Epic historical gems bring history to life

Sometimes you just want a movie to immerse you in an epic story full of spectacle and historic figures who’ve been brought to vivid life.

This week’s films all do that in their own particular ways, offering stories that span from the last days of the Roman Empire through to the territorial expansive ambitions of the 13th century Russian Empire and the final gasps of British colonial dominance.

They’re films that have been acclaimed, sometimes decried, but remain as superior examples of what’s possible when the wide-ranging possibilities of the medium are pushed to create equally expansive stories.

THE ARTHOUSE ESSENTIAL

The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp — YouTube

For two decades there were no more innovative and critically beloved filmmakers than the legendary team of Michael Powell and Hungarian émigré Emeric Pressburger. In 1943 they produced this epic romance cum war drama that still offers something new with every rewatching, over 70 years later.

The film tells the story of General Clive Wynne-Candy, a commander of the British Home Guard in World War 2, who before a training exercise is “taken prisoner” by a rival younger captain, later finding themselves in a shambolic tussle that lands them in the soup of a Turkish bath.

The film then flashbacks to 1902 where, during the Boer War, Wynne-Candy is a younger, less disillusioned and far more capable soldier who’s just won the Victoria Cross for bravery and will begin the first of one of the three relationships with the first of three very different women — all played by Deborah Kerr — that will come to define his life.

Though its satirical takedown of the old-fashioned, privileged mindset of the British officer class was considered scandalous and antipatriotic at the time — that Winston Churchill himself tried in vain to have the film banned — there is something distinctively pro-British about the characters.

Such as the nostalgic and empathetic portrayal of Clive as a young man with an idealistic past that’s now lost beneath his older walrus moustache.

It is one of the most British films but also one of the finest ever made in that sceptred isle.

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THE STONE COLD CLASSIC

Alexander Nevsky — YouTube

There’s a different nationalism at work in this 1938 epic from silent-era legend Sergei Eisenstein about the fight against Teuton invaders undertaken by prince Alexander Nevsky in the 13th century.

The first and most popular of Eisenstein’s sound films, it’s perhaps the most formally traditional, helped by the decision of its producers to assign the director collaborators who were specifically tasked with ensuring that he remain on the straight and narrow representationally.

Made during World War 2 and at the height of the Stalinist era, it’s an allegory about tensions between Stalin’s Soviet Union and Hitler’s Germany and a rousing celebration of the role of ordinary people in overthrowing tyranny.

Eisenstein’s toeing of the party line was rewarded when it was reported that Uncle Joe was very happy with the cut of the film he was shown. Until of course, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a non-aggression pact, at which time the film, despite overwhelming box office popularity, was unceremoniously pulled from cinemas, only to return again in 1941, when the Axis powers invaded.

These political considerations aside, the film has retained its celebrated status predominantly for its epic battle scenes, which have influenced generations of subsequent directors from Stanley Kubrick to George Lucas. An expansive rousing score by Sergei Prokofiev is also celebrated. In the 1990s a number of American orchestras performed the Russian master’s score to accompany newly restored prints of the film.

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THE DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH

The Fall of the Roman Empire — YouTube

A famously epic failure at the time of its release in 1964, director Anthony Mann’s sweeping tale of intrigue, betrayal and doomed love during the last gasps of the Roman Empire has enjoyed a fitting reappraisal in the decades since.

Starring Alec Guinness, Sofia Loren, James Mason and Christopher Plummer, it’s a story that fans of Ridley Scott’s 2000 epic Gladiator will find familiar.

In the winter of 180AD, sickly emperor Marcus Aurelius is fighting to hold off invading Germanic tribes in the north of the empire. His son Commodus, believes that when his father dies, he shall inherit his throne but daddy has different ideas and so he quietly names the reliable general Gaius Livius as a successor, whose idea for the future of Rome are more in line with his egalitarian vision.

Before he can tell the empire of his plans, Aurelius is poisoned by Commodus’ cronies and his succession plans are not implemented, leaving Commodus to begin the long, slow process of destroying the Roman Empire and besmirching its legacy in power, corruption and lies.

Despite its lavish production design, epically realised set pieces and battle scenes and a star-studded cast, the film died at the box office, echoing not only the decline of the empire it depicted, but the end of the popular era of “swords and sandals” epics in general.

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