Representations of Antiquity in Film - From Griffith to Grindhouse - Kevin M. McGeough
Epic Egyptian Kitsch: Historical Thinking and Statecraft in Ancient Epics
Representations of Antiquity in Film - From Griffith to Grindhouse - Kevin M. McGeough
Kevin M. McGeough [+]
University of Lethbridge
Kevin M. McGeough is professor of archaeology in the Department of Geography at the University of Lethbridge and holds a Board of Governor’s Research Chair in Archaeological Theory and Reception. Having excavated in Israel, Turkey, Jordan, Egypt, and Canada, he is the co-editor of the Alberta Archaeological Review and chair of publications for the American Society of Overseas Research (ASOR). He is currently researching the reception of Near Eastern Archaeology in a variety of media and has recently published a three-volume book on archaeological reception in the Victorian era, The Ancient Near East in the Nineteenth Century (2015).
Description
The second chapter of the book discusses the formal features of the “epic” genre, the main genre through which the ancient world is explored in film. It provides historical background on how the ancient world was first a subject of silent films. Then it discusses the various technical aspects of filmmaking that emerged as means of making historical arguments: widescreen framing, the presentation of spectacle, archaeological authenticity in design, and the kinds of historical arguments that are embedded in such techniques.