Representations of Antiquity in Film - From Griffith to Grindhouse - Kevin M. McGeough
From the Arthouse to the Grindhouse: The Ancient Epic Subverted
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 & Environment 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, McGeough is currently co-director of excavations at Busayra in Jordan and Head-Smashed-In Buffalo Jump UNESCO World Heritage Site in Canada. He has been the editor of The Annual of ASOR and ASOR’s Archaeological Report Series as well as the chair of ASOR’s publications program. Now co-editor of the Alberta Archaeological Review, he is currently researching the reception of Near
Eastern Archaeology in a variety of media, including a three-volume book on archaeological reception in the Victorian era, The Ancient Near East in the Nineteenth
Century (2015) and a 2025 popular book on the interpretation of the Ark of the
Covenant over the past 2,000 years (Readers of the Lost Ark). His 2022 book on
cinema, Representations of Antiquity in Film: From Griffith to Grindhouse is a treatment of how the ancient world is presented in movies.
Description
This chapter looks at darker treatments of the ancient world, such as Fellini’s Satyricon and the brief but pivotal moments where the ancient world is depicted in A Clockwork Orange. The central role that the ancient world plays in the short films of Kenneth Anger provides a window into how independent cinema can perpetuate alternative and esoteric interpretations of the past. The chapter then goes on to discuss the depiction of the ancient world in grindhouse and exploitation cinema and concludes with a discussion of how the television series I, Claudius reflects a type of anti-spectacle.