Kampf um Rom
Kampf um Rom The Last Roman | |
---|---|
Directed by | Robert Siodmak Sergiu Nicolaescu/ Andrew Marton (2nd unit) |
Written by | Ladislas Fodor (novel: Felix Dahn, adapted by David Ambrose) |
Produced by | Artur Brauner |
Starring | Laurence Harvey Orson Welles Sylva Koscina |
Cinematography | Richard Angst |
Edited by | Alfred Srp |
Music by | Riz Ortolani |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Constantin Film |
Release dates |
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Running time | 103 minutes (part I) 83 minutes (part II) 93 minutes (one-part version) |
Countries | West Germany, Italy |
Language | German |
Kampf um Rom (English language title: The Last Roman) is a West German-Italian historical drama film starring Laurence Harvey, Orson Welles, Sylva Koscina and Honor Blackman. It was produced by Artur Brauner and was the last film to be directed by Robert Siodmak.[1] It was originally released in two parts (Kampf um Rom 1. Teil and Kampf um Rom 2. Teil: Der Verrat) in 1968 and 1969 as a late installment of the sword-and-sandal genre. Kampf um Rom shows the 6th-century power struggle between Byzantine emperor Justinian, the descendants of the Western Roman Empire and the Ostrogoths. The film is based on a novel by Felix Dahn.
Plot
In the 6th century AD, the Roman Empire has been shattered by Germanic invasions. 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
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.
Cast
- Laurence Harvey as Cethegus
- Justinian
- Theodora
- Amalaswintha
- Robert Hoffmann as Totila
- Lang Jeffries as Belisarius
- Michael Dunn as Narses
- Florin Piersic as Witiches
- Emanoil Petruț as Teja
- Mathaswintha
- Ewa Strömberg as Rauthgundis
- Ingrid Boulting as Julia
- Friedrich von Ledebur as Hildebrand
- Dieter Eppler as Thorismund[1][2]
Production
After his domestic market success with
The novel was adapted for the screen by David Ambrose, but the screenplay was written by Ladislas Fodor.[1] Director Robert Siodmak was not comfortable with the project. In late 1967, he wrote a letter to Brauner in which he noted that after having read all the scripts he felt that the dialogue was "too simple (to put it mildly) almost throughout and barely up to the standard of ten-year-old children. The characters are not consistent, they have numerous breaks and even the heroes are becoming uninteresting and unlikeable towards the end of the movie. [...] At the end of part 2 the historical facts have been changed so violently that we have to voice serious concerns. The doom of the Ostrogoths is not just a great drama of world literature but also a huge historical drama. [...] Treason and exposure, guilt and atonement are constructed so primitively that they cause deadly boredom [...]"[3]: 130
Filming took place between 6 May 1968 and September 1968 in Romania and the Spandau Studios in Berlin.[1] Brauner chose Romania as a low cost location — the Romanian army supplied several thousand extras for the film.[3]: 148 According to one source, the production was at the time the most expensive German film after World War II, at 15 million Deutsche Mark.[4] However, Brauner himself put the production costs at 8 million DM.[3]: 148 Due to a string of problems (budget overruns, withdrawn guarantees, cancelled powers of attorney) he said he lost 4 million DM on the project.[3]: 148
Robert Siodmak received billing as director in the credits, his collaborators Sergiu Nicolaescu and Andrew Marton were only mentioned as directors of the 2nd unit.[1]
Release
Part 1 premiered on 17 December 1968 at the
The one-part version was released to German movie theatres in 1976.[6] It may have been originally re-cut in 1973 for release in the US.
Reception
The film was not well received by the critics. 'Evangelischer Filmbeobachter' gave the film credit for "much love, splendour and pathos" but criticised it for not even attempting to put it on a "historic foundation".[7] 'Lexikon des internationalen Films' described it as "a spectacle of power struggles, intrigues and battles in an outdated historical and scenographical style" that "rigorously excluded the ideological element of Felix Dahn's novel". It also called the film "naive-entertaining", but "psychologically crude" and "too superficial".[8]
The Filmbewertungsstelle Wiesbaden, which handed out the ratings of "Wertvoll" and "Besonders wertvoll" to films, refused to give the film one of these ratings. It argued that "The colour cinematography [...] is just as boring in its conventionality as the editing. Décor and costumes are obtrusively theatrical and do not make the viewer forget for one second that they are scenery and drapery. The actors are very much in line with this. Instead of dialogues they are reciting wooden texts."[3]: 130
See also
- List of historical drama films
- Late Antiquity
- Gothic War (535–554)
References
- ^ a b c d e f g "Filmportal: Kampf um Rom. 1. Teil". Retrieved 27 March 2013.
- ^ a b c "Filmportal: Kampf um Rom. 2. Teil: Verrat". Retrieved 27 March 2013.
- ^ ISBN 9783887990343.
- ISBN 3-89602-340-3.
- ^ "La calata dei barbari". Fondazione Ente dello Spettacolo. Retrieved 15 January 2017.
- ^ "Filmportal: Kampf um Rom (one-part version)". Retrieved 27 March 2013.
- ^ Evangelischer Filmbeobachter (in German) (2/1969): 5, 1969
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