Invincible Herculeses: Italian Peplum Cinematography

Abstract

The peplum is both a genre and era in the history of Italian cinematography. A cultural product of the 20th century, it draws on traditions and particularly on stereotypes of classical antiquity. Analysing the peplum provides many starting-points for research outside the cinema, especially in the context of sociological, aesthetic, and reception studies. The mutual contamination of various mythological and historical contexts and an uninhibited genre hybridisation produce a parodic, spectacular genre, which has no pretensions to authenticity or accuracy to its sources.