Lisa Maurice examines screen portrayals of gods - covering Greco-Roman mythology, the Judeo-Christian God and Jesus - from the beginning of cinema to the present day. Focussing on the golden age of the Hollywood epic in the fifties and the twenty-first century second wave of big screen productions, she provides an over-arching picture that allows historical trends and developments to be demonstrated and contrasted. Engaging with recent scholarship on film, particularly film and theology as well as classical reception, she considers the presentation of these gods through examination of their physical and moral characteristics, as well as their interaction with the human world, against the background of the social contexts of each production.

Analyses of Rancière's philosophy and its potential for understanding the conversation between contemporary politics and art cinema.

This is the first volume of essays published on the television series Troy: Fall of a City (BBC One and Netflix, 2018). Covering a wide range of engaging topics, such as gender, race and politics, international scholars in the fields of classics, history and film studies discuss how the story of Troy has been recreated on screen to suit the expectations of modern audiences. The series is commended for the thought-provoking way it handles important issues arising from the Trojan War narrative that continue to impact our society today. With discussions centered on epic narrative, cast and character, as well as tragic resonances, the contributors tackle gender roles by exploring the innovative ways in which mythological female figures such as Helen, Aphrodite and the Amazons are depicted in the series. An examination is also made into the concept of the hero and how the series challenges conventional representations of masculinity. We encounter a significant investigation of race focusing on the controversial casting of Achilles, Patroclus, Zeus and other series characters with Black actors. Several essays deal with the moral and ethical complexities surrounding warfare, power and politics. The significance of costume and production design are also explored throughout the volume.

Engaging with recent scholarship on film, particularly film and theology as well as classical reception, Lisa Maurice considers the gods of Greek and Roman mythology alongside the biblical God of the Judeo-Christian tradition.

Brill’s Companion to Ancient Greek and Roman Warfare on Film is the first volume exclusively dedicated to the study of a theme that informs virtually every reimagining of the classical world on the big screen: armed conflict. Through a vast array of case studies, from the silent era to recent years, the collection traces cinema’s enduring fascination with battles and violence in antiquity and explores the reasons, both synchronic and diachronic, for the central place that war occupies in celluloid Greece and Rome. Situating films in their artistic, economic, and sociopolitical context, the essays cast light on the industrial mechanisms through which the ancient battlefield is refashioned in cinema and investigate why the medium adopts a revisionist approach to textual and visual sources.