A team in Italy led by Douglas Boin, a professor in Saint Louis University’s History Department, excavated three walls belonging to an Ancient Roman Cult Temple in the summer of 2023, a discovery with major implications for our understanding of Roman History.

Through geophysical scanning, a technological process that can model sub-terrestrial materials, his team had initially discovered a structure near an already-excavated religious site within the city’s bounds.

Based on a Latin inscription enshrined in the Spello Town Hall, Boin knew that there was a temple in the area endorsed by Constantine, the first Roman Emperor to convert to Christianity.  However, depending on the thickness of the structure’s walls, which was not revealed through the geophysical scanning, the structure in question could have conceivably been a house (resembling those in Pompeii) or a number of similar Ancient Roman structures. 

What Boin’s team found was, instead, a cult temple consecrated for the worship of Constantine which was, based on the Latin inscription, created with the Emperor’s own blessing.

Boin, on the discovery’s implications for the field of Roman history, said that the revelation of the temple muddies the waters around understanding of Constantine’s role in the expansion of Christianity.

“It seems like just a mash-up of every possible cultural facet of Ancient Rome in one site,” Boin said. “I think it’s very important to continue to spotlight those moments in history when those overlaps and those gray areas did exist, because it just cuts against the grain of everything that we think we’ve been taught about how people’s sense of social or cultural change happens.”

These gray areas and overlaps are what drives Boin’s research expeditions. He notes that the transition between a Pagan and a Christian Roman Empire didn’t happen overnight and that the discovery of the temple provides vital information for interpreting and analyzing that historical period.

“What the archaeology shows us is that, outside of political arguing, people’s experiences maintained a lot of continuity with the places that they had come from, or the traditions that they had known,” Boin said  “And a building like this, an imperial cult temple building like this, would have been a highly visible expression of Roman-ness.”

Further, the project necessitated the development of an extended relationship between SLU and Italian officials and researchers, a connection which will be vital in continuing Boin’s, and other, research endeavors.

In fact, the project was almost wholly funded by SLU sources and grants, and the project’s success, according to Fabien Montcher, a SLU professor with a focus on early modern and food history, said it is good news for SLU students and faculty pursuing interests in the humanities.

“I think it definitely puts us on the map of the broader academic world, but, also, I would say it  gives [the University] more public exposure in relation to the very exciting research that’s being done in the humanities,” Montcher said.

Boin, according to his familiarity with SLU funding processes, was willing to speculate that this development has the potential to increase both future opportunities for faculty and students to participate in research projects and increase SLU’s willingness to fund research in the humanities.

This notion is furthered by the fact that Boin’s discovery is not the only successful project in recent SLU research. Tom Finan’s discovery of a medieval settlement off the coast of Ireland has begun to answer long-standing questions about the English Siege of the 13th century.

Montcher also noted that multiple new research centers have opened up at SLU, one of which, directed by Montcher, studies the history of the Iberian Peninsula during the First Globalization.

Due to these successes, the already present opportunities for both undergraduate and graduate level student research will increase. Montcher said that the most important thing for students who are interested in these opportunities is to remain engaged with their professors.

“Students have an opportunity to voice their interest in knowing more. [They have the opportunity] to say, ‘Okay, we want to know more about the research background of a professor’, because this is a research university, which is even moving toward a more research-heavy direction in the future. So, if the students are more closely associated with that, the more benefit they will get in their classes,” Montcher said.

As of now, the project is ongoing, said Boin, and much of the structure still needs to be excavated. While there are plans for a website dedicated to continuous updates on the development of the project, for now, these can be found on Instagram @SpelloProject.

     With the release of Martin Scorsese’s potential swan song, viewers flocked to the theaters for an abnormally long adventure into a world depicting the inflicted pain and suffering of the Osage Tribe in 1920s Oklahoma. 

     With the advent of digital film and the rising costs of movie tickets, films with a runtime of well over three hours are becoming increasingly common, and viewers are beginning to enter theaters prepared for a lengthy and, at times, grueling viewing experience. Although “Killers of the Flower Moon” is the most recent installment in this growing trend, it is by no means the most prominent example from recent years. 

     2023 saw the blockbuster “Oppenheimer,” which only ran over the three hour mark by a mere nine seconds. Placing this in a double screening with Greta Gerwig’s “Barbie” (thus creating the infamous “Barbenheimmer” trend) resulted in a trip to the cinema that took almost six hours, or the time it would take an average person to read just under half of “Moby Dick.” 

     The blockbuster of 2022, “Avatar: The Way of Water,” ran for three hours and 12 minutes, and “Babylon,” although it was not received well critically, ran for three hours and nine minutes. Even “RRR,” which won the oscar for “Best Original Song,” came with a runtime of three hours and seven minutes. 

     So, what’s happening?

     Luxury cinemas, such as The Alamo Drafthouse, provide viewing experiences with reclining seats and options to have food and drink catered to your spot in the theater, removing the necessity for intermissions and increasing the comfort of the viewer. Additionally, with “Avengers: Endgame,” studios saw that the bloated costs of filming a three-hour movie could be outweighed by the appeal that actors and marketing provide.

     These movies are not a new phenomenon, but discourse on shrinking attention spans aside, viewers are becoming increasingly prepared, and even excited, for these prolonged excursions as a result of many factors, including the rise in popularity of the cinema experience post-COVID.

     There are, evidently, some benefits to these runtimes. Scorsese, in multiple interviews, has made it clear that “Killers of the Flower Moon” is a story he’s passionate about telling. The film explores the systematic murder and betrayal of members of the Osage tribe by White settlers who attempt to gain control of the oil which has been discovered on Osage land. Therefore, it can be argued that an extended foray into these methodical evils allows the viewer to gain a fuller understanding of the malice that was necessary to commit them.

     However, features such as rapid pacing of most scenes which are under a minute, and the underdeveloped dynamics between De Niro’s and Dicaprio’s characters make for a disorienting viewing experience. 

     Wide camera angles, with the characters’ surroundings populated by prairie grass and meticulously crafted scenery, are frequently utilized to display the Oklahoma landscape, but this display along with the limited lighting choices in outdoor settings often conflicts with the tension that the film attempts to build.

     An apt comparison, both in terms of pacing and style, comes in Scorsese’s 2019 film “The Irishman,” which features three hours and 29 minutes of a de-aged Robert De Niro and a flamboyant Al Pacino and suffers from many of the same issues as “Killers of the Flower Moon.” Although it is propped up by magnificent acting and a compelling storyline, “The Irishman” frequently incorporates a questionable pacing strategy, synthesizing a long series of short, topically unrelated scenes that detract from the story as a whole.

     These factors render “Killers of the Flower Moon” a tough three and a half hour watch. Scorsese, through his own personal appearance at the end of the film, makes it clear that he is, in part, satisfying his own passions. Yet, any work of art has to in some sense justify its experience to its audience. A film this long must alter its pacing and dramatic strategies in order to accommodate the sheer mass of dialogue and action that it contains, and “Killers of the Flower Moon” fails at this.

     However, not all long movies are faced with this problem. The length of “Oppenheimer” stems not from its mass of scenes and interactions but, instead, from a lengthening of certain scenes in order to convey tension.

     For many, the brilliance of Scorsese’s oeuvre, exploring the crime-ridden underbelly of America, justifies itself, and any opportunity to gaze at his blistering aesthetic is taken gladly, especially if this is the last opportunity the world will get. This sentiment also applies to directors such as Wes Anderson, Quentin Tarantino and Greta Gerwig, who all have a recognizable style.

     With the increasing popularity of extensive films and a newfound viability and comfort to the viewing experience, “Killers of the Flower Moon” will not be the last three-hour film to be released. It is important to think about possible alterations to traditional film structures that can account for this shift. Considerations need to be made regarding lighting, pacing and dramatic dynamics, not because of audience attention spans, but simply because it becomes more difficult to maintain a movie’s compelling attributes the longer it carries on. While Scorsese is too brilliant a director to have not considered these aspects, it is certainly worth considering the film’s weaknesses in order to examine the implications of this trend.

Coinciding with the American Library Association’s Banned Books Week, the SLU Fine & Performing Arts department showcased three productions of Kenneth Jones’ critically acclaimed “Alabama Story” at The Grandel, a warm playhouse in the Grand Center Arts District.

The play explores two concurring stories taking place in a segregated, 1950s Montgomery, Alabama. When a children’s book featuring a marriage between a black rabbit and a white rabbit finds its way onto the shelves of the Alabama State Library, hard-nosed librarian Emily Wheelock Reed (Margaret London Kimble) faces off against the southern-charmed, bigoted Senator E.W. Higgins (Cameron Schoeck). Simultaneously, the play tells the story of two childhood friends, Joshua Moore (Russell Marvel Hooker Jr) and Lily Whitfield (Morgan Schindler), on whom racial tensions fall.

By centering the story around a fictional banned book, the play makes a deliberate statement on the freedom to read. Director Nancy Bell expressed the relevance and necessity of the play’s potency on the issue.

“It’s just, unfortunately, extremely relevant now with all the things that are happening in our state legislature, restricting the teaching of critical race theory and the restriction of the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ law in Florida, and so many other laws that restrict what children can be exposed to. And this, the kind of hysteria around children’s literature right now, is identical to this. If you just replace the issue of race with trans liberation, it’s the identical thing that’s happening, and the same rhetoric: unbelievably similar rhetoric,” said Bell.

With standout performances from Kimble and Schoeck, the play maintains an interplay of scenes with alternate dialogical sequences between the two stories. 

The set design encourages this entanglement, hosting three pieces: a park bench, an office and a table in the State Senate. While Reed and Higgins may be engaged in a confrontation in her office, a conversation between Joshua and Lily takes place mere feet away. While the two scenes interact both thematically and spatially, the viewer still maintains the impression that these scenes are happening in separate locations allowing them to draw their own parallels between the two narrative themes.

Director Nancy Bell believes the set design, created by Joe Stafford, the Technical Director, is incredibly well-suited for the narrative complexity of the play. 

“The play very much has these different worlds that are completely separate, but they bleed and interact magnetically. So, we created a set where we could physically enact [that],” said Bell.

While the play’s overt tones of racism and segregation establish the potency of its discussion on freedom, its subtle, clever allusions and balanced humor take up much of the work on this front.

At the beginning of the play, when Joshua and Lily first encounter each other, Lily’s jacket sits on the park bench for the duration of their conversation. At the end of the scene, when Lily removes her jacket, a large “Whites Only” sign shows on the bench. 

Although every character in the play utilizes humor to diffuse the heavy topics, Thomas Franklin (Jack Rimar), the assistant to Ms. Reed and Garth Williams (Jake Santhuff), the author of the children’s book, voice it the most. 

Avery Downes, a SLU student in attendance at the play, greatly enjoyed the humor which underlined the play’s serious concerns. 

“I really loved the small bits of humor that are in this really complicated and deeply saddening story, if you really look at what the plot is going through. But at the same time they use humor to lead the audience through it in a way that makes the story more approachable,” said Downes.

Overall, “Alabama Story,” set in a deep south of the imagination, explores an increasingly relevant topic through the lens of a bygone institution. With brilliant performances by the cast and an amazingly apt set design, the play is a strong start to the year for the Theatre & Dance Department.

The department will showcase performances of:

“Our Town” by Thornton Wilder from Nov. 16 to 19

“Dreaming of Lear: A Devised Work” from Feb. 29 to  March 3, 2024

“Dream Scape: Dance Concert” from April 26 to 28, 2024