Films on Ancient History and Culture

QUEST FOR FIRE is a prehistoric fantasy in which three members of a clan of Neanderthals are charged with recovering their group's fire by seeking a new flame elsewhere.

This film deals with the rivalry between Christianity and what was left of the Ancient Greek religion in the late Roman Empire from the pagan perspective.

In THE BATTLE FOR ROME, the Roman Empire has been shattered by Germanic invasions by the 6th century AD,. Italy is ruled as an independent kingdom by the Ostrogoths, while the surviving, eastern remnant of Roman civilization is fast taking on a new identity as the Byzantine Empire. The aristocracy of Rome, led by the crafty and arrogant Cethegus Caesarius, dream of overthrowing the Goths and reclaiming their city's ancestral glory. When the Ostrogothic king Theodoric the Great dies, Cethegus takes advantage of the struggle for the succession that erupts between Amalaswintha and Mataswintha, the king's savage daughters. Having played on Amalaswintha's paranoia to build his own power, Cethegus makes a secret pact with Belisarius, then Narses, Byzantium's greatest generals. Cethegus tries touse the Byzantine armies to recapture Italy, trying to undermine both the Byzantines and Ostrogoths. Whoever emerges alive and victorious will claim power over a reconstituted Roman world. The ensuing war causes upheavals in all three competing governments and ravages Italy itself. When the Ostrogothic state falls, Rome's hopes of reviving the past die with it.

SOCRATES is a biography of the philosopher covering the period between the defeat of Athens in the Peloponnesian War and the trial and death of Socrates (ca. 404-399 B.C.). Roberto Rossellini, the producer and director. used elements from Plato's dialogues and Xenophon's works.

This film deals with Nefertiti, who was the wife of Amenhotep IV (Akhnaton) and the strife over religion in Egypt in their reign. Her beauty is immortalized in an bust.

FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE addresses the beginning of the decline of the Roman Empire with the untimely death of Marcus Aurelius and the brief reign of the debauched Commodus. A general attempts to stop this degradation. The plot of this film is very similar to GLADIATOR (2000)

SCIPIONE l'AFRICANO (1937) is an Italian film that focuses on Publius Cornelius Scipio (Scipio Africanus) from the time of his election as proconsul until his defeat of Hannibal at the Battle of Zama. It had a huge caste and was partially funded by the Fascist government of Mussolini,which included elements of fascist style in its unflding. It was a propaganda piece to both celebrate the Italian agression on Ethiopia and to emphasize Italian ambitions in North Africa. The film even used an division of the Italian army as extras before it was deployed for duty in the Italian intervention in the Spanish Civil War.

SIKANDER an early Indian film (1941) that portrays the encounter between Alexander the Great and the Greeks with the King Porus and the Indians. It is the earliest and most unique films about Alexander, because it views him from a different perspective. Bollywood elements with many musical numbers are included. One short chant at about the 1:02 minute mark show an early Indian version or precursor of RAP, Check it out. It is a long film, If you don't appreciate the musical interludes, which I love, can fast forward to the prose dialog and action.

Pharaoh (Faraon) is a 1966 Polish film adapted from the 1897 novel by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus. The novel and the film describe the reign of the young pharaoh, Ramesses XIII, who attempts to reform Ancient Egypt. The Egyptian priesthood, led by Herhor, opposes him. The power struggle between them is the focus of the film. Other themes include the friendship with Pentuer the priest, the love for Sara the beautiful Jewess and Kama the priestess. It is also the story of the secret pact with Assyria, the Solar eclipse and how the priests used it to subdue the crowds, and the assassination of Ramses XIII at the hands of his look-alike. A historical fresco of universal meaning, revealing the mechanisms of power and the role of religion on the life of Egypt.

THE KING OF KINGS is a silent film dealing with the life of Jesus of Nazareth. It has both black & white and two-color technicolor sequences and was produced and directed by the film maker of Epics, Cecil B. deMille.

This is the first part of a two-part account of the Trojan War. It is silent-German-Italian co-production (the director was Italian). It was titled in German and French with latter additional English subtitles.

This is a partly silent, partly "talking" film, produced in the final years of the silent era in cinema. Like its mode of presentation, NOAH'S ARK's themes and eras are hybrid, part of the movie takes part during World War I in France, while the rest portrays remote antiquity. Both themes deal with sin, destructon, and redemption--caused either by war and disaster. It stars George O'Brien and Dolores Costello.

This is a lowbudget account of the Bablyonian Captivity of the Jews and their liberation by the Persians of Cyrus

INTOLERANCE is a 1916 epic silent film by producer/director D. W. Griffith after his controversial BIRTH OF A NATION. Intolerance was the three-and-a-half-hour film that presents four parallel storylines, one of the being an account of the Persian conquest of Babylon in 539 B.C. Cyrus is depicted as a ruthless general, who exploited religious strife in Babylon. Other sources differ in their assessment.