyweight champion of Hollywood epics, for what had happened to Mussolini beneath this lowering architecture might easily happen to him. Deflation of "Ben Hur", alias "Moses", alias "El Cid".
But against the flickering civic backcloth of Roman churches, squares, statues, columns, and courtyards – all of them flickering because they were only glimpsed from a speeding Cadillac – Charlton Heston sounded well aware of the dangers of appearing here on the wrong side of the cameras. Laying aside the suits of armour and Old Testament garments that have served him so well – the kind of props that might here have given him a Mussolini inflation – the champion took the stage in sober sports jacket and argued the case for Hollywood epics like a lawyer defending a client against a charge of income tax evasion. Only such a studiously anti romantic approach could have a chance against such a romantic background.
Not long ago, defending "epics" would have seemed hopeless in Rome – or anywhere else. "Every bad writer is in love with the epic," Hemingway once said, and the love affair has been even more pronounced among bad film directors as they have tried to hide pigmy characters in reels of giant landscapes and mammoth crowds. A real epic needs as careful a balance between foreground and background as Shakespeare maintained between character and verse. How many directors have managed that?
With Rome flickering away behind him, Mr Heston began his case by claiming that this balance is precisely what William Wyler achieved in "Ben Hur" and that his example has persuaded many other first rate directors to invade a field usually reserved for second raters. "Tony Mann has just finished 'El Cid' and Nick Ray has done 'King of Kings'. David Lean is doing 'Lawrence of Arabia' and George Stevens is planning…"
One of the ubiquitous Roman scooters cut out in front of the regal Cadillac and it glided to a temporary halt. Rome paused and then began to flicker away again as the Cadillac moved off. "You see," said Mr Heston, turning away from a view of the balcony where Mussolini used to harangue the crowd, "the epic genre is really the hardest kind of thing to do successfully. If you do a film about a Bronx butcher or a British factory worker, you can start right away into the story. The audience is with you from the start. But the romantic background for an historical epic is unfamiliar and can work against you. Almost inevitably you have to start with a map."
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These archive extracts, compiled by the Guardian's research and information department, appear online daily at gu.com/fromthearchive Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 day ago.
Rome in a hot autumn sun looked more like its legend than any visitor has a right to expect. Glistening in its uniquely statuesque way – a Hollywood epic setting sprung to life – the city seemed to await only a hero's arrival: an epic-sized hero who wouldn't be dwarfed or made to sound inflated like Mussolini. This made it a testing place in which to meet the present heavyweight champion of Hollywood epics, for what had happened to Mussolini beneath this lowering architecture might easily happen to him. Deflation of "Ben Hur", alias "Moses", alias "El Cid".
But against the flickering civic backcloth of Roman churches, squares, statues, columns, and courtyards – all of them flickering because they were only glimpsed from a speeding Cadillac – Charlton Heston sounded well aware of the dangers of appearing here on the wrong side of the cameras. Laying aside the suits of armour and Old Testament garments that have served him so well – the kind of props that might here have given him a Mussolini inflation – the champion took the stage in sober sports jacket and argued the case for Hollywood epics like a lawyer defending a client against a charge of income tax evasion. Only such a studiously anti romantic approach could have a chance against such a romantic background.
Not long ago, defending "epics" would have seemed hopeless in Rome – or anywhere else. "Every bad writer is in love with the epic," Hemingway once said, and the love affair has been even more pronounced among bad film directors as they have tried to hide pigmy characters in reels of giant landscapes and mammoth crowds. A real epic needs as careful a balance between foreground and background as Shakespeare maintained between character and verse. How many directors have managed that?
With Rome flickering away behind him, Mr Heston began his case by claiming that this balance is precisely what William Wyler achieved in "Ben Hur" and that his example has persuaded many other first rate directors to invade a field usually reserved for second raters. "Tony Mann has just finished 'El Cid' and Nick Ray has done 'King of Kings'. David Lean is doing 'Lawrence of Arabia' and George Stevens is planning…"
One of the ubiquitous Roman scooters cut out in front of the regal Cadillac and it glided to a temporary halt. Rome paused and then began to flicker away again as the Cadillac moved off. "You see," said Mr Heston, turning away from a view of the balcony where Mussolini used to harangue the crowd, "the epic genre is really the hardest kind of thing to do successfully. If you do a film about a Bronx butcher or a British factory worker, you can start right away into the story. The audience is with you from the start. But the romantic background for an historical epic is unfamiliar and can work against you. Almost inevitably you have to start with a map."
Click here to see the full article
These archive extracts, compiled by the Guardian's research and information department, appear online daily at gu.com/fromthearchive Reported by guardian.co.uk 1 day ago.