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| Directed by | Ridley Scott |
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| Story by | David Franzoni |
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| Cinematography | John Mathieson |
| Editing by | Pietro Scalia |
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| Running time | 155 minutes |
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| Language | English |
| Budget | $103 million |
| Box office | $457,640,427 |
Gladiator is a 2000 epic historical drama film directed by Ridley Scott, starring Russell Crowe, Joaquin Phoenix, Connie Nielsen, Ralf Möller, Oliver Reed, Djimon Hounsou, Derek Jacobi, John Shrapnel and Richard Harris. Crowe portrays the loyal Roman General Maximus Decimus Meridius, who is betrayed when the Emperor's ambitious son, Commodus, 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.
Released in the United States on May 5, 2000, Gladiator was a box office success, receiving positive reviews, and was credited with rekindling interest in the historical epic. The film was nominated for and won multiple awards, particularly five Academy Awards in the 73rd Academy Awards including Best Picture.
Plot
In AD 180, General Maximus Decimus Meridius (Russell Crowe) leads the Roman army to a decisive victory against Germanic tribes at Vindobona, ending a long war on the Roman frontier and earning the esteem of the elderly Emperor Marcus Aurelius (Richard Harris). Though he has a son, Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), the dying emperor wishes to grant temporary leadership to Maximus, hoping eventually to return power to the Roman Senate. When his father tells him of the decision, Commodus, already bitter that Marcus favors Maximus over him, murders his father in a fit of rage and claims the throne.Maximus realizes the truth about Marcus' death, but is betrayed by his friend, General Quintus (Tomas Arana), who reluctantly instructs the Praetorian guards to carry out Commodus' order to execute Maximus and his wife (Giannina Facio) and son (Giorgio Cantarini). Maximus manages to escape, but is unable to return in time to save his family. After burying them, Maximus is found unconscious by slave traders and taken to Zucchabar, a Roman city in North Africa. There, he is bought by Proximo (Oliver Reed), and forced to fight for his life as a gladiator in arena tournaments. During this time, he befriends gladiators Juba (Djimon Hounsou), and Hagen (Ralf Möller). Juba tells Maximus to have faith that he will be reunited with his family in the afterlife.
Maximus proves a fierce gladiator; with nothing left to live for, he is fearless in the arena. He ultimately reaches the prestigious Roman Colosseum, where his group is contracted to fight in a tribute to the Battle of Zama. Concealing his identity with a helmet, he skillfully leads a band of gladiators to defeat an opposing chariot and archer force, earning the crowd's praise. Forced to reveal himself to a stunned Commodus in the arena afterward, the crowd votes to spare his life, and Commodus, being obsessed with the people's approval, appeases them by doing so. Maximus later wins against the undefeated gladiator Tigris, as well as tigers released into the arena, yet refuses to obey Commodus' command to perform the coup de grâce. As a result, he is declared "Maximus the Merciful" by the crowd, increasing his popularity and further frustrating Commodus, who cannot kill Maximus without losing favor with the Roman people.
Following the fight, Maximus is told by his former servant Cicero (Tommy Flanagan) that his army is still loyal to him. Maximus then conspires with Commodus' sister Lucilla (Connie Nielsen) and the senator Gracchus (Derek Jacobi) to rejoin with his army and topple Commodus by force. Commodus, however, suspects his sister of betrayal and forces her to reveal the plot using veiled threats against her young son Lucius (Spencer Treat Clark). During Maximus's attempted escape, Commodus' guards attack Proximo's gladiator school, killing Hagen and Proximo. Juba and the survivors are imprisoned, but Maximus makes it to the city walls, where he is captured after a failed attempt to save Cicero.
Desperate to get Maximus out of the way and prove his own greatness, Commodus arranges a duel with him in the arena. Unknown to the crowd, Commodus stabs a restrained Maximus with a stiletto to gain advantage over him before they enter the arena. During the fight, Maximus manages to disarm Commodus, while Quintus disobeys the emperor's demand for his sword and commands his soldiers to do the same. Commodus then produces the hidden stiletto, but Maximus plunges the blade into Commodus' throat, killing him.
With his dying words, Maximus carries out Marcus Aurelius' wishes, calling for Gracchus to be reinstated, the slaves to be freed, and power to be restored to the Senate. As he dies, Maximus reunites with his family in the afterlife. Lucilla then reiterates his wishes and honors his memory. Some time later, Juba buries Maximus' two small figurines of his wife and son in the ground where his friend Maximus died, promising to see him in the afterlife, "but not yet".
Production
Screenplay
Gladiator was based on an original pitch by David Franzoni, who wrote the first draft.[5] 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. Not a classical scholar, Franzoni was inspired by Daniel P. Mannix’s 1958 novel Those About to Die, and he chose to base his story on Commodus after reading the Augustan History. In Franzoni's first draft, dated April 4, 1998, he named his protagonist Narcissus, a wrestler who, according to the ancient sources Herodian and Cassius Dio, strangled Emperor Commodus to death.[6]
With two weeks to go before filming, the actors 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."[8] 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 reading certain scenes. Franzoni helped creatively manage the rewrites and in the role of producer he defended his original script, and argued to stay true to the original vision.[9] Franzoni later shared the Academy Award for Best Picture with producers Douglas Wick and Branko Lustig.[5]
The screenplay faced 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."[10] 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."[11]
Pre-production
In preparation for filming, Scott spent several months developing storyboards to develop the framework of the plot.[12] Over six weeks, production members scouted various locations within the extent of the Roman Empire before its collapse, including Italy, France, North Africa, and England.[13] All of the film's props, sets, and costumes were manufactured by crew members due to high costs and unavailability of the items.[14] 100 suits of steel armour and 550 suits in Polyurethane were made by Rod Vass and his company Armordillo Ltd. The unique sprayed Polyurethane system was developed by Armordillo and pioneered for this production. 27,500 component pieces of armour were made over a 3 month period.Filming
The film was shot in three main locations between January and May 1999. The opening battle scenes in the forests of Germania were shot in three weeks in the Bourne Woods, near Farnham, Surrey in England.[15] When Scott learned that the Forestry Commission planned to remove the forest, he convinced them to allow the battle scene to be shot there and burn it down.[16] Scott and cinematographer John Mathieson used multiple cameras filming at various frame rates, similar to techniques used for the battle sequences of Saving Private Ryan (1998).[17] Subsequently, the scenes of slavery, desert travel, and gladiatorial training school were shot in Ouarzazate, Morocco just south of the Atlas Mountains over a further three weeks.[18] To construct the arena where Maximus has his first fights, the crew used basic materials and local building techniques to manufacture the 30,000-mud brick arena.[19] Finally, the scenes of Ancient Rome were shot over a period of nineteen weeks in Fort Ricasoli, Malta.[20][21]In Malta, a replica of about one-third of Rome's Colosseum was built, to a height of 52 feet (15.8 meters), mostly from plaster and plywood (the other two-thirds and remaining height were added digitally).[22] The replica took several months to build and cost an estimated $1 million.[23] 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.[20] The rest of the Colosseum was created in CGI using set-design blueprints and textures referenced from live action, and rendered in three layers to provide lighting flexibility for compositing in Flame and Inferno.[24]
Post-production
An unexpected post-production job was caused by the death of Oliver Reed of a heart attack during the filming in Malta, before all his scenes had been shot. The Mill created a digital body double for the remaining scenes involving his character Proximo[24] 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.[27][28] Visual effects supervisor John Nelson reflected on the decision to include the additional footage: "What we did was small compared to our other tasks on the film. What Oliver did was much greater. He gave an inspiring, moving performance. All we did was help him finish it."[27] The film is dedicated to Reed's memory.[29]
Historical accuracy
Main article: Historical accuracy of Gladiator (2000 film)
The film is loosely based on historical events. In making the film
Ridley Scott wanted to portray the Roman culture more accurately than in
any previous film and to that end hired several historians as advisors.
Nevertheless, some deviations from historical fact were made to
increase interest, some to maintain narrative continuity, and some were
for practical or safety reasons. Due to previous Hollywood movies
affecting the public perception of what ancient Rome was like, some
historical facts were "too unbelievable" to include (according to
Scott). At least one historical advisor resigned due to the changes
made, and another asked not to be mentioned in the credits (though it
was stated in the director's commentary that he constantly asked, "where
is the proof that certain things were exactly like they say").
Historian Allen Ward of the University of Connecticut believed that
historical accuracy would not have made Gladiator less
interesting or exciting and stated: "creative artists need to be granted
some poetic license, but that should not be a permit for the wholesale
disregard of facts in historical fiction".[30][31]Marcus Aurelius died of plague at Vindobona, and was not murdered by his son Commodus. 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 Commodus' real-life murderer),[32] Spartacus (who led a significant slave revolt), Cincinnatus (a farmer who became dictator, saved Rome from invasion, then resigned his six-month appointment after 15 days),[33][34][35] and Marcus Nonius Macrinus (a trusted general, Consul of AD 154, and friend of Marcus Aurelius).[36][37] Although Commodus engaged in show combat in the Colosseum, he was strangled by the wrestler Narcissus in his bath, not killed in the arena, and reigned for several years, unlike the brief period shown in the film.
The name Maximus Decimus Meridius is inaccurate in terms of Roman naming conventions, which would use Decimus Meridius Maximus, as Maximus was a cognomen and Decimus a given name. He is also called Aelius Maximus.
Influences
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,[38] and shares several plot points with The Fall of the Roman Empire, which 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 the murder of his wife and son, and both do it for the greater good of Rome.Scott attributed Spartacus and Ben-Hur as influences on the film, "These movies were part of my cinema-going youth. But at the dawn of the new millennium, I though this might be the ideal time to revisit what may have been the most important period of the last two thousand years—if not all recorded history—the apex and beginning of the decline of the greatest military and political power the world has ever known."[39]
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 unfinished 1937 film I, Claudius and Sir Derek Jacobi of Gladiator, played Claudius in the 1976 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.[40] 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.
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