Spartacus in Spain
At a time when Hollywood studios and independent producers were looking to shoot overseas to save costs and highlight exotic locations, Spartacus was supposed to show that an epic film could be made without leaving California. But Director Stanley Kubrick insisted on shooting the battle scenes in Spain.
Kubrick envisioned a vast, open landscape, with legions of trained soldiers marching in formation. Spain had the landscapes, it was relatively cheap, and previous Hollywood productions had paved the way for working there.
However, none of the stars traveled to Spain. As I previously wrote about, this split production required creative editing and makes for some interesting juxtapositions. While Rome, shot on Hollywood sound stages, appears in rich color, the battlefields are comparatively dark and earthy. Kirk Douglas as Spartacus delivers a rousing speech in a Hollywood studio, his head in the clouds, as the film cuts to a crowd of Spanish extras, listening warily from the shadows.
Something appears different when Spartacus’ slave army, after passing through a montage of varying landscapes and weather conditions, victoriously arrives at Metapontum. Instead of the clean, studio version of Rome, we see an actual Spanish town. As we cut to Spartacus drinking in celebration on the balcony, the shot is cropped in closely to hide the fact that he is back in California.
The massive battle scenes, filmed at Colmenar Viejo outside Madrid, are where the Spanish locations truly shine. The Franco regime, embarking on an effort to court Hollywood productions to come to Spain, agreed to lend eight thousand infantry soldiers to the production (as long as they were not shown dying on screen). Again, editing hides the fact that Douglas himself was not on the battlefield. The camera looks out on a wide dark green landscape as massive columns of soldiers march in formation in the distance. The scene alternates with medium shots of Spartacus and Crassus, each surrounded by a few of their soldiers, but cut in close enough that they could be anywhere.
By the time the battle is over and the surviving slave army is chanting “I am Spartacus”, the production is back in California.
