Big Screen Rome - Amazon Web Services

Acknowledgments
This book is the result of merging two of my greatest loves: classics and
cinema. As a kid growing up in Los Angeles, I loved going to the movies
and ran off to the cineplex every chance I could. I always assumed I would
work in the industry some day, maybe as a screenwriter or costume designer.
So it was with great surprise that I found myself, some years later,
a professor of classics at a large research university. The idea for this
volume came from a course I developed in spring 2000 at the University
of New Mexico, called “Big Screen Rome.” This popular course started as
a survey of my favorite films about Roman antiquity, both serious and
comic. Since then, the integration of classics and popular culture, especially
film, has become a regular feature of school curricula all across the
academic spectrum, but there was still a dearth of suitable materials to use
in the classroom to accompany the viewing of these spectacular films. This
book is intended to contribute to the continuing enterprise of merging
classics and cinema, not only to facilitate teaching and scholarly research
in the field, but also to enhance the viewing pleasure of the individual
spectator.
I am indebted to Al Bertrand, commissioning editor at Blackwell, who
saw the potential in my chatty, professorial notes to create a solid book.
Angela Cohen deserves my gratitude for her patience and persistence in
bringing the project to fulfillment. My thanks also go to Leanda Shrimpton
for her help with the picture research which resulted in the exceptional
cover design using such an iconic scene of Roman epic films, and to
Brigitte Lee, who offered graceful and timely suggestions to polish the
finished manuscript. All the staff members at Blackwell who worked on
this book merit my thanks and praise for their diligence. I am grateful to
Ayzha Wolf of The Picture Desk/The Kobal Collection in New York, for
her help in acquiring the film stills reproduced in this volume. Photo