This week’s ‘off-topic’ movie: Gladiator (2000)
Father of a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife and I shall have my vengeance in this life or the next
Gladiator is a 2000 American epic film directed by Ridley Scott, starring Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Oliver Reed, Djimon Hounsou, Derek Jacobi, and Richard Harris. Crowe portrays General Maximus Decimus Meridius, favorite of the Emperor Marcus Aurelius who is betrayed and murdered by his unhinged son, Commodus (Phoenix). Captured and enslaved along the outer fringes of the Roman empire, Maximus rises through the ranks of the gladiatorial arena to avenge the murder of his family and his Emperor.
Released in the United States on May 5, 2000, it was a box office success, receiving generally good reviews, and was credited with briefly reviving the historical epic. The film was nominated for and won multiple awards including five Academy Awards in the 73rd Academy Awards.
Directed by Ridley Scott
Produced by Douglas Wick
David Franzoni
Branko Lustig
Written by Story:
David Franzoni
Screenplay:
David Franzoni
John Logan
William Nicholson
Starring Russell Crowe
Joaquin Phoenix
Connie Nielsen
Oliver Reed
Djimon Hounsou
Derek Jacobi
Richard Harris
Music by Hans Zimmer
Lisa Gerrard
Cinematography John Mathieson
Editing by Pietro Scalia
Distributed by DreamWorks (USA)
Universal Studios (non-USA)
Release date(s) Australia
May 4, 2000
United States
May 5, 2000
Running time 154 min.
(Theatrical version)
171 min.
(Extended cut)
Country United States
United Kingdom
Language English
Budget $103,000,000[1][2]
Gross revenue $457,640,427
The film is loosely based on real events. Although the filmmakers consulted an academic expert with knowledge of the period of the Ancient Roman empire, in an attempt to provide an accurate interpretation of the era, historical discrepancies were incorporated by the screenwriters.
The character of Maximus is fictional, although in some respects he resembles the historical figures of Narcissus (the character’s name in the first draft of the screenplay and the real killer of Commodus),
Spartacus (who led a significant slave revolt), Cincinnatus (a farmer who became dictator, saved Rome from invasion, then resigned his 6-month appointment after fifteen days), and Marcus Nonius Macrinus (a trusted general, Consul of AD 154, and friend of Marcus Aurelius).
The film’s plot was influenced by two 1960s Hollywood films of the ‘sword and sandal’ genre, The Fall of the Roman Empire and Spartacus. The Fall of the Roman Empire tells the story of Livius, who, like Maximus in Gladiator, is Marcus Aurelius’s intended successor. Livius is in love with Lucilla and seeks to marry her while Maximus, who is happily married, was formerly in love with her. Both films portray the death of Marcus Aurelius as an assassination. In Fall of the Roman Empire a group of conspirators independent of Commodus, hoping to profit from Commodus’s accession, arrange for Marcus Aurelius to be poisoned; in Gladiator Commodus himself murders his father by smothering him. In the course of Fall of the Roman Empire Commodus unsuccessfully seeks to win Livius over to his vision of empire in contrast to that of his father, but continues to employ him notwithstanding; in Gladiator when Commodus fails to secure Maximus’s allegiance, he executes Maximus’s wife and son and tries unsuccessfully to execute him. Livius in Fall of the Roman Empire and Maximus in Gladiator kill Commodus in single combat: Livius to save Lucilla and Maximus to avenge Marcus Aurelius, and both do it for the greater good of Rome.
Spartacus provides the film’s gladiatorial motif, as well as the character of Senator Gracchus, a fictitious senator (bearing the name of a pair of revolutionary Tribunes from the 2nd century BC) who in both films is an elder statesman of ancient Rome attempting to preserve the ancient rights of the Roman senate in the face of an ambitious autocrat — Marcus Licinius Crassus in Spartacus and Commodus in Gladiator. Both actors who played Gracchus (in Spartacus and Gladiator), played Claudius in previous films — Charles Laughton of Spartacus played Claudius in the 1937 film I, Claudius and Sir Derek Jacobi of Gladiator, played Claudius in the 1975 BBC adaptation. Both films also share a specific set piece, where a gladiator (Maximus here, Woody Strode’s Draba in Spartacus) throws his weapon into a spectator box at the end of a match as well as at least one line of dialogue: “Rome is the mob”, said here by Gracchus and by Julius Caesar (John Gavin) in Spartacus.
The film’s depiction of Commodus’s entry into Rome borrows imagery from Leni Riefenstahl’s Nazi propaganda film Triumph of the Will (1934), although Ridley Scott has pointed out that the iconography of Nazi rallies was of course inspired by the Roman Empire. Gladiator reflects back on the film by duplicating similar events that occurred in Adolf Hitler’s procession. The Nazi film opens with an aerial view of Hitler arriving in a plane, while Scott shows an aerial view of Rome, quickly followed by a shot of the large crowd of people watching Commodus pass them in a procession with his chariot. The first thing to appear in Triumph of the Will is a Nazi eagle, which is alluded to when a statue of an eagle sits atop one of the arches (and then shortly followed by several more decorative eagles throughout the rest of the scene) leading up to the procession of Commodus. At one point in the Nazi film, a little girl gives flowers to Hitler, while Commodus is met with several girls that all give him bundles of flowers.
This movie displayed excellence at all levels from acting and direction to it’s judicial use of CGI and photography.
Creepy Shack 