Being 'Epic'

All the element I’ve mentioned, which contribute to making Forum a fantastic parody, more importantly combine to make Forum an anti-epic. The most noteworthy difference between epic toga movies such as Spartacus, Cleopatra, Ben Hur (1959) and Forum is that the epics embrace larger-than-life characters, doing larger than life acts. The names Cleopatra and Cesar are common, even if one has never seen Cleopatra. Pseudolus, on the other hand, is something like Rumpelstiltskin.

Pseudolus, the slave trying to buy his freedom, is a huge jump from typical toga movie lead. Aside from being a common person (a slave, at that!), he continually makes frivolous jokes and isn’t traditionally attractive man. 

Marcus Lycus discovers that he has been tricked by Pseudolus and the following conversation ensues:

“I’ll kill him! I’ll kill him!”

“Who?”

“The lying-est, cheating-est, sloppiest slave in all Rome”

“Oh, Pseudolus”

It is rather strange to focus on such a normal person in a toga movie. Even more unusual is the series of close-ups on everyday happenings in the market place, at the beginning of the film. The opening shows a mans weathered neck, old meat covered in flies, people shopping, and a couple of guys painting a donkey to look like a zebra. The zebra-donkey, of course, is fabrication, but it shows another ‘anti-epic’ convention: silliness.

Prostitutes are displayed on a giant lazy-susan, a mare is wrapped in a towel while in the sauna and women in black, feathered lingerie do a synchronized interpretive dance at a funeral. The attention to every minute, physically impossible, historically inaccurate, utterly bizarre detail is what makes Forum stoutly ‘anti-epic’. In the genre, Forum is a much needed breath of fresh air.