Gladiator (2000 film)

This article is about the 2000 film. For the 1992 film, see Gladiator (1992 film).

Gladiator
Image:Gladiator ver1.jpg Promotional movie poster for the film
Directed by	Ridley Scott
Produced by	Douglas Wick David Franzoni Branko Lustig
Written by	David Franzoni John Logan William Nicholson
Starring	Russell Crowe Joaquin Phoenix Connie Nielsen Oliver Reed Ralf Moeller Richard Harris
Music by	Hans Zimmer Lisa Gerrard
Cinematography	John Mathieson
Editing by	Pietro Scalia
Distributed by	DreamWorks (USA) Universal Studios (foreign)
Release date(s)	May 5, 2000
Running time	154 min.
Country	U.S.A.
Language	English
Budget	$103,000,000[1][2]
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

Gladiator is a 2000 historical action/drama film directed by Ridley Scott, starring Russell Crowe and Joaquin Phoenix. Crowe portrays the loyal General Maximus Decimus Meridius, who is betrayed when the Emperor's ambitious son Commodus (Phoenix) murders his father and seizes the throne. Reduced to slavery, Maximus rises through the ranks of the gladiatorial arena to avenge the murder of his family and his Emperor.

The film won five Academy Awards in the 73rd Academy Awards ceremony, including the Academy Award for Best Picture. While Gladiator was criticized by historians for its historical inaccuracies, its epic scope and intense battle scenes won praise. Gladiator was released in 2000, thirty-six years after the last historical epic, The Fall of the Roman Empire. The film's success may have helped to revive the historical epic genre, with subsequent films such as Troy, Alexander, and Kingdom of Heaven, the last of which Scott also directed.

Plot

Maximus Decimus Meridius is one of the leading generals in the Roman army. He leads his men to a decisive victory against Germanic barbarians, finally ending a long war on the Roman frontier and earning the esteem of the elderly Emperor Marcus Aurelius. Marcus is dying, and though he has a son, Commodus, the emperor wishes to appoint temporary leadership to Maximus, with a desire to eventually return power to the Senate. When Commodus is told directly by his father that he will not be appointed emperor, he murders Marcus in a fit of rage and claims the throne.

Maximus realizes the truth about Commodus' patricide, but he is arrested by his friend and second in command Quintus, who instructs the guards to carry out Commodus' order to execute Maximus. Soldiers are also sent to murder Maximus' wife and son. Maximus manages to escape his assassination, and races home only to find that he was too late to save his family, as his wife and son have been crucified and their farm burned down. After burying his loved ones, Maximus is found unconscious by slave traders and taken to Zucchabar, a rugged, hot province in North Africa. There, he is bought by a slave trader named Proximo, and forced to fight for his life in arena tournaments. During this time, he meets the Numidian gladiator, Juba, and a barbarian from Germania named Hagen. Juba proves to be a great comfort to Maximus, and he speaks to Juba of the afterlife and encouraging him to believe that he will be reunited with his family when he dies.

In order to survive the brutal life of a gladiator, Maximus appeals to the Roman people under the name and title "Spaniard". His power and fame grow until he ultimately reaches the historic Roman Colosseum and comes into contact again with Commodus. In his first event, he skilfully leads a band of other gladiators to defeat an opposing force of chariots and archers, quickly earning the crowd's praise through his resourcefulness and heroics in the fighting. Upon being introduced to Commodus in the arena after the gladiatorial contest, he reveals his true identity to the stunned emperor, who tries to have Maximus executed on the spot. However, the crowd votes for him to live and so Commodus begrudgingly backs down. Maximus later survives an indirect attack on his life when he is forced into a match against Tigris of Gaul, "the only undefeated champion in Roman history". After an intense battle, in which Maximus must avoid being killed by tigers released into the arena, he defeats Tigris. Yet Maximus ultimately refuses to obey Commodus' command to strike the death blow, and he is pronounced "Maximus the Merciful" by the event's Master of Ceremonies. This furthers Commodus' frustration, as it seems he cannot kill or humiliate Maximus without losing popular support.

Following the fight, Maximus meets with his former servant Cicero, who informs him that his army is still loyal to him. Soon thereafter, Maximus forms a plot with Lucilla, Commodus' sister, and the senator Gracchus, to rejoin with his army and topple Commodus by force. Commodus, however, suspects his sister of betrayal and by indirectly threatening her young son manipulates her into revealing the plot. During Maximus' attempted escape, Commodus' guards attack Proximo's gladiator school, and Hagen and Proximo are killed in the resulting fight, whilst Juba and the survivors are imprisoned. Maximus makes it to the city walls, but Cicero (who was waiting for him with horses) is suddenly killed by archers and Maximus is arrested by the guards.

Now desperate to have Maximus killed, Commodus arranges a duel with him in the arena. Commodus knows he is inferior in ability with a blade and stabs Maximus in his side, piercing his lung with a stiletto just before they enter the arena. He then tells Quintus to "strap on his armor and conceal the wound". In the midst of the fight, Maximus forces Commodus' sword from his hands. When Commodus demands a sword from the surrounding guards, Quintus orders them to sheathe their weapons, forcing Commodus to face the fate which he has decided for himself. Commodus at this point produces the stiletto, concealed beneath clothing on his left forearm. Despite his handicap, Maximus is able to defeat Commodus, ultimately driving the stiletto back into Commodus' throat. Before he can be helped, however, Maximus dies of his earlier wound. With his dying words he carries out Marcus Aurelius's own commands - calling for Gracchus to be reinstated, the slaves to be freed, and power in Rome to be transferred to the Senate. Aurelius's daughter Lucilla, an ally to both Maximus and Gracchus, reiterates this and commands that a full military burial be bestowed upon Maximus. Juba, now free, buries Maximus' two small statues of a woman and a boy in the ground where Maximus died, looks happily up at the sunset, and closes the film by repeating an earlier conversation held with Maximus - "I will see you again - but not yet. Not yet.".

Cast

Production

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]

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 full-scale replica of about one-third of Rome's Colosseum was built in Malta to a height of 52 feet, (with the other two-thirds and remaining height added digitally) mostly from plaster and plywood. 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]

Death of Oliver Reed and finishing touches

When actor Oliver Reed died in Malta of a heart attack during the filming of Gladiator, it was a European post-production company called The Mill that managed to create a digital body double for the remaining scenes.^[11] The visual effects house photographed the body double in the shadows and then mapped a 3D CGI mask of Oliver Reed's face to the remaining scenes during production at an estimated cost of $3.2 million for two minutes of additional footage.^[12] The film is dedicated to his memory.^[13]

The Mill was also responsible for post-production tricks such 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 fired. They also had to populate a CG crowd with 35,000 actors that looked believable and reacted to fight scenes using only 2,000 live actors.^[14] 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]

Influences

Historical

The Roman emperors portrayed 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 scandalized Roman society by appearing in the Colosseum as a gladiator, and spent most, if not all, of his time as Emperor in staging gladiatorial combats, seemingly obsessed with the sport. The film's characterization attempts to reflect Marcus Aurelius's reputation for wisdom but does so by placing a modern democratic slant to his actions and beliefs. The representation of Commodus is extremely watered down, as the senatorial sources such as the Augustan History present Commodus as far more insane and bloodthirsty than he appears in the film. Commodus' murder of his father in the movie is fiction, and while Commodus was the only Roman Emperor to fight as a gladiator (discounting reports of Caligula having done the same, as there is no record outside of Suetonius that he ever did so), he was killed by a wrestler, not in the arena, as the film depicts.

Lucilla was Commodus’s sister and was married to Lucius Verus (mentioned in the film as the dead father of her son Lucius Verus, but not mentioned as co-emperor or seen), her father’s 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 opening battle most likely is intended to depict the last fight of the Marcomannic wars. The film says they are fighting in "Germania"; however, the war was really against Germanic tribes in the area of the province of Pannonia. Of course Germania is more familiar to viewers and works better geographically with Maximus' home in Spain. Nearing the end of the battle, Maximus raises the cry 'Roma Victor,' meaning 'Rome, the Conqueror.' (Greco-Roman culture often anthropomorphized aspects of civilization and nature in order to depict them as gods/goddesses to be recognized.) The sequence of the battle's unfurling is not historically accurate, as legionaries abandon formation in favor of a more Hollywood-friendly action scene in which they combat the Germanic Marcomannii in one-on-one battles, in which the barbarians would have excelled. In reality the Romans favored close-knit formations and would not break formation unless being ordered to retreat (hastily) or if the legionaries broke under the strain, in which case, unless able to reform or reach friendly lines, they would almost certainly be wiped out.

Further information on Historical Imperial Roman Legionary tactics - Roman Legion

The city of Rome is seen and the Colosseum (then actually called the Flavian Amphitheatre) 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 entirely fictionalized.

The character of Maximus is entirely fictional, though 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)^[15], Spartacus (who led a significant slave revolt), and Cincinnatus (the savior of Rome who wished nothing more than to return to his farm).^[16][17]

In the film, Gaius asserts that "Rome was founded as a Republic". Rome was not founded as a republic but as a kingdom, becoming a republic after the last King of Rome, Lucius Tarquinius Superbus, was deposed in 510 B.C. After Commodus' death, the general Pertinax becomes emperor. However, he is not mentioned in the film.

Earlier films

The film's plot is influenced by two 1960s films of Hollywood's sword and sandal genre, The Fall of the Roman Empire and Spartacus.^[18]

The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964) tells the story of Livius, who, like Maximus in Gladiator, is Marcus Aurelius's heir. Both films tell the story of Commodus' murder of Marcus Aurelius and his seizure of power when he learns that the old emperor is planning to appoint Livius/Maximus as his successor. Livius/Maximus are exiled and seek to avenge Marcus Aurelius by killing Commodus.

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.

The story of Maximus bears similarity to Judah Ben-Hur. Both are accused of treason to the Roman Empire, becoming a slave and rising through the ranks, desiring vengeance and finding new life, be it Christian or pagan. Additionally, Maximus, Quintus and other characters, as well as the opening sequence of the film (set in Germany), appear to be based on a work of historical fiction by Wallace Breem, Eagle in the Snow (set some 200 years later). The opening battle scene features war chants that are drawn from the film Zulu (1964), which is one of director Scott's favorite films as revealed in a DVD commentary.

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.^[19] 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, which Scott shows an aerial view of Rome, quickly followed by a shot of the large amount of people watching Commodus pass them in a procession with his chariot.^[19] 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.^[20] 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.^[20]

Soundtracks

Main article: Gladiator soundtrack

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.^[21] The opening battle scene sounds almost identical to Mars, the Bringer of War, so in June 2006, the Holst Foundation sued Hans Zimmer for allegedly copying the late Gustav Holst's work.^[22][23] On February 27, 2001, nearly a year after the first soundtrack's release, Decca produced Gladiator: More Music From the Motion Picture. This release included more score songs from the film plus additional remixes of some of the previous songs. 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.^[24]

Critical and public reaction

Gladiator received mostly positive reviews (78% of the critics polled by Rotten Tomatoes gave it favorable reviews).^[25] The Battle of Germania was cited by CNN.com as one of their "favorite on-screen battle scenes."^[26] 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."^[27]

The film earned $34.82 million on its opening weekend at 2,938 U.S. theaters.^[28] 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.^[29][30] The film began a revival of the historical epic genre with films such as Troy, Alexander, Kingdom of Heaven, and most recently, 300.

Awards

Gladiator was nominated in 36 individual ceremonies, including the 73rd Academy Awards, the BAFTA Awards and the Golden Globe Awards. Of 119 award nominations, the film won 48 prizes.^[31]

The film won five Academy Awards and was nominated for an additional seven, including Best Supporting Actor for Joaquin Phoenix and Best Director for Ridley Scott. There is controversy over the film's nomination for Best Original Music Score. The award was officially nominated only to Hans Zimmer, and not to Lisa Gerrard due to Academy rules. However, the pair did win the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score as co-composers.

• 73rd Academy Awards
  • Best Picture
  • Best Actor (Russell Crowe)
  • Best Visual Effects
  • Best Costume Design
  • Best Sound
• American Cinema Editors
  • Best Edited Feature Film - Dramatic
• Art Directors Guild
  • Excellence in Production Design Award, Feature Film - Period or Fantasy Films
• BAFTA Awards
  • Best Cinematography
  • Best Editing
  • Best Film
  • Best Production Design
• Golden Globe Awards
  • Best Motion Picture - Drama
  • Best Original Score - Motion Picture
• Las Vegas Film Critics Society
  • Best Costume Design
  • Best DVD
  • Best Editing
  • Best Score
  • Best Visual Effects
• London Film Critics Circle
  • Actor of the Year (Russell Crowe)

DVD release

The film was first released on DVD on November 20, 2000, and has since been released in several differnet extended and special edition versions. Special features for the DVDs include deleted scenes, trailers, documentaries, commentaries, storyboards, image galleries, easter eggs, and cast auditions. There are multiple deleted scenes on the DVDs such as:

• After the battle at the beginning of the film, Maximus walks through the Roman camp surveying his fellow wounded soldiers.
• As Maximus is led into an area outside the first arena, he sees lions, a group of Christians, and several vultures eating a dead body. Proximo considers making a bet with a friend that Maximus, Juba, and Hagen will survive the first fight.
• Proximo instructs Maximus to not kill the other gladiators so quickly and to provide entertainment for the crowd.
• Maximus watches as lions begin to devour unarmed Christians in the arena.
• Lucilla meets with several members of the Senate in secret at Gracchus' residence as they complain about Commodus' poor leadership. Lucilla reveals that to pay for the daily gladiatorial games, Commodus is selling off Rome's grain supply which will soon leave the city without food in two years. He also plans to dissolve the Senate, and Lucilla tells the men that Commodus must be killed. However, Gracchus tells her that they will wait until Commodus is no longer in favor with the people and will kill him once he has enough enemies.
• After learning that Maximus is alive and survived the gladiator fight, Commodus goes to a dark room with busts of previous Roman leaders. He picks up a sword and begins striking his father's bust, before tearfully hugging and kissing it.
• Just as Commodus is about to have two men executed for treason, Quintus attempts to prevent him from doing so, claiming they are innocent. Commodus then tells Quintus that as general, perhaps he is responsible. He then makes Quintus give the order to shoot arrows into the men as they are tied to posts.
• Commodus has ordered spies to surveil possible traitors. As Proximo drinks some wine, he notices three men that may be watching him.

Historical deviations

Although the film did focus on historical documents and consult with 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 can be seen throughout the film. Some of the inaccuracies were added by the screenwriters to make the film more interesting, specifically the battle scenes.^[32] Below are just a few inaccuracies that are found within the film:

• Stirrups can be seen used on some of the Roman cavalry, but while they were invented in Asia during the Roman Empire period, the Romans never adopted them. They are used in the movie for obvious safety reasons, a proper Roman saddle being very difficult to ride.^[33]

• While Commodus was indeed killed by a professional fighter, it was by a wrestler, not a gladiator.^[34][35]

• The film portrays the gladiatorial fights as having been temporarily banned by Marcus Aurelius during his reign. Historically, however, Aurelius allowed them to continue and even supported legislation to guarantee the survival of the gladiatorial games in hard economic times.^[36]

• The emperor indicates the fate of a gladiator by showing thumbs up or thumbs down. This is a common misconception: The actual sign was thumbs up for death, and thumb in fist (like a sheathed dagger) if the gladiator was to live.^[37]

• In the movie, the Colosseum is referred to by that name; in truth during the Roman Empire it was known as the Flavian Amphitheatre.^[38]

• Maximus is referred to as a Spaniard which is technically accurate as that term was used to describe the inhabitants of the Iberian Peninsula. However, when he mentions that Spain has some of the best horses around, the actual nation of Spain was not created until 1479 with the unification of the kingdoms of Castile and Aragon. However, it can also be said that Spain, as in the movie, was an anglicized version of Hispania, the Latin name used for the peninsula and two Roman Provinces there.

• The forest of the opening battle would not have appeared like that in Roman times. The scenes were shot at a managed spruce forest near Farnham in England.^[39] Since modern forestry was not applied in Europe before roughly the 16th century, a spruce monoculture would have been a very unlikely sight in Germania in AD 180.

References

• Landau, Diana; Walter Parkes, John Logan, & Ridley Scott (2000). Gladiator: The Making of the Ridley Scott Epic. Newmarket Press. ISBN 1557044287.
• Reynolds, Mike. "Ridley Scott: From Blade Runner to Blade Stunner", DGA Monthly Magazine, Directors Guild of America. Retrieved on January 30, 2007.
• Schwartz, Richard (2001). The Films of Ridley Scott. Westport, CT: Praeger. ISBN 0-275-96976-2
• Ward, Allen (2001). The Movie "Gladiator" in Historical Perspective. Classics Technology Center. AbleMedia. Retrieved on 2007-01-26.
• Winkler, Martin (2004). Gladiator Film and History. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing. ISBN 1-4051-1042-2

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