Dr Dunstan Lowe from the Department of Classical & Archaeological Studies will be speaking at Paris West University Nanterre La Défense, France, on 11 December as part of conference ‘Antiquity 2.0’. The conference is a response to modern day, digital film versions of the ancient world.
Dunstan’s talk is entitled ‘The Gory as Revolution: How Bloodshed Revived Antiquity From Cinema to Videogames’. He argues that blood provides the main visual theme to contemporary depictions of antiquity.
The painting by Jean-Léon Gérôme that persuaded Ridley Scott to make Gladiator (2000) shows the moment before an execution, in an arena sprinkled with red. That arena, and many executions, lent a new visual impact to ancient Romes seen onscreen that has become almost indispensable for in television and videogames. For Greece, even more vivid splashes of blood from the pages of Frank Miller’s graphic novel 300 (1998) came alive in the film adaptation (2007) and sequel (2014). In videogames, meanwhile, the long-running God of War franchise (2005-present) offered a brutal and gory reimagining of classical mythology for which cinematic analogues have appeared in Clash and Wrath of the Titans (2010, 2012) and The Immortals (2011), not to mention many further games. In this new phase of popular engagement with classical antiquity, civic religion has turned sour and heroes fight at lightning speed, yet the greatest contrast with the twentieth century is found in the imagery of vitality and death. Videogames are prominent, but by no means unique or isolated, in the recent proliferation of gore as a classical (or rather counterclassical) aesthetic. As Virgil does in the scene of Priam’s death, millennial antiquity confronts splendour and dignity with brutal bloodshed, finding topical resonance in the contrast between two worlds.
For more details of the Antiquity 2.0 project, please see the webpage here:
passes-present.eu/en/themes-research/project-incubator/antiquity-20#.VC5o9cJdV1Q