What short memories we have! Does anyone remember
The Fall of the Roman Empire starring the beautiful Sophia Loren as
Lucilla and Alec Guinness as the divine
Marcus? The plot is so similar that in many ways
Gladiator is just a remake.
There is a modern phenomenon going on in movies that both these films show as art forms depicting the past. When a modern person looks at a piece of art that is meant to represent the past they
expect the past to
look different from their present. This is so ingrained into us that the film industry even has an Academy Award for costume. Whatever the historical inaccuracies of the plot in
Gladiator, the actors certainly
looked like ancient
Romans. Of course you can quibble with some of the details, I thought our hero’s helmet in one scene looked more Norman than
Roman, and I think there would be an etiquette problem with a big name gladiator wearing
Roman army parade mask in the
arena. Overall though, I thought the portrayal
very good (except the marble
statues were not painted as they should have been)
When it
comes to plot however, I think film makers find that what
actually happened is too complex, subtle and mysterious to
work with an audience. I think this is no new discovery. Would you get an accurate view of the past through one of Shakespeare’s historical plays? Now having said that, I like a lot of others in this
forum I suspect,
like a film to have historical accuracy in the plot. But the sad truth is most of our fellow human beings
do not. If a film producer tries plot accuracy the film will be too long and demand too much thought from its audience. In short the film will probably flop. While I can happily sit through 138 minutes of
Tora Tora Tora or 254 minutes of
Gettysburg, by the evidence of the vacant seats around me, I’m
part of a distinct minority.
Steve
