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Kubism, Part 5: Spartacus (1960)

Longer, wider and more colourful than anything Stanley Kubrick had done up to this point, Spartacus saw The Kube go EPIC. 198 minutes long! A four-minute rousing Alex North overture! A Saul Bass title sequence! An intermission and entr'acte, whatever that is! A $12 million budget! Super 70mm 2.2:1 Technirama! Between 10,000 and 50,000 extras depending on who you ask! If bigger means better,

Kubism, Part 4: Paths Of Glory (1957)

Act I of Stanley Kubrick's career is complete: over the course of three shorts and three features we've seen him grow from pretentious faux-intellectual with a keen eye into an accomplished storyteller with an even keener eye. It hasn't always been easy viewing (I refer you, once again, to The Seafarers), but the upward trajectory in quality has at least formed the kind of narrative arc every