The Element of Sound in Stanley Kubrick's Spartacus Johnnette Johnson College

In Spartacus, director Stanley Kubrick and Music Director Alex North utilize sound, including music, sound effects, and dialogue, in historical drama Spartacus to emphasize the types of romance the characters offer. Gladiator and slave revolt leader Spartacus (Kirk Douglas) and house slave Varinia (Jean Simmons) live and love outside of their confinements to produce a rich relationship that is synonymous to the strength of Spartacus’s legacy. The jealous and lonely Crassus (Laurence Olivier) attempts to stifle Spartacus’s influence as the leader of the Third Servile War and an exemplary lover by killing the gladiator and buying Varinia to make her his wife. The Roman general successfully ends the Third Servile War of 1st century BC Rome; nevertheless, he has a dull love life and the legend of Spartacus will continuously haunt him. Through two sequences that begin with “Spartacus Love Theme” and “Oysters and Snails,” respectively, North uses irony to contrast a Thracian slave’s love to that of a wealthy Roman; the film's pointed music unveils that those who are monetarily and influentially rich may lack some fundamental pleasures of life.

North’s arrangements mock a wealthy slave owner’s quest for something that a slave has, and...