Talk:Maciste

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Fictional characters

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Untitled[edit]

Much of this text also appears at: http://members.iglou.com/gustavus/machiste.htm I know, because I wrote it there too.

-- IHCOYC

By the total number of motion pictures, he runs a close second. I assume that means "a close second to Tarzan". According to http://www.imdb.com/, there have been 175 movies with Sherlock Holmes as characters, 164 with Tarzan (though some of those are obviously not THE Tarzan), and 52 with Maciste. RickK 07:13, 18 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I have removed that claim. I wonder, though, how you'd go about researching what the total rank of recurring fictional characters in film is? -- Smerdis of Tlön

At imdb.com, user their Search box in the upper left hand corner of the main screen. Put in the character name, change the drop-down menu to "Characters" and do the search. You have to do it one at a time, but then you can check to see how many movies have that character in them. RickK 02:22, 19 Jan 2004 (UTC)

ORIGIN OF THE NAME AND THE CHARACTER OF MACISTE[edit]

WHAT YOU MAY NOT KNOW ABOUT MACISTE.

Very few people know the origin of the name and the character of « Maciste », because of an almost total absence of documentation concerning the genre « Peplum ».

But since there's now, thanks the Haltérophile-Club de France, such thing as the « film archives for strength sports » (C.S.F.), the only one film library of its kind, I had the opportunity to learn a lot about it.

Here’s the story :

Before World War I, Bartolomeo Pagano was known worldwide as a Genoese strongman, like Eugen Sandow or Louis Cyr. But because such mythological names (they said : « noms de guerre ») as SAMSON, HERCULES, GILGAMESH, APOLLON, aso. had already been plundered by his precursors, Bartolomeo had to invent one right out nothing and all by himself !

So he came on strong with the stage name of « Maciste » and became really famous. This name « Maciste », which is not French (the word « macho » appeared only in 1971 in French, and, by the way, « Chauvinism » has nothing to do with « Machism » : it comes from Chauvin, a hero of the French Revolution and means : republican patriotism), but Mexican and comes form the Latin « masculus », means : « really virile ».

CABIRIA was not a production per se, but originally a setting-off in praise of Bartolomeo Pagano, the Italian strongman of the time, a national celebrity. Bartolomeo Pagano wasn’t even an actor – he was a docker, a stevedore ! !

This answers the question people usually ask themselves about Maciste : that is :

WHY MACISTE CAN TRAVEL THROUGH SPACE AND TIME : unlike ancient semigods, he is by no ways tied to some predetermined mythological times or places : he is our contemporary, he lives in the modern world like everyone of us – he is a « XXth-century hero » !

But, because the film was such a spectacular hit (3000 extras, 1.250.000 lire !), and because of the rather tragic « interlude » of WWI, in the end, the « mythological » (?) character without origin (a pure simulacrum) totally erased the one who had created it, Bartolomeo Pagano, to enter the legend.

That’s why the player Bartolomeo Pagano fell into oblivion to the advantage of his role, through what we should call some kind of double-bind process.

Influence on Mussolini[edit]

Just watching a documentary on Mussolini. It said that Mussolini's speaking gestures - chest out, chin thrust up, eyes rolling - were adopted as a deliberate echo of how Maciste was portrayed in the silent films. Worth a mention if somebody has a cite.Paulturtle (talk) 21:19, 12 July 2021 (UTC)[reply]