The Sword and Sandal Epic, Revisited

Rating: Null/10 (30 May 2000)

With `Gladiator', Hollywood resurrects a genre that has been neglected for decades: the Sword and Sandal Epic. These movies have been a Hollywood staple since the days of D. W. Griffith, and reached their epitome in the 1950s and 1960s with such blockbusters as `Quo Vadis', `The Robe', `Ben Hur', `Spartacus', `The Fall of the Roman Empire', and `Cleopatra'.

This incarnation of the genre affects all the arty (if not artistic) characteristics of contemporary cinema. The majority of the scenes are dimly lit and so murky that one can scarcely distinguish the actors. Even the obligatory Triumphal-Entry-Into-Rome scene appears to take place in twilight. The direction includes all the annoying characteristics common in recent movies, including innumerable quick cuts, off-center close-ups, and grainy battle scenes photographed in obvious imitation of `Saving Private Ryan'.
In addition, most of the actors habitually mumble or whisper their dialogue in the most approved Actors Studio fashion. The tendency of modern actors to swallow their lines, pioneered by Marlon Brando and James Dean, is deplorable enough in contemporary settings. In a film that purports to depict an historical period when men actually prided themselves on their rhetorical ability, unintelligible speech seems grossly out of place. Under the circumstances, the stentorian delivery of Shakespearian actors would have been far more appropriate. After all, the Romans revered Demosthenes and Cicero as much as they did Ceasar and Pompey.
Needless to say, `Gladiator' is a very bloody movie, rather more so than parents would probably wish to inflict on young viewers. I would venture to say that "Gladiator" has the highest body count of any film of this genre that I have seen since Cecil B. De Mille's 1934 opus, `The Sign of the Cross'. In this sense, however, quantity does not necessarily equal dramatic impact. A battle to the death between two gladiators in Stanly Kubricks `Spartacus' had impact because they were developed characters, and the audience sympathised with both of them. On the other hand, the violent deaths of a hundred people in `Gladiator' means nothing to the audience because they are all simply ciphers. In order to satisfy the modern audience's supposed appetite for pyrotechnics, a major battle is staged utilizing large quantities of Greek Fire, a weapon that would not be invented until five hundred years after the era depicted in the film. An even more glaring anomaly is the hero's horseback ride from Germany to Spain through country that looks rather more like Arizona than Europe, and his sudden and unexplained instant transposition from Spain to Africa. If he were really so weak as to be unconscious or delirious for the duration of the journey, as the audience is apparently expected to believe, than why would anyone as pragmatic as a slaver have bothered to bring him along in the first place?
`Gladiator' depicts the period of Roman History during the reign of Commodus, reputed by Roman historians to have been one of the four worst rulers the Roman Empire ever had (the others being Nero, Caligula and Septimus Severus). Commodus was all the worse for having succeeded one of the most able of the Roman Emperors, his stoical father Marcus Aurelius, whose volume of `Meditations' is still in print today. In `Gladiator', Commodus is depicted as a patricide, which was, curiously enough, one of the few crimes of which he was not guilty. In reality, Marcus Aurelius died of plague in what is now Hungary while preparing an expedition to extend the Empire to the Vistula River. Commodus, who had delusions of being the reincarnation of Hercules, actually did participate in gladiatorial games, a circumstance which scandalized his subjects. It was somewhat analogous to the President of the United States associating with punk rockers or outlaw bikers. He was eventually murdered by members of his own household, on the theory that it is better to do onto others before they do onto you.

Perhaps the most glaring anachronism in `Gladiator' is the implication that, upon the death of Commodus, the Roman Empire reverted back into a republic. Actually, there followed one of the most bizarre and grotesque episodes in the history of human government, in which the Praetorian Guard actually auctioned off the Roman Empire to the highest bidder. Obviously the producer's audience research determined that a satisfying happy ending would sell more tickets than the far more dramatic, and infinitely more cynical, real ending.