The Use of the Past to Shape the Present:Shifting Depictions of the Ancient World in Twentieth-Century American Cinema

The ancient film epic has its roots at the very dawn of cinema as a form of popular art and entertainment,with a number of early silent films drawing their plots from ancient Biblical and Classical sources,and the genre remains relevant in the early twenty-first century.Ancient film epics thus provide a useful lens through which to trace evolutions in film history and in western culture more broadly.This paper analyzes seven American films spanning the early twentieth century to the early twenty-first century(Intolerance,Quo Vadis,The Egyptian,The Ten Com?mandments.Spartacus,Gladiator,300),identifying specific ways each film mirrors or challenges the time period in which it was produced.