Giuliano l'Apostata

Giuliano l'Apostata is a 1919 Italian historical drama film directed by Ugo Falena, starring Guido Graziosi and Ileana Leonidoff.

Julian is raised in Nicomedia; during the day he is taught Christianity by the Arian bishop Eusebius, but at night the old tutor Mardonius informs him about Homer and paganism.

Constantius becomes jealous of his cousin's success and orders him to send his best troops to Byzantium, but the soldiers rebel and proclaim Julian their emperor.

As emperor, Julian tries to restore the ancient Greek religion, but reality does not live up to his visions; instead, what he seeks is suggested to exist in a Christian hymn.

These films are usually set in ancient Rome, medieval Europe or during the Napoleonic Wars, and aim to express high religious and national ideals.

Like many of his other works, Giuliano l'Apostata is connected to the musical world, and it was written in close collaboration with the composer Luigi Mancinelli.

[6] The screenplay took some inspiration from the 1901 book Julian the Apostate (Italian: L'imperatore Giuliano l'Apostata: studio storico) by Negri.

[8] The reliance on an original musical score and the handling of credits and captions follow the model for large-scale peplum films that had been established with Giovanni Pastrone's and Gabriele D'Annunzio's Cabiria from 1914.

[9] Going further than Ildebrando Pizzetti's musical score for Cabiria, Mancinelli's composition for Giuliano l'Apostata includes some instances where captions from the film are sung by a soprano or a choir.

[11] Some of the image compositions and actor postures were inspired by 19th-century representations of the ancient world by painters such as Lawrence Alma-Tadema, John William Godward and Dante Gabriel Rossetti.