ABSTRACT
The aim of this chapter is to demonstrate ways in which an analysis of black bodies in epic cinema communicates the idea of multiple times, histories, and cultures. His or her role is to initiate and channel the “dream” and struggle of the future while embodying at the same time an ancient history and a discrete perspective of history. In this line of thinking, black characters analyzed in this chapter-slave gladiators Draba (Spartacus [1960]) and Juba (Gladiator [2000]), and African captive Cinqué (Amistad [1997])— signify this dream and embodiment while urging one to question earlier portrayals of black characters in epic fi lms (Sobuza, Shaka, and Dingaan in Winning a Continent [De Voortrekkers, 1916]) and of blackface actors (Silas Lynch, Lydia, and Gus in The Birth of a Nation [1915]), two fi lms that can be described as mythologized history of (white) conquest fi lms.
