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Von Sternberg$
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Von Sternberg

John Baxter

Print publication date: 2010

Print ISBN-13: 9780813126012

Published to Kentucky Scholarship Online: September 2011

DOI: 10.5810/kentucky/9780813126012.001.0001

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PRINTED FROM KENTUCKY SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.kentucky.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright The University Press of Kentucky, 2022. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in KSO for personal use.date: 29 June 2022

The Claudius Trap

The Claudius Trap

Chapter:
(p.205) The Claudius Trap
Source:
Von Sternberg
Author(s):

John Baxter

Publisher:
University Press of Kentucky
DOI:10.5810/kentucky/9780813126012.003.0027

The story and character of Claudius immediately appealed. An aging cripple who became emperor by outwitting his contemptuous family and subjects was a character of Shakespearean stature, and his near destruction by his nymphomaniac child-wife Messalina gave the story added spice. But von Sternberg had a larger vision. His plan was not only to bring to life an old empire, but to hold it up as a mirror to our own tottering values, and to investigate the diseased roots of excessive ambition. Von Sternberg may have been thinking of his own “excessive ambition.” In the latter case, the film offered rich material for his favorite pastime: getting his own back.

Keywords:   Claudius, emperor, stature, empire, ambition

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