"The Romans in Film" according to Roland Barthes

Barthes defines the 1953 film Julius Ceasar as a primitive use of two signs to tell the audience what spectacle they are watching. The two signs are the Roman short-locked haircut and the sweat on the Roman faces. These two symbols tell the viewer everything they need to know about “Roman-ness” in the grand spectacle of a Hollywood version of Shakespeare. In the online world, we can look up pictures of John Gielgud as Cassius, the Devil on Brutus’ shoulder, to see what Barthes is talking about. The locks of the haircut fall short on the forehead, and the skin shines with what I suppose is sweat, at least Barthes interprets the glossiness in that way.

Barthes conclusion in his short examination of “The Romans in Film” is quite negative. “For although it is a good thing if a spectacle is created to make the world more explicit, it is both reprehensible and deceitful to confuse the sign with what is signified” (28).  This quote has two parts. Examining the first, we take in his presumption that “a spectacle is created to make the world more explicit.” From reading Barthes’ “The World of Wrestling,” the genesis piece of his Mythologies, we understand that the immediacy of spectacle is wondrous, a call back to the drama of ancient Greece, where symbol and signified have a pure relationship brought on by, among other things, the insistence of the masque telling us exactly what we need to have as our interpretation of the immediacy of the event.

The second part of Barthes’ sentence, however, tells us that the two symbols of the 1953 Julius Caesar  fall short of the wanted wonderment. The symbols fall so short as to be “reprehensible” and “deceitful.” Putting the coiffure on the actors gives them an instant representation that is untrue. The spectacle of Rome and the spectacle of Shakespeare is not in the haircut. The spectacle is in the action and the words. Likewise, the angst and emotion lies not in a plasticized sweat. Let Shakespeare’s words hit us with their punch and vigor. Let the actors show us what villains and heroes they are, complicated through their hesitance to do what they think good, or, in Antony’s case, to revolt against the terrorists in the way he knows he must.

And yet, the film gives us hairdos and reflections of soundstage lights on the faces of the actors. And we, the viewers, are supposed to swoon with the “fact” that the film shows us its spectacle. The signs have become what is the wanted intent, and that magnificent drama and emotion on its step-by-step basis that comprises the Shakespeare and his interpretation by the actors falls to second place. Film, if it chooses to, can create this imbalance. The balance is in the struggle within the characters as Antony approaches his victory. The wrestling of Brutus with Antony, both internal and external, is the balanced spectacle here, not their make-up.

Brutus as Antony approaches. Stock image from Alamy.

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Barthes, Roland. “The Romans in  Films.” Mythologies. Trans. Annette Lavers.  NY: Hill     and Wang, 1972, pp. 26-28.