Movie 666

By Demon

Maximus (Russell Crowe) goes nuts in Gladiator

The almost forgotten genre of the Roman epic has been recalled with Gladiator (2000), an ancient world tale of swords and survival loosely based on the historical reign of an eccentric Caesar, Commodus, who enjoyed gladiatorial spectacle and went as far as performing himself in the arena. (article continues after ads)

“Epic,” however, is not quite the word to describe Gladiator. Despite a respectable running time of 154 minutes, Gladiator is remarkably small (like the Roman rulership depicted in the movie, incestuously self-contained) with an abundance of tent interiors, bedrooms, dungeons and other non-epic locations detracting from the true set piece of the film, the semi-digital semi-reconstructed Roman Coliseum.

Gladiator marks not so much a return to epic, as a reconsideration of what constitutes epic moviemaking. Ancient world classics like The Robe (1953), Ben Hur (1959), and Spartacus (1960) were defined not only by stories of armies and empires, but the grand size of the production itself: all star casts, thousands of extras, exotic locations, and shooting schedules so long and complex the film might take multiple directors and the actors grow old along with the characters.

Today, digital technology eliminates the need for such grand production. Crowds can be replicated, buildings reconstructed, and characters invented within the confines of the computer. Whether digital is aesthetically preferable to the old way is another matter entirely. One need only compare the desert scenes of Episode I: The Phantom Menace to those of Lawrence of Arabia to see the aesthetic benefits of location shooting versus computer creation of digital environments. While Lawrence of Arabia shows the complex geography of the desert, the Episode I planet of Tatoonie is flat, boring, and environmentally improbable (no erosion or other natural forces at work here), yet serves as a convenient backdrop for matting space ships and aliens.

Gladiator pays tribute to the old epics, but cannot unseat them; its digital technique is remarkable but premature with its absence of dirt, natural movement, and human detail. Epic scale is compromised by a distinct lack of epic events and locations, and those that do appear seem strangely dehumanized and digital. Like Episode I, the settings and supplements are too clean — birds are oversynchronized; crowds faceless with the cut and paste of monochrome; and the city of Rome sanitized to Orwellian standards. Visually, the past never looked so perfect…

Related posts:

1. Blood and Circus Maximus: The Audience Appeal of Gladiator
2. Epic Subject Gets Epic Treatment in Mongol
3. Hurt Locker Fails to Capture World War II Experience
4. Stanley Kubrick and the Death of Cinema
5. Blood and Animation: Princess Mononoke

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