Reception of Mesopotamia on Film. Maria de Fatima Rosa
recent remake of Ben-Hur (2016) by Timur Bekmambetov or the new reconstitution of the duel between Moses and Ramses II portrayed in the film by Ridley Scott, Exodus: Gods and Kings (2014). Although Mesopotamia seems to have been long forgotten by the cinema (the last film that makes a reconstitution of the ancient land between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates is the Italian Ercole contro i tiranni di Babilonia (1964); this if we exclude Alexander (2004) which portrays Babylon but during the Persian era), the truth is that antiquity has become once again a topic appreciated by filmmakers as it had been in the early days of cinema and in the post-Second World War era.
Taking this into account it is possible to reiterate that cinema, as a universal language, became, during the twentieth century, the biggest stage to transmit ancient history and one really appreciated by society. Its importance is also proved by the fact that in the beginning of this century and up to the 1970s, cinema was the most important spectacle activity; television subsequently dethroned films and the cinematographic experience in large theaters. And so, the question arises: is it possible to put history on film without losing its more professional nature?.45 In fact, to answer this question we must understand what history actually is and if it is possible to transform written discourse (in other words, the written narratives – with beginning, middle, and end – that historians produce based on their analysis) into visual discourse? This is considering that, in reality, when we speak of narratives written by historians, given their linguistic and genre constraints, we are considering mere verbal fictions – a simple reconstruction of the past and never the past itself. Thus, what really needs to be highlighted is the possibility of transforming verbal fictions into visual fictions, the possibility of transforming a written truth into a visual truth, which does not necessarily have to be the same or in conflict with the first.46 History, although based on techniques and methodologies that use facts and documents, is never but interpretation, is never but reconstruction. So, going back to the starting question: is it possible to transform written speech into visual speech? If we consider that each vehicle contains its own mechanisms, its own tools, its own semiotic codes, its forms of representation, its unique added value – Yes. After all, cinema is the triumph of realism.47
What cinema will we then be analyzing in this volume? Our analysis will focus on films that intend to reconstruct Mesopotamia,48 its culture or its history, whether based on archaeological and historical sources or grounded on legends and conceptions that were forged around it (such as Greek myths and the account of the Old Testament). Thus, with few exceptions that are justified, this study excludes films whose plot takes place after the fall of this civilization,49 which is commonly considered to coincide with the conquest of Babylon by the Achaemenid emperor Cyrus the Great, in c. 539 BC. In parallel, and although not exhaustively, we will analyze films that evoke Mesopotamia (culturally,50 artistically,51 historically52 or metaphorically,53 positively or negatively,54 retrospectively or prospectively55), although they might not be set on it. On the other hand, and also with few exceptions, this study does not include films that were released directly for video or television (such as musicals inspired by famous operas) or non-European or American films.56
With regards to the production centers of the movies portraying antiquity and especially the ancient Near East, there are three major countries to highlight: France, Italy, and the United States of America – the ones which held the leadership of cinematic production during the earlier years, and which we will analyze in detail in Chapter 4.57 Concerning Mesopotamia in particular, it is possible to divide the cinematic productions in three large groups:
1) – The short movies produced from 1905 up until the middle of the 1910s, which consisted of silent films that had an estimated time of 6 to 15 minutes (predominantly Italian and French productions);
2) – The silent movies produced in the second half of the 1910s and during the 1920s, which were the first feature films ever produced on Mesopotamia and had a variable time duration (predominantly American productions);58
3) – The movies produced from the 1950s until the present time, consisting of sound feature films. Within this category there is a higher prevalence of productions made during the 1950s and 1960s (predominantly Italian and American productions). Also, after the 1960s, the majority of the movies do not constitute recreations of Mesopotamia or of its legends, but are instead pictures that refer to an aspect of it and that might be set in a whole different time (normally contemporaneity). Thus, it would be possible to subdivide this third group into two categories: Mesopotamia on film and Mesopotamia in film.59
If we examine in detail these three groups, there seems to be a hiatus from the mid-1920s until the 1950s. One of the reasons that may explain the disappearance of films about the ancient Near East, and in particular about Mesopotamia after the 1920s, is the rapid decline of the filmic genre that consisted of historical adaptations and reconstitutions. This genre almost ended with the advent of sound, having already entered in decline previously.60
On the other hand, the prevalence of films during the 1950s and 1960s and its almost disappearance after may be intrinsically connected with the appearance of television, which would slowly replace cinema as the preferable media of the public. It may also be connected to the decay, for instance in Italy, of the peplum genre, substituted by the Spaghetti Western.61 Mesopotamia and antiquity were only truly recovered on screen in the beginning of the twenty-first century, when the peplum genre was resuscitated. Examples of this resurrection are, as we have seen, the movies Gladiator (2000) and Alexander (2004).62
0.3 Orientalism and the Legacy of Ancient Mesopotamia
It is impossible to speak about Mesopotamia and the way it was perceived by the so-called “Western civilization” without mentioning the concept of Orientalism. But even before we understand what is meant by this concept, highly analyzed within Culture Studies by the eminent professor of literature Edward Said,63 we must understand how the division between these two constructs was characterized, placing the West on the one side and the East on the other. The term Orient emerged as a European conception to designate primarily Asia but also a part of North Africa.64 By the geography it covers it is possible to understand that when it first appeared it carried a strong political connotation. Likewise, the terms Middle East and Near East, in the beginning interchangeable, appeared in the course of the nineteenth century and in the beginning of the twentieth century, in order to fragment this great Orient into different parts where distinct geopolitical interests were played commanded by the European and North-American authorities.65 Although the term Near East, which described the region that was closest to Europe and with which it had to deal with more thoroughly, has fallen into disuse in political contexts and in the media, it is still applied today, especially in academic contexts, to designate this geographical area during the pre-Islamic period.66 Hence our use of the term in the present volume.
A clear distinction was then drawn within this region having time as a divider, its frontier being the advent of Islam. In this sense, the Middle East, which during the twentieth century commonly referred to the region whose center was the Persian Gulf, remained a term to reference that geographical area since the seventh century AD until the present time, and, in contrast, the term Mesopotamia was adopted to designate the same area before it. So, Mesopotamia – today’s Republic of Iraq and small areas of Syria, Turkey, and Iran – was associated with dead civilizations, the Assyrians and the Babylonians, and the empires and communities that followed its demise and which contacted with it, the Persians, the Jews, the Hellenes, and the Romans, who, in a way, were the antecedents of European/Western culture itself. As Bahrani states, “This revival of a name applied to the region in the European Classical tradition came to underscore the Babylonian/Assyrian position within the Western historical narrative of civilisation as the remoter, malformed, or partially formed, roots of European culture which has its telos in the flowering of Western