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Movie epics tend to be long, lofty stories about the grand sweep of history, centered on a particular hero.
Movie audiences flocked to these big-budget productions that featured all-star casts, thousands of extras, lavish costumes and enormous sets, grandeur and spectacle played out against a dramatic landscape — and all of it accompanied by a sweeping score of heart-pounding music.
Sunday at 7 p.m. CST, Turner Classic Movies will premiere an hourlong special about the history of epics in Hollywood, and all day long it will play movies it says fit the label of movie epic.
Few would disagree that “How the West Was Won,” “Doctor Zhivago,” “Ben-Hur” and “The King of Kings” are epics.
The TCM special features commentary from its movie historian and host, Robert Osborne, along with some directors of epics: Jean-Jacques Annaud (“Quest for Fire”), Kenneth Branagh (“Henry V”), John Milius (“The Wind and the Lion”) and Steven Spielberg (“Saving Private Ryan”).
Omar Sharif talks about the making of “Zhivago” and of “Lawrence of Arabia,” while Martin Landau recalls feeling like an ant on the ginormous set of “Cleopatra.” Descendants of Charlton Heston (“Ben-Hur”), Cecil B. DeMille (“The Ten Commandments”), producer Samuel Bronston (“King of Kings”) and director Anthony Mann (“El Cid”) also share their thoughts.
Epics go back to the very beginning of moviemaking history. Most agree that director D.W. Griffith was the grandfather of the epic, starting in 1913. His 1915 film “The Birth of a Nation” is widely derided today as inexcusably racist, while “Intolerance” in 1916 is often seen as Griffith's effort to make up for that earlier picture.
DeMille is another director whose name is always associated with grand spectacle, whether it be sword and sandal epics (“Samson and Delilah”) or the world of the circus (“The Greatest Show on Earth”), industry (“Union Pacific”) or great battles (“The Crusades”). He made epics over nearly 40 years, with a short break during World War II, ending with a remake of his own “The Ten Commandments.”
The documentary points out rightly that epics require directors who aren't afraid to take on huge risk and responsibility, marshaling an army of actors and artists to accomplish their goal. Victor Fleming, William Wyler, George Stevens and Anthony Mann make the list.
David Lean is in a category by himself. Known especially for sweeping vistas of wide-open spaces, Lean made three stunning epics in a row: “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” “Doctor Zhivago” and “Lawrence of Arabia.” So huge were these movies, they collectively filled a full decade of his life.
Actors, too, have to be big enough to fill those lofty hero roles that epics require. Clark Gable, Charlton Heston, Richard Burton, Kirk Douglas, Peter O'Toole and William Holden once fit the bill. Today that list might include Tom Hanks, Russell Crowe, Sean Penn, Denzel Washington and Tommy Lee Jones.
Epics went out of fashion in the 1970s, toppled by the weight of their own lofty themes and excesses — and by a time when audiences were hungry for a new, socially relevant kind of movie.
But they're back now, in the form of such popular attractions as “Titanic,” the “Lord of the Rings” trilogy, the “Star Wars” serial and even a return to the sword and sandal genre with “Gladiator.”
Another big-budget movie with a sweeping backdrop that centers on the journey of a hero opens Friday. James Cameron's “Avatar” cost hundreds of millions to make. And though hordes of extras and the void of deep space now can be digitally conjured, they don't come cheap in any form.
Some of my favorite epics come from the years of my childhood. I think the imagination of the young is much more easily swept up in the kind of grand, heroic tales that fit the bill of an epic. But adults are by no means immune.
My top 10 favorite epics, in no particular order: “Gone With the Wind,” “Lawrence of Arabia,” “The Bridge on the River Kwai,” “Giant,” “How the West Was Won,” “Ben-Hur,” “Elizabeth,” “Patton,” “The Grapes of Wrath” and “Gandhi.”
No doubt this column has missed some of your all-time favorites. Send me your own choices for best epics, and we'll make them the topic of a future column.
Meanwhile, tune in to TCM on Sunday for some great, epic movie-watching to take away the chill of winter.
Contact the writer:
444-1269, bob.fischbach@owh.com
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