Gary Devore, Stanford Archeologist

Step back in time with a director of excavations in Pompeii and at Roman sites in England, as Gary Devore explores how we continually re-imagine Romans through film. Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) uses Roman political decline to comment on the current politics and race relations in America. Spartacus (1960) is director Stanley Kubrick's attempt to revitalize the left after the McCarthy era. Gladiator (2000) is a hyper-masculine answer to feminism's recent triumphs. Fellini's Satyricon (1968) riffs on how Mussolini (and others) ransacked ancient history. And then there's always Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979).