Cherished Cinema

Gladiator (Ridley Scott, 2000)

Hello all.

It is sort of amazing to think that Gladiator is just about ten years old, isn’t it? This was always a favorite of mine throughout middle school and high school, my copy of it on VHS was one of the very few movies I owned at the time (Dogma, Tommy Boy, and a film to later be featured in this project were the others). It’s a great film, I know many people mainly give it credit for how cool it is, but it is a film with an outstanding atmosphere and well-crafted action scenes. The two and half hours literally fly by each and every time I watch it, a number that could be nearing about thirty times by now.

I have a hard time labeling this film as an epic film. Of course the film can be described as epic, in its enormous landscapes, wide shots of the Roman Empire, and just the subject matter of the film. The label that this film is generally given, as an epic, is most likely right but for some reason as the viewer, I become some obsessed and engrossed in Crowe’s character that I am forced to look at it on such a small scale. I say that the label as an epic is correct due to the fact that it’s almost always labeled as such and once I take a step back from the film, it’s impossible to say it is anything else. This is not a shortcoming of the film, just an interesting observation that I keep coming back to.

Gladiator is a film that is defined entirely by a handful of scenes. The scenes/moments in-between the bigger ones are still great, but even after dozens of viewings, I still sit back and wait for the big ones. I am of course referring to the opening sequence and all of the “matches.” The presentation of Crowe in each of these scenes is fantastic and leads to the aforementioned obsession of his character. These scenes, short of the opening battle sequence, unintentionally (in all honesty it could be completely intentional but I still hold that this is a true action film) puts forth huge statements in terms of spectacle. The problem of the full-on display of violence and the pleasure the spectator gets from that display are being unconsciously dealt with this in the film.

This film is extremely fitting for a start of this project as to the fact that not only is it the Academy’s best film of the year but it started off a decade on a high note. For the years that followed Gladiator, many epics were released but none got close to the quality of the one that brought the epic back into the picture. It was an outstanding film to start the decade on, the winner of five Academy Awards, and one that you rarely hear anyone say they dislike (outside of this who have a distaste for violence).

Thank you for reading!