Masada - The Complete Epic Mini-Series

Masada (Hebrew îöãä, pronounced Metzada, from îöåãä, metzuda, "fortress") is the name for a site of ancient palaces and fortifications in the South District of Israel on top of an isolated rock plateau, or large mesa, on the eastern edge of the Judean Desert overlooking the Dead Sea. After the First Jewish-Roman War (also known as the Great Jewish Revolt) a siege of the fortress by troops of the Roman Empire led to the mass suicide of Jewish rebels, who preferred death to surrender.

According to Josephus, a first-century Jewish Roman historian, Herod the Great fortified Masada between 37 and 31 BCE as a refuge for himself in the event of a revolt. In 66 CE, at the beginning of the First Jewish-Roman War against the Roman Empire, a group of Jewish extremists called the Sicarii overcame the Roman garrison of Masada. After the destruction of the Temple, the jewish rebels and their families fled Jerusalem and settled on the mountain top, using it as a base for raiding Roman settlements.[1]

The works of Josephus are the sole record of events that took place during the siege. According to modern interpretations of Josephus, the Sicarii were an extremist splinter group of the Zealots who were equally antagonistic to both Romans and other Jewish groups.[2] The Zealots (according to Josephus), in contrast to the Sicarii, carried the main burden of the rebellion, which opposed Roman rule of Judea (as the Roman province of Iudaea, its Latinized name).

The Sicarii on Masada were commanded by Elazar ben Ya'ir (who may have been the same person as Eleazar ben Simon), and in 70 CE they were joined by additional Sicarii and their families that were expelled from Jerusalem by the Jewish population with whom the Sicarii were in conflict shortly before the destruction of Jerusalem and the Second Temple.

Archaeology indicates that they modified some of the structures they found there; this includes a building which was modified to function as a synagogue facing Jerusalem, (in fact, the building may originally have been one), although it did not contain a mikvah or the benches found in other early synagogues.[3] Remains of two mikvahs were found elsewhere on Masada.
Wits and weapons clash in this 1981 epic chronicling a rebellion by Jewish Zealots against Roman rule. After Jerusalem falls to the Romans in 70 A.D., nearly a thousand Jewish rebels led by Eleazar ben Jair (Peter Strauss) withdraw to a mountaintop fortress 30 miles southeast of Jerusalem. There, fed by defiance and an unlimited supply of cistern water, they make their stand against Roman rule, now and then conducting surprise raids against Roman positions down below. Whenever the Romans retaliate, Eleazar goes them one better. He and his men burn grain supplies, poison wells and generally make life miserable for the Roman 10th Legion, encamped in the baking desert surrounding the fortress. Frustrated, the Roman general Cornelius Flavius Silva (Peter O'Toole) brings in a brilliant siege master, Rubrius Gallus (Anthony Quayle), to devise a way to breach the mountaintop stronghold. When Gallus begins construction of an earthen ramp up the mountainside, rebels rain down arrows on the Roman workers. Flavius then uses Jews from nearby villages to build the ramp. Meanwhile, Flavius makes several attempts to persuade the rebel Jews to surrender, promising they will live in peace and prosperity under Roman rule. But the Jews are adamant; they want only one thing: freedom, or, at the very least, limited freedom under a Roman-appointed Jewish governor. But after Roman Emperor Vespasian vetoes peace plans, the ramp continues to rise. When it is finished, the Romans pull a massive battering ram on wheels--another of Gallus's stratagems--up the ramp, and the stage is set for the final battle deciding the fate of the Jews. This film had at least three incarnations: as a 6-hour, 34-minute TV series in 1980, and then in trimmed-down versions in 1981 and 1984. Although the filmed-on-location Masada is based on history, parts of it are fictionalized.

Much more than a costume drama, very powerful movie! I was a teenager when Masada aired as a mini-series back in the early 1980s and bought the movie to show my teenage children who are now studying Roman history.

While some of the historical "facts" may be in question, the portrayal of 70 AD period Roman and Jewish life and politics is captured in fantastic detail and brought to life by a very fine collection of actors (O'Toole and Strauss). The cinematography and music score are just outstanding and really add to the dramatic feel of the movie.

Based on the excellent book, The Antagonists, the story covers deep issues that are still relevant today.

Highly recommended!

Since I recently spent three weeks in Israel and visited Masada the Epic Mini-Series brought to life that wich I could only imagne. Thank you for provideing all this at such a reasonable cost.

Attractive historical event, perfectly chosen movie crew and technique usually gives perfect results or perfect movie. It is a pity that You don't offer even english titled version???

Back in 1981 this epic mini-series about the ill-fated Jewish rebellion against Roman rule pulled in what was then the biggest TV audience of all time, yet it's languished on the shelf forgotten for the past couple of decades. This DVD isn't even released by producers Universal and comes with no extras, though it does include the six-hour-plus series, but not the abridged feature film version released outside the US as The Antagonists, which apparently featured some different scenes (the abridged version was not a success: in the UK it had the dubious honor of being the lowest-grossing film of it's year).

As with most siege epics, the action is limited to the beginning and the end, with much of the interim filled in with intrigue and character development while we wait for the big battle that in this case, famously, never actually happens. Not altogether surprisingly it spends more screen time with the Romans than with the zealots - even if the zealots' strategy was more than simply watching and waiting while sporadically taunting their would-be conquerors, with their penchant for spectacle and infighting, the Romans are always better dramatic value in these sorts of epics. Certainly Peter O'Toole effortlessly dominates the series as the humane Roman commander forced by the political situation back in Rome to fight the rebels rather than negotiate with them only to find himself facing mutiny, senatorial spies and other political animals as well as heat, windstorms and not enough water before his legions can even start to virtually move mountains to reach the clifftop fortress of Masada. By contrast, then-reigning king of the miniseries Peter Strauss has less to work with as his character spends much of the series waiting and trying to raise moral with only a few half-hearted attempts at soul-searching along the way, only really coming into his own in the still powerful final scenes.

The supporting cast is impressive, with a line-up of familiar Brits including David Warner, Anthony Quayle, Timothy West, Dennis Quilley, Anthony Valentine and Nigel Davenport making up the officers, emperors and senators while the likes of Jack Watson, Norman Rossington, Warren Clarke, Michael Elphick and Nick Brimble swell the Roman ranks. The Judeans have to make do with Barbara Carrera, Joseph Wiseman, David Opatoshu and Paul L. Smith. For the most part they're blessed with exceptionally good dialogue with few lapses (though Anthony Valentine's "I'm a tribune, darling" is an unwelcome moment of unintended camp) thanks to Joel Oliansky's surprisingly intelligent and often witty screenplay, which boasts a good understanding of the politics of the day on both sides and an ability to offer memorable character moments for even the bit players - siege engineer's Quayle's briefing on the practicalities how to get the most out of slave labor is a perfect example of how to juggle exposition and background research without it seeming like a history lecture.

Visually it's often impressive too, although at times Boris Sagal's direction is caught between location naturalism and old-school studio work. The destruction of Jerusalem has something of the look of a late De Mille epic to it, with Albert Whitlock's old school columns of fire matte paintings having an almost storybook stylisation that wouldn't look out of place in The Ten Commandments but despite some obvious studio interior-`exteriors' in a few scenes, it's a genuinely spectacular production from a time when the big-screen epic had long fallen from favor. There's also an extraordinarily good score from Jerry Goldsmith (with additional music by Morton Gould based on his themes) at the peak of his powers even if his great elegiac finale cue was never used. Still pretty impressive stuff.