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Picture copyright DreamWorks / Universal
When:
25 - 30 Aug 2008 (annual)
Where:
Roman Theatre
Cost:
€6.50; concessions €3
Opening Hours:
Various
The Roman Theatre at Arles stages a series of outdoor screenings of Hollywood epics, known locally as Le Festival Peplum.
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The French love for the spectacular is reflected in their borrowed vocabulary: somehow, "peplum" never quite made it as a descriptive term in English, but it has remained a stock category for Gallic film-goers.
The word refers to a Roman garment, and is best translated as referring to the "sword and sandals" genre of epic moviemaking. The first great films of this genre were, of course, the early Hollywood biblical and Roman epics. They came to prominence again in the 1950s, when the cinema fought back against the threat of television by using lavish colour and spectacle.
Many of these were shot in Italy, and the Italian film business was soon making its own pot-boiling contributions to the peplum. Many of these are incredibly camp, but others had more lasting artistic merit; the young Sergio Leone learned his trade as a second-unit director on a number of American and Italian pepla.
Pepla still enjoy cult status among many European and American film buffs. What better place to enjoy such large-scale classics as Spartacus than on a giant screen in the historical setting of the Roman Theatre?
The word refers to a Roman garment, and is best translated as referring to the "sword and sandals" genre of epic moviemaking. The first great films of this genre were, of course, the early Hollywood biblical and Roman epics. They came to prominence again in the 1950s, when the cinema fought back against the threat of television by using lavish colour and spectacle.
Many of these were shot in Italy, and the Italian film business was soon making its own pot-boiling contributions to the peplum. Many of these are incredibly camp, but others had more lasting artistic merit; the young Sergio Leone learned his trade as a second-unit director on a number of American and Italian pepla.
Pepla still enjoy cult status among many European and American film buffs. What better place to enjoy such large-scale classics as Spartacus than on a giant screen in the historical setting of the Roman Theatre?
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