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Movie 1964 |
The Fall of the Roman Empire
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Timonides: [after Ballomar threatens to blind Timondes] Let's look upon this logically...
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Livius: [standing over body of Timonides] What happened, gentle Greek? Did you try to tell them there were three possibilities? Did you not know there was a fourth? This!
[picks up and throws spear away]
Lucilla: This is the way they answer to reason and now even you must see, this is the only way to answer them.
Livius: He does not seem dead to me, I can still feel his life, hear his words. Tell me what I must do in his name.
[yelling]
Livius: March the army into Rome and drown the city in blood!
Lucilla: [uncovering the Christian cross Timonides wore around his neck] He was my father's friend and a wise man.
Livius: I shall go alone into Rome, if I do not return by sunset, let the army enter Rome.
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Commodus: Livius, if you listen very carefully, you can hear the gods laughing!
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Timonides: Men of Rome, men of Rome! Do not touch these people, they have become your brothers. They're Roman now. The whole Northern people will answer with fire and blood, their hatred will live for centuries. Men of Roman blood will pay for this. You will make nations to kill us all. Let us live in peace!Peace!
[Timonides is killed with a javelin in the chest]
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Livius: You're beautiful.
Lucilla: You're beautiful.
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Timonides: As you see there is more than enough for ourselves. We were right Livius. There is no limit with what can be done with a human spirit, for good or evil.
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Victorinus: We're in command now Livius, the throne is yours.
Senator: Gaius Mettelus Livius, the people are asking for you.
Livius: You would not find me very suitable, because my first official act would be to have you all crucified.
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Livius: A few days longer, Caesar, we'll bring you his head.
Marcus Aurelius: No Livius, please don't bring me his head. I wouldn't know what to do with it.
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Amazon.com
The second and last of Anthony Mann's historical epics is a smart, handsome spectacle of the decadence, corruption, and intrigue that tears apart the greatest empire the world has seen. The sprawling story spreads itself thin over a number of characters and stories. At the center are handsome but stiff Stephen Boyd as Livius, the loyal soldier and symbolic son of the aging emperor (Alec Guinness), and Christopher Plummer as Commodus, the corrupt heir to the throne--boyhood friends turned enemies when the latter accedes to the throne and sells out the values of his father for greed and hedonistic pleasures. The three-hour running time is filled out with the tales of Sophia Loren (as the beautiful Lucilla in love with Livius but coveted by greedy Commodus) and a gallery of heroes and villains that includes James Mason, Mel Ferrer, Anthony Quayle, John Ireland, Omar Sharif, and Eric Porter. The film is highlighted with spectacular scenes (a grandiose funeral fit for an emperor, brutal battles in the provinces as the barbarians threaten the empire, and a climactic duel to decide the destiny of Rome), which Mann weaves into the shadowy intrigue of the halls of power. Like his previous epic El Cid, The Fall of the Roman Empire remains one of the best of the 1960s epics: well written (and largely historically accurate) with strong performances and a consistently elegant style, but it lacks a central core and the magnetic hero of its superior predecessor. --Sean Axmaker
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