Gladiator (2000 film)

The film won five Academy Awards in the 73rd Academy Awards ceremony, including Best Picture. The film's epic scope and intense battle scenes, as well as the emotional core of its performances, received much praise. The film's success may have helped to revive the sword and sandal subgenre of historical epics, such as the subsequent films Troy, 300, and Scott's own Kingdom of Heaven.

[edit] Plot

General Maximus Decimus Meridius leads the Roman Army to victory against Germanic barbarians in the year 180 AD, ending a prolonged war and earning the esteem of elderly Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Although the dying Aurelius has a son, Commodus, he decides to appoint temporary leadership to the morally-upstanding Maximus, with a desire to eventually return power to the Roman Senate. Aurelius informs Maximus and offers him time to consider before informing Commodus, who, in a bout of jealousy, murders his father. Declaring himself the emperor, Commodus asks Maximus for his loyalty, which Maximus, realizing Commodus' involvement in the Emperor's death, refuses. Commodus orders Maximus' execution and dispatches Praetorian Guards to murder Maximus' wife and son. Maximus narrowly escapes his execution and races home only to discover his family's charred and crucified bodies in the smoldering ruins of his villa. After burying his wife and son, a grieving Maximus succumbs to exhaustion and collapses on their graves.

Slave traders find Maximus and take him to Zucchabar, a rugged province in North Africa, where he is purchased by Proximo, the head of a local gladiator school. Distraught and nihilistic over the death of his family and betrayal by his empire, Maximus initially refuses to fight, but as he defends himself in the arena his formidable combat skills lead to a rise in popularity with the audience. As he trains and fights further, Maximus befriends Hagen, a Germanic barbarian, and Juba, a Numidian hunter, the latter becoming a close friend and confidant to the grieving Maximus, the two speaking frequently of the afterlife and Maximus' eventual reunification with his family.

In Rome, Commodus reopens the gladiatorial games to commemorate his father's death, and Proximo's company of gladiators are hired to participate. In a recreation of the Battle of Zama (incorrectly named the Battle of Carthage) at the Colosseum, Maximus leads Proximo's gladiators to decisive victory against a more powerful force, much to the amazement of the crowd. Commodus descends into the arena to meet the victors and is stunned to discover Maximus as the leader of Proximo's gladiators. The Emperor, unable to kill Maximus because of the crowd's roaring approval for him, sulks out of the arena. As the games continue, Commodus pits Maximus against Tigris of Gaul, Rome's only undefeated gladiator, in an arena surrounded by chained tigers with handlers instructed to target Maximus. Following an intense battle, Maximus narrowly defeats Tigris and awaits Commodus' decision to kill or spare Tigris. As Commodus votes for death, Maximus spares Tigris, deliberately insulting the Emperor and garnering the audience's approval. His bitter enemy now known as "Maximus the Merciful," Commodus becomes more frustrated at his inability to kill Maximus or stop his ascending popularity while Commodus' own popularity shrinks.

Following the fight, Maximus meets his former servant Cicero, who reveals that Maximus's army remains loyal to him. They are camped at the port Ostia. Maximus forms a plot with Lucilla, Commodus' sister, and Senator Gracchus to reunite Maximus with his army and overthrow Commodus. Commodus however, suspecting his sister's betrayal, threatens her young son and forces her to reveal the plot. Praetorian guards immediately storm Proximo's gladiator barracks, battling the gladiators while Maximus escapes. Hagen and Proximo are killed in the siege while Juba and the survivors are imprisoned. Maximus escapes to the city walls only to witness Cicero's death and be ambushed by a legion of Praetorian guards.

Concluding that legends born in the Colosseum must die there, Commodus challenges Maximus to a duel in front of a roaring audience. Acknowledging that Maximus' skill exceeds his own, Commodus deliberately stabs Maximus with a stiletto, puncturing his lung, and has the wound concealed beneath the gladiator's armor. In the arena, the two exchange blows before Maximus rips the sword from Commodus's hands. Commodus pulls a hidden stiletto and renews his attack, before Maximus beats him into submission and kills him. As Commodus collapses in the now-silent Colosseum, a dying Maximus begins seeing his wife and son in the afterlife. He reaches for them, but is pulled back to reality by the Praetorian prefect Quintus, who asks for instructions. Maximus orders the release of Proximo's gladiators and Senator Gracchus, whom he reinstates and instructs to return Rome to a Senate-based government. Maximus collapses, and Lucilla rushes to his aid. After being reassured that her son is safe and Commodus is dead, Maximus dies and wanders into the afterlife to his family in the distance. Senator Gracchus and Proximo's gladiators carry his body out of the Colosseum. That night, a newly freed Juba buries Maximus' two small statues of his wife and son in the Colosseum, and says that he too will eventually join them, but not yet.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Production

[edit] Screenplay

Gladiator was based on an original pitch by David Franzoni, who went on to write all of the early drafts.^[3] Franzoni was given a three-picture deal with DreamWorks as writer and co-producer on the strength of his previous work, Steven Spielberg's Amistad, which helped establish the reputation of DreamWorks SKG. Franzoni was not a classical scholar but had been inspired by Daniel P. Mannix’s 1958 novel Those About to Die and decided to choose Commodus as his historical focus after reading the Augustan History. In Franzoni's first draft, dated April 4, 1998, he named his protagonist Narcissus, after the praenomen of the wrestler who strangled Emperor Commodus to death, whose name is not contained in the biography of Commodus by Aelius Lampridius in the Augustan History. The name Narcissus is only provided by Herodian and Cassius Dio, so a variety of ancient sources were used in developing the first draft.^[4]

Ridley Scott was approached by producers Walter Parkes and David Wick. They showed him a copy of Jean-Léon Gérôme's 1872 painting entitled Pollice Verso ("Thumbs Down"). Scott was enticed by filming the world of Ancient Rome. However, Scott felt Franzoni's dialogue was too "on the nose" and hired John Logan to rewrite the script to his liking. Logan rewrote much of the first act, and made the decision to kill off Maximus' family to increase the character's motivation.^[5]

With two weeks to go before filming, the actors still complained of problems with the script. William Nicholson was brought to Shepperton Studios to make Maximus a more sensitive character, reworking his friendship with Juba and developed the afterlife thread in the film, saying "he did not want to see a film about a man who wanted to kill somebody."^[5] David Franzoni was later brought back to revise the rewrites of Logan and Nicholson, and in the process gained a producer's credit. When Nicholson was brought in, he started going back to Franzoni's original scripts and putting certain scenes back in. Franzoni helped creatively-manage the rewrites and in the role of producer he defended his original script, and nagged to stay true to the original vision.^[6] Franzoni later shared the Best Picture Oscar with producers Douglas Wick and Branko Lustig.^[3]

The screenplay faced the brunt of many rewrites and revisions due to Russell Crowe's script suggestions. Crowe questioned every aspect of the evolving script and strode off the set when he did not get answers. According to a DreamWorks executive, "(Russell Crowe) tried to rewrite the entire script on the spot. You know the big line in the trailer, 'In this life or the next, I will have my vengeance'? At first he absolutely refused to say it."^[7] Nicholson, the third and final screenwriter, says Crowe told him, “Your lines are garbage but I’m the greatest actor in the world, and I can make even garbage sound good.” Nicholson goes on to say that "probably my lines were garbage, so he was just talking straight."^[8]

[edit] Filming

The film was shot in three major locations between January through May in 1999. The opening battle scenes in the forests of Germania were shot over three weeks in Bourne Woods, near Farnham, Surrey in England. Subsequently, the scenes of slavery, desert travel, and gladiatorial training school were shot in Ouarzazate, Morocco just south of the Atlas Mountains for a total of three weeks. Finally, the scenes of Ancient Rome were shot over a period of nineteen weeks in Malta using a multicultural workforce whose talents were stretched to the limits.^[9]

A replica of about one-third of Rome's Colosseum was built in Malta to a height of 52 feet (15.8 meters), mostly from plaster and plywood (the other two-thirds and remaining height were added digitally). The replica took several months to build and cost an estimated $1 million.^[10] The reverse side of the complex supplied a rich assortment of Ancient Roman street furniture, colonnades, gates, statuary, and marketplaces for other filming requirements. The complex was serviced by tented "costume villages" that had changing rooms, storage, armorers and other facilities.^[9] The rest of the Colosseum was created in CG using set-design blueprints, textures referenced from live action, and rendered in three layers to provide lighting flexibility for compositing in Flame and Inferno.^[11]

[edit] Post-production

British post-production company The Mill was responsible for much of the CGI effects that were added after filming. The company was responsible for such tricks as compositing real tigers filmed on bluescreen into the fight sequences, and adding smoke trails and extending the flight paths of the opening scene's salvo of flaming arrows to get around regulations on how far they could be shot during filming. They also used 2,000 live actors to create a CG crowd of 35,000 virtual actors that had to look believable and react to fight scenes.^[12] The Mill accomplished this feat by shooting live actors at different angles giving various performances, and then mapping them onto cards, with motion-capture tools used to track their movements for 3D compositing.^[11]

An unexpected post-production job was caused by the death of Oliver Reed of a heart attack during the filming in Malta before all of his scenes had been shot. The Mill created a digital body double for the remaining scenes involving his character Proximo^[11] by photographing a live action body double in the shadows and by mapping a 3D CGI mask of Reed's face to the remaining scenes during production at an estimated cost of $3.2 million for two minutes of additional footage.^[13] The film is dedicated to Reed's memory.^[14]

[edit] Influences

[edit] Historical

The film is very loosely based on real events. Although the filmmakers consulted an academic expert with knowledge of the period of the Ancient Roman empire in attempt to provide for an accurate interpretation of the time period, multiple historical deviations were added by the screenwriters.^[15]

The Roman emperors shown in the movie are Marcus Aurelius (played by Richard Harris), who ruled AD 161–180, and his son, the deranged Commodus, who ruled between 180–192, and spent periods of his time as Emperor in staging gladiatorial combats, seemingly obsessed with the sport. However, these events would have been almost always privately held and not for the eyes of the populus romanus. Also, Commodus came to the throne at the age of eighteen making Joaquin Phoenix about eight years older. Although one could argue that by the end of the film Joaquin Phoenix would have been too young, aging of the characters within the movie is lacking. The representation of Commodus does not mention his alcoholism or violent temper, as the senatorial sources such as the Augustan History present Commodus as far more bloodthirsty than he appears in the film. Commodus' murder of his father in the movie is purely fictional. Commodus was the only Roman Emperor to fight as a gladiator (discounting reports of Caligula having done so — there is no record outside of Suetonius that Caligula did this). However, Commodus was strangled by a wrestler on New Year's Eve 192 AD, not killed in a duel in the arena as the film depicts; and his father died of chicken pox.^[16]

Lucilla was Commodus’s sister and was married to her father’s co-emperor Lucius Verus (mentioned in the film as the dead father of her son Lucius Verus, but not seen or mentioned as co-emperor), until his death in 169. The incest, or attempted incest, between Commodus and Lucilla in the movie is not historically recorded, though Commodus is said to have committed incest with other sisters. Lucilla was in fact implicated in plots with members of the senate to kill her brother. In 182, following an assassination attempt on Commodus, Lucilla was exiled to Capri and subsequently executed on her brother’s orders.

The battle opens accurately, with the Romans bombarding their opponent with arrows, ballista and catapult fire, and then sending the legionaries in tight formations to engage in close battle (with cavalry attacking the enemy from the sides) and using Testudo formation (although this was rarely used in open battle) to protect themselves from enemy arrows. However, while marching towards the barbarian horde, the entire army is shown in a line formation—which offered no tacticial benefits—and are shown using their pila, or javelins, as stabbing spears. The pilum of the legion were commonly thrown into the ranks of an enemy before the first ranks of the legions closed to do battle; this was followed by the drawing of the gladius or short sword to begin the engagement. Commonly, a Roman army would be separated into multiple groups of 480 men known as cohorts. The sequence depicting the heat of battle is not historically accurate, as legionaries abandon formation in favor of a more Hollywood-friendly action scene, engaging the Germanic fighters in one-on-one battles, in which the barbarians would have excelled. In reality, the Romans favored close-knit formations, and breaking formations was rare.

The city of Rome and the Colosseum^[17] is accurately seen as the stadium for the Roman people, though the topography, views and ground plan of ancient city-centre Rome around it are fictionalized. There is another scene within the city depicting the mass distribution of flyers advertising the gladiatorial contests. However, before the invention of the printing press, the mass distribution of such literature would have been impractical.

The film speaks of a Roman Army garrison at Ostia Antica, when in fact with the exception of the Praetorian Guard and triumphs granted by the Senate, legions were normally forbidden to enter Italy.

The character of Maximus is fictional, although he is similar in some respects to the historical figures of Narcissus (the character's name in the first draft of the screenplay and the real killer of Commodus),^[18] Spartacus (who led a significant slave revolt), and Cincinnatus (the savior of Rome who wished nothing more than to return to his farm).^[19]^[20]

In the film, Gaius asserts that "Rome was founded as a Republic" when it was actually founded as a monarchy and only became a republic by ousting King Lucius Tarquinius Superbus in 510 B.C. Romans at the time deemed their political system not a monarchy but a republic, notwithstanding the dominance of an Emperor.^{[citation needed]} Gaius also calls the Senate the representative of the people when in fact, the name of the Roman state juxtaposed the Senate and the Roman people as its two elements. Historically, there is no indication that Marcus Aurelius intended to restore republican rule; his Stoic philosophy would have actually preferred a monarchical government. He had also named his son Commodus as successor as opposed to selecting someone else in his stead. Despite the ending, the republic was not reestablished after Commodus' death as the film claims, glossing over the succession of Pertinax as Emperor.

[edit] Earlier films

The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) tells the story of Livius, who, like Maximus in Gladiator, is Marcus Aurelius's heir. Livius is in love with Lucilla (Maximus was formerly in love with her). Both films tell the story of the murder of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus's seizure of power when he learns that the old emperor is planning to appoint Livius/Maximus as his successor. In Fall of the Roman Empire it is a group of conspirators who hope to profit from Commodus's accession who arrange for Marcus Aurelius to be poisoned; in Gladiator Commodus strangles his father himself. In FORE Commodus contrives to keep Livius unwillingly loyal for part of his reign; in Gladiator Commodus tries to have Maximus murdered but is unsuccessful. Livius and Maximus both seek to avenge Marcus Aurelius by killing Commodus; both films climax in their single combat.

Spartacus (1960) 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. Interestingly, 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 - and 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.^[22] 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.^[23]

In the film's opening battle sequence, the Germanic tribes can be heard emitting Zulu war chants - sampled from the film Zulu, of which Ridley Scott is an admitted fan.

[edit] Soundtracks

The Oscar-nominated score was composed by Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard, and conducted by Gavin Greenaway. Lisa Gerrard's vocals are similar to her own work on The Insider score.^[24] The music for many of the battle scenes has been noted as similar to Gustav Holst's "Mars: The Bringer of War", and in June 2006, the Holst Foundation sued Hans Zimmer for allegedly copying the late Gustav Holst's work.^[25]^[26] Another close musical resemblance occurs in the scene of Commodus's triumphal entry into Rome, accompanied by music clearly evocative of two sections - the Prelude to Das Rheingold and Siegfried's Funeral March from Götterdämmerung - from Wagner's Ring of the Nibelungs. On February 27, 2001, nearly a year after the first soundtrack's release, Decca produced Gladiator: More Music From the Motion Picture. Then on September 5, 2005, Decca produced Gladiator: Special Anniversary Edition, a two-CD pack containing both the above mentioned releases. Some of the music from the film was featured in the NFL playoffs in January 2003 before commercial breaks and before and after half-time.^[27] In 2003, Luciano Pavarotti released a recording of himself singing a song from the movie and said he regretted turning down an offer to perform on the soundtrack.^[28]

[edit] Reaction

Gladiator received positive reviews, with 78% of the critics polled by Rotten Tomatoes giving it favorable reviews.^[29] The Battle of Germania was cited by CNN.com as one of their "favorite on-screen battle scenes",^[30] while Entertainment Weekly named Maximus as their sixth favorite action hero, because of "Crowe's steely, soulful performance",^[31] and named it as their third favorite revenge movie.^[32] It was not without its deriders, with Roger Ebert in particular harshly critical attacking the look of the film as "muddy, fuzzy, and indistinct." He also derided the writing claiming it "employs depression as a substitute for personality, and believes that if characters are bitter and morose enough, we won't notice how dull they are."^[33]

The film earned $34.82 million on its opening weekend at 2,938 U.S. theaters.^[34] Within two weeks, the film's box office gross surpassed its $103,000,000 budget.^[1] The film continued on to become one of the highest earning films of 2000 and made a worldwide box office gross of $457,640,427, with over $187 million in American theaters and more than $269 million overseas.^[35]^[36] In 2002, a Channel 4 poll named it as the sixth greatest film of all time.^[37]

[edit] Impact

The movie's mainstream success is responsible for an increased interest in Roman and classical history in the United States. According to The New York Times, this has been dubbed the "Gladiator Effect".

Sales of the Cicero biography 'Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician and the Gregory Hays' translation of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations received large spikes in sales after the release of the movie.^[38]

[edit] Awards

[edit] DVD release

Other DVD editions have been released since this original two-disc version, including a movie only single-disc edition released soon after, which put the original two-disc edition out of print. A three-disc extended edition DVD was released in August 2005, which features approximately fifteen minutes of additional scenes, most of which appear in the previous release as deleted scenes. The original cut, which Ridley Scott still calls his director's cut, is also selectable via seamless branching (which is not included on the UK edition). The DVD is also notable for having a new commentary track featuring director Scott and star Crowe. The film spans the first disc, while the second disc contains a comprehensive three-hour documentary into the making of the film by DVD producer Charles de Lauzirika, and the third disc contains supplements.

[edit] References

^ ^a ^b Martha Lair Sale & Paula Diane Parker (2005). "LOSING LIKE FORREST GUMP: WINNERS AND LOSERS IN THE FILM INDUSTRY". Retrieved on 2007-02-19.
^ Schwartz, Richard (2001). The Films of Ridley Scott. Westport, CT: Praeger, 141. ISBN 0275969762.
^ ^a ^b Stax (2002-04-04). "The Stax Report's Five Scribes Edition". IGN. Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
^ Jon Solomon (2004-04-01). "Gladiator from Screenplay to Screen", in Martin M. Winkler: Gladiator: Film and History. Blackwell Publishing, p.3.
^ ^a ^b Tales of the Scribes: Story Development [DVD]. Universal.
^ John Soriano (2001). "WGA.ORG's Exclusive Interview with David Franzoni". Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
^ Corliss, Richard (2000-05-08). "The Empire Strikes Back". Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
^ "Bill Nicholson’s Speech at the launch of the International Screenwriters’ Festival" (2006-01-30). Retrieved on 2006-12-29.
^ ^a ^b "Gory glory in the Colosseum". KODAK: In Camera (July 2000). Retrieved on 2006-12-31.
^ Winkler, p.130
^ ^a ^b ^c Bath, Matthew (2004-10-25). "The Mill". Digit Magazine. Retrieved on 2006-12-31.
^ Landau, Diana; Walter Parkes, John Logan, & Ridley Scott (2000). Gladiator: The Making of the Ridley Scott Epic. Newmarket Press, 89. ISBN 1557044287.
^ "Oliver Reed Resurrected On Screen". IMDB.com (2000-04-12). Retrieved on 2007-03-13.
^ Schwartz, p.142
^ Winkler, Martin (2004). Gladiator Film and History. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing, 6. ISBN 1405110422.
^ "Commodus". Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Retrieved on 2007-02-19.
^ "Ancient Roman Architecture". Retrieved on 2007-02-19.
^ "Gladiator: The Real Story". Retrieved on 2007-01-02.
^ Andrew Rawnsley (2002-06-23). "He wants to go on and on; they all do". Guardian Unlimited. Retrieved on 2007-02-19.
^ Llewellyn H. Rockwell Jr. (2001-04-29). "Bush, the 'Gladiator' president?". WorldNetDaily. Retrieved on 2007-02-19.
^ Martin M. Winkler (2002-06-23). "Scholia Reviews ns 14 (2005) 11.". Retrieved on 2007-02-19.
^ Winkler, p.114
^ Winkler, p.115
^ "Zimmer and Gladiator". Reel.com. Retrieved on 2007-01-01.
^ Priscilla Rodriguez. ""Gladiator" Composer Accused of Copyright Infringement". KNX 1070 NEWSRADIO. Retrieved on 2007-01-01.
^ Michael Beek. "Gladiator Vs Mars - Zimmer is sued:", Music from the Movies. Retrieved on 2007-02-08.
^ Winkler, p.141
^ "For Pavarotti, Time To Go 'Pop'". Billboard Biz (2003-11-01). Retrieved on 2007-09-09.
^ "Gladiator." Rotten Tomatoes. 4 February 2007.
^ "The best — and worst — movie battle scenes", CNN (2007-03-30). Retrieved on 2007-04-01.
^ Marc Bernadin (2007-10-23). "25 Awesome Action Heroes", Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved on 2007-12-11.
^ Gary Susman (2007-12-12). "20 Best Revenge Movies", Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved on 2007-12-12.
^ Ebert, Roger. "Gladiator Review". Chicago Sun-Times. Retrieved on 2006-12-31.
^ Schwartz, p.141
^ "Gladiator total gross". Box Office Mojo.
^ "Gladiator (2000)." Box Office Mojo. 4 February 2007.
^ "100 Greatest Films". Channel 4 (2008-04-08). Retrieved on 2008-04-08.
^ ^a ^b Falsh, Derek (2002-07-11). "MAKING BOOKS; Book Parties With Togas", The New York Times. Retrieved on 2008-05-05.
^ "The 15 Most Influential Films of Our Lifetime", Empire (June 2004), pp. 115.
^ "Gladiator awards tally". IMDB.

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