Nero in the Early Years of Cinema

Nero has occupied the cinema screen more than any other figure of Roman history, creating for spectators – even in the silent era – a multisensory experience of the emperor as image, movement and sound. The background of these Neros goes back to his wide circulation in the cultural imaginary of the nineteenth century, in restagings of operas and plays as well as the performance of new ones, in paintings and postcards, novels, circus shows and lantern slides. But, across the first decades of the twentieth-century, cinema shaped its own Neros better to suit the specificity and needs of the medium, its changing technologies and industrial practices, and the differing cultural contexts of his reproduction. This seminar explores why silent cinema was so attracted to Nero and considers some of the reasons for differences between his cinematic representations across time and nation from 1896 to 1924.

Image Credit: "George Kleine presents the Cines photo drama Quo Vadis: Nero sings while Rome burns." Chromolithograph, motion picture poster for 1913 film. Poster copyrighted to George Kleine.