What to expect
Ugo Falena’s film shows cinema turning classical myth into costume, crowd arrangement, and national-scale imagery before the feature epic had fully formed.
How to ease in
Keep the violence named by the story in view. Spectacle and historical distance can make coercion look ceremonial, so watch how the women are positioned rather than only the massed action.
Heads-up
The Roman legend of the abduction of the Sabine women is staged as an early Italian historical spectacle.
History painting can make violence look orderly. I am interested in the figures who disturb that order simply by refusing to become decoration within it.
Open the note ↓
History painting can make violence look orderly. I am interested in the figures who disturb that order simply by refusing to become decoration within it.
— Momo
Where to go next
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