These are fun. Off the cuff discussions on movies and streaming series, both new and old. Together will attempt to bridge the gap between Hollywood industry insider and the casual. Viewer. This is. Alec and I’m Ben. And you're listening to the Cinema A to B podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome to Cinema A to B. Today we are going to talk about the 2000 Ridley Scott film Gladiator, which I know is a personal favorite, both for myself and for Ben.
So, Ben, we've seen this movie dozens of times, just that you and I together and we've I'm sure seen it dozens of times by ourselves or with other people as well. So let's revisit this. So obviously, this movie's firmly in my top ten. I mean, firmly. And why it's not number one? I don't I don't know. I just can't quite get it up there. But it probably deserves to be. I mean, and I know I've got a lot of friends. This is their number one film and it's completely justified. Hmm. Here's the thing.
I think I took how great this movie is for granted when I saw it. And let me explain. I saw in the theater with my dad in high school. I think it was a summer release or a may release or something like that. And we were both utterly blown away. And I think we went to see it at least one or two more times in the theater, and we knew it was fantastic. And then obviously the following year, it just frickin crushes it at the Oscars. The Academy Awards? Yeah, like 12 nominations.
Five wins. Fantastic. Yeah, but I got spoiled, right? Because I thought, Oh, I'll see something like this. This good again? Right. Only three years later. No, I haven't. Like, in this style, this. This sword and sandal historical kind of epic. No, no. No. And even Ridley Scott tried to do it again with Kingdom of Heaven, and he. And he couldn't quite get there. I was. I was spoiled into thinking that, oh, this is great, But these these come out every so often.
No. Well, and even comparing it to the stuff that came before it, it's leaps and bounds above many of the things that, you know, kind of paved the way. Like, you know, I love Spartacus, but I'll take Gladiator for Spartacus, you know, which I know is sacrilege to a lot of people. Well, I mean, it's it's a different era. It's a completely different style of filmmaking. Well, yeah, I, I guess if I want to know, what were audiences impressions coming out of Spartacus or something like Ben-Hur?
Mm hmm. In the fifties, this is as close as on is in probably in my lifetime is I'm going to get like and another director could certainly come around and create something as good or maybe I'd be hard pressed to be better, but maybe, maybe better in my in our lifetime. But I'm probably going to be 75 years old before they do it. Mm hmm. It's that good. It's just this rare. It's rarefied air. It's even for. Even for his directors. Supremely gifted as Ridley Scott. It's rarefied air.
These things just don't grow on trees. Movies of this magnitude just don't come around that often. Well, I think, you know, it was hard for us to kind of see it at the time, one, because it's always hard to kind of see that how the greatness of it and the moment sometimes. But we're also talking about a, you know, 3 to 4 year period of some amazing films come out. I mean, 99 saw The Matrix come out. You know, we had 2001 was Lord of the Rings Fellowship, you know, So, like, she has one.
You have Black Hawk Down, you know, you've got kind of these I mean, you've had what, Saving Private Ryan in 98. So like, so like you have a lot of these fantastic, amazing movies that is, you know, great for that time period. But it's also hard to be like, realize just how great this is because you're like kind of, you know, desensitized to how amazing these movies are and you're expecting this to go on and on. And obviously it didn't. That's it. That's. Yeah, you summed it up perfectly.
Just the expectation that they can keep this level of quality churning through the studios. And yeah, you're right there with that window. There was and it's really interesting because it's completely distorted my sensibilities. Mm hmm. Because, yeah, that's when that's when I probably saw the highest volume of movies was probably starting in like 96, 97. Mm hmm. And and my dad and I would. And a huge shout out to my dad, Jeff, for just. He loved movies.
He always loved movies. And. And yeah, that window is really special for me in high school where he and I would just go see something constantly. I mean, just constantly, like, it felt like almost every weekend it wasn't. But that's what it felt like. And we were we were seeing stuff like Saving Private Ryan and then Fight Club and and then yeah, before I would probably been after I would close to graduation Gladiator and we saw movies together after that.
You know, I came I came home for Christmas one year and we watched, you know, fellowship of the Ring and were blown away. But Gladiator's, really, Gladiator and Saving Private Ryan are probably the two really special movies where we both came out of the theater just gone. Wow. Wow. And now a funny thing with Gladiator. There's no reason it should be this good. And you know the story, right? That they wrote the script, right? They wrote the screenplay. They hire Ridley Scott to direct.
They've got Russell Crowe attached to Star. Who had just done The Insider as like his main big movie a year before. So he wasn't the big name actor that he he was like he was still relatively unknown at this time. The biggest star going into this was Richard Harris as Marcus Aurelius. Right. Like the rest of it's like I mean, Joaquin Phenix had done some stuff, but like, he was relatively unknown. Yeah. And keep in mind, this is Russell Crowe's first.
Like he is the true lead because obviously in The Insider, Al Pacino is there as well. So it's like he's not really that. I mean, then he was in L.A. Confidential for a couple of years, but wasn't, again, the main character. This is like his vehicle. Yes. So that yeah, that's that's reason a that this probably shouldn't be as successful in as good as it is. But the main thing is the screenplay because they write this huge screenplay friends only does who who who created the story as well.
And then Ridley Scott takes it, sees the potential of it, literally throws out everything except for 21 pages of script. And they start shooting. Weeks without a. Finished with 21 pages of script. This should not have worked. No, it shouldn't. This is not, folks.
This is not how you make a movie. No. So Ridley Scott and another like couple of writers and Russell Crowe are like huddled together every night, basically cobbling together the rest of the story and they shoot it and create one of the greatest films of all time. The only other movie that I know is made in a similar manner that was just like a dumpster fire was Tombstone Now, which will have to revisit Tombstone because that's the one.
Effectively, the movie is directed by Kurt Russell, and nobody most people don't know that. But he he did. He directed the movie. He just didn't want his name attached to it. But this movie. Yeah, thrilled. Oh, yeah. We're going to start with 21 pages of screenplay and then and just kind of make it up as we go along. I think they had a beginning, a middle and an end. I think they knew where they wanted to go, and so that made things easier. But yeah, this this is not how you make movies.
And I don't. And that's not that's not I don't think that's standard procedure for for Ridley Scott either. It's sort of a, you know, it was a it was a rare thing to have happen, but it's wild. And I'm sure he kind of had it in his head a lot of the things. And so was just getting the dialog down, some of the other stuff. Yeah. But you also had the issue too, that Oliver Reed, who plays PROXIMO, dies as well during this year, you know, and so he had to change some things there.
Yeah. So they had to bring in a stunt double. Yeah. You can tell they reuse, they reuse the shadows and dust footage and then kind of change the background before he stabbed. Yeah. Know, he was supposed to have a lot more dialog and things going on in the final, the final act, but you do what you have to do when you lose, when you lose a key player like that.
Well, I was gonna say the tidbit is as they actually had the insurance money, so obviously they insured the movie within with the actor died during production so they they were given like $25 million to reshoot all of proximo scenes. But like, apparently Ridley Scott was like, no, I don't want to do that. Like, I like Oliver Reed did such a great job of this performance.
I'm just going to change the story and work around it because I can't see anyone in that house in that role, and I can't either. I mean, like he does such a fantastic job as that is. He's amazing. He's amazing. And that's the thing, right? So you get you get him in, Richard Harris as these very veteran actors. And then in that Derek Jacobi as Gracchus is is like an old school actor, too. Yeah. But everybody else is like relatively unknown.
But you get you just get high level performances from everybody. And, you know, Russell Crowe gets all the love, but obviously in retrospect, we can now say, you know, how great Joaquin Phenix really, really was in this. And and is it's just it's a credit to an actor when you can hate him that much. And so much so that when he played in signs I was it was like it took me a while to get over this to warm up to him because it was like I still had this residual hate of how terrible you are.
But I mean, obviously the character, not the actor, but. Right. It is. It's just a it's a shame, I guess I can't get more of this stuff, but it's just it's exceedingly expensive to make these movies with all the all the sets they've built and. Yeah. And any time you do a period piece, it's just going to be super expensive. I do want to discuss a little bit briefly because it it just comes up a lot.
How much this film's compared with, with Braveheart. Mm. And I feel like there was a, there was like a five year window after this came out from like 2000 to 2005 where it felt pretty 5050 amongst most viewers, like on who preferred Braveheart and then who preferred Gladiator.
MM And I don't know how much of it has to do with Mel Gibson and his issues, but it feels like the, the debate has largely been settled, that Gladiator is is not just the better movie, it's like substantially the better movie. And I, I tend to agree with that. I don't just be based on repeat viewings. I don't find myself going back to watch Braveheart very often.
It's still a great movie. But while Gladiator is not a short movie, but it's still Braveheart is shorter than Braveheart, and I think there is a little bit more buy in.
So like there's obviously character development in Braveheart and you see kind of William Wallace do his move, but it is a lot slower and I think you could definitely trim Braveheart and come out with still the same quality movie where honestly, there's not a lot in Gladiator and I think you can take out without kind of changing some of that hero's journey or that kind of that those character moments of getting all the pieces together.
There's not a lot of fat in this movie, which is, I think, great. Yeah. The other thing too, is I think just visually gladiators just does the sexier movie. Mm hmm. I mean, it just is really ancient Rome. And you've got especially that know, I my my favorite scene is probably is still the the fight with the veteran gladiator who I believe that actor was one of Arnold Schwarzenegger's stunt doubles. Yeah. And he's in. He's for sure. And CONAN O'Brien. Marion Thorson or something.
Yeah, he's. He's one of the big baddies one. It's also doom's big baddies in CONAN the Barbarian. But I love that fight with him because of the, you know, all his chromed up steel, the mask, and it's just in the tigers and stuff. It's just visually, it's just visually more interesting. Bravehearts kind of an ugly movie, not, not the way it's shot. It's beautifully shot. But it I mean, those battles just become mud pits and. Which is realistic.
Yeah. Oh, yeah, Yeah. Except for the sort of the face painting, the the. Rest that we will go into the Braveheart issues. So but it's a different podcast. But yeah, I think, I think that's a lot of it is just visually gladiator's more interesting you know traveling around just this epic recreation of, of ancient Rome. We won't get into that. Well, we can the historical nature of it, it's, it's loose at best but.
Very because I mean Maximus is an amalgamation of like four or five care characters, four or five people or whatever. Yeah. And then there's no right and there's no evidence to suggest that Comet has killed his father either. No. Well, supposedly, no. A really start of the plague. I thought they didn't. They rule at the same time for a little bit. I don't remember that. I do know that comments came in, if I remember correctly, came in.
He was like the everyone loved him, like the public absolutely loved him. But then he got kind of wrapped up in his own amazingness as emperor. Like I think he changed the name of the coins to be called Commodus or something based off of his name. And he would just went, okay, this is too much. And he got killed by a gladiator, narcissist or something like that, I think if I remember correctly. Yeah. So that saw him fighting in the arena was was accurate. Yes.
But I, I appreciate the fact that Gladiator never attempted to portray itself as history. Like, that's not what it was. It was always this, you know, quasi historical epic. And so it it doesn't suffer from those issues that I think we kind of pile on with with Braveheart. Yeah. I will say it's fun to also watch this movie because this is, I think, the movie where Ridley Scott fell in love with Morocco of shooting movies in Morocco. Oh, really? I did not know that. I think this is his first one.
He did because he then did Black Hawk there as well. Black Hawk Down from Morocco. Yeah. So. Yeah. And supposedly he likes it. Yeah, I think it opened up the country a little more to to some other productions too. I don't because there was it seems like in in the following five years after that that there's some other stuff I think I recall that was shot in Morocco. And if I remember correctly he did some Kingdom of Heaven shots in Morocco to. Make sense. It makes sense, right?
Oh, not my favorite. My favorite line about Morocco is from the movie Patton. Yeah. And he's standing there and they've got the Moroccan army doing a parade in front of him and he's like, Oh, this is great. Morocco. It's like a combination of Hollywood and the Bible catalog. Just an aside, and we're going to do. Patton Oh, yeah. You can't not do that. George V Scott No movie. The only thing that kind of dates it now are some of those fly over CGI renderings. Some of them look still good.
There's kind of the first time you ever fly over Rome. It's it's like an overcast kind of gray day, right? And so everything has almost a really almost a black and white look to it and you're coming through the clouds. It's a really cool shot. And I don't know if it's CGI and some model work. I don't know how much they did, but that that holds up. But some of the other flyovers that are in like full color of the Colosseum, things just don't look quite right.
But I don't think they're going to bother to go back and revisit any of that. I mean it now. People don't love watching this movie. Don't watch it. And then like, oh, that's taken me out of the movie. You know, it's those shots are pretty short. But yeah. There's not a lot of I mean, there's not a lot of that bad CGI in this movie. And it's really those kind of establishing shots, flyovers that kind of you can see but are just so short that you could be like it's from 2000.
You know, it's a. Quite the battle sequence. The opening battle sequence is still incredible. Yeah. In in the level of detail is really high because all of the all the tactics and methods are authentic, based on what historians know about Roman warfare. So that's really that scene's still incredible. And then any of the other digital work was like simple stuff, like them compositing shots so that the Tigers are in the same frame as the actors, like swiping. But you can't tell that right?
And we've talked about I've mentioned that on the podcast before. That's like my favorite symbol of sex work is is just high end compositing work where you combine shots and yeah. Well, because he was never more than like closer than 15 feet away from any of the tigers and I think so.
Right Yeah. So well it was supposedly trivia is is that they actually had to goad the Tigers into like doing the swiping and being angry because they'd been on set for so long that they just got used to all of the, you know, cameras and crew around that they were just kind of like relax. And they're just like, they're going to we're going to be fed. We're just going to be chilled like, no, no, we need you to actually be angry.
That makes sense because there is one scene during that flight where there were the tigers just like sitting there, just like laying on the on the ground. It's not doing anything. And it's like, yeah, yeah, just got bored. Yeah. Just like this is talk to my union rep. I'm not getting paid enough. So yeah. I wonder. It's let's see. Gladiator was never made in 2000 and it was made today and they went through the same process of the script and whatnot. But like, visually, how would they shoot it?
Like, would they, would they still be willing to build these extra, you know, these extravagant sets in Malta and stuff and and then shoot in, you know, Morocco or, or would everything just would they just recreate the Colosseum in that the, the virtual stage. The volume or whatever that. Yeah. Disney users. So I mean either that or you do it on a green screen and non soundstages and like in New Mexico or other other places I mean. Which is the answer I thought I would get. Right.
And that's kind of where I was, That was where I was headed. And the reason I bring it up is this movie was made at the exact right time. Mm hmm. When they were still willing to get as much in camera as they could get without green screening it heavily and without doing the obviously, the virtual stage wasn't even
was just a probably a figment in somebody's imagination. But yeah, the a lot of these movies is a kind of a credit to when they were were made with the and this isn't this is my favorite era visually probably of is the early late nineties early 2000s when they would still get as much in-camera camera as they could but then they'd they'd shoot a little bit of greenscreen. Yeah. A little bit of effects work.
Well because at this time computer graphics were a lot more expensive than actually location shots, you know, because it was still, you know, relatively new. And now, yeah, now it's much easier. So changing topics, so kind of remembering this, this movie and stuff.
Ridley Scott does a lot of filter on his shot selection like he it's very kind of when he's in like there's a big difference of the color tones and when he's in Germania at the beginning as when he's like in the desert and then also in Rome. So and it's pretty heavy and very noticeable even for someone who that's not, you know, my, my wheelhouse at all. So what are your thoughts as you feel like it was too heavy handed or did you feel like it really fit?
You know, like Ridley Scott actually did a decent job with that. I think it largely works. And now what's hard to gauge here is this movie had one way it looked in theaters, right? And then it has another way that it appears or the color great appears when it went to DVD and DVD is probably where I've seen it the most. Yeah, I do have the Blu ray now, and I've seen it at least once or twice on Blu ray, but the Blu ray had another color.
Great. Hmm. So I think my guess is the color grades are stronger for each location in the Blu ray remaster. Okay. Then, because I don't recall enough in theaters, everything other than that kind of a gray, that grayed out version of Rome when you first see Comet is kind of triumphantly returning from Germania Crown as Emperor.
Other than that scene, everything else had a pretty unified look like the the color, the color temperature, like how warm stuff was pretty much like Africa when he first starts fighting. That looked pretty much Rome looked the same way in the theatrical, from what I recollect. And the DVD was true, too. I think everything got pushed harder in the Blu ray, and I think they made I think they made Africa warmer than Rome.
And then Germania was always pretty cold looking, but I think they blew it up even more for the Blu ray. And I understand it because you you want the world to feel as big as it possibly can. And so you want these these areas of the globe because it is a very expansive movie. And then you have Spain as well, which has its own look, which is a way harsher looking space in the Blu ray than it used to be. Like all the shadows are really like crushed, like everything is really high.
Contrast when he goes back to to Spain to find his wife and son crucified like it's it looks different than it used to look. So okay. And they've been doing this stuff like the heat Blu ray looks different than the DVD or the theatrical, like the heat, heat, Blu rays, Blu. It's a bluer movie than it was in theaters. Interesting. Okay. Because I'm really is and. I need to rewatch that.
It's a trend now when they because they they do this full color session remaster hard color sessions with the director and they get to pick kind of where to push and tweaking. Stuff. And tweak it. And so yeah they don't look quite the way they did in a theater. And I don't know if this movie was digitally color corrected in 2000 or not, or if he just went the standard film processing. I have no idea. I don't know. Yeah, it was beautiful then. It's beautiful now.
And the reason it's so good is because of the production design. The production designer had to have won an Oscar for this. The five Oscars were for best picture. Russell Crowe got a Best Actor award. Did not win for best art direction. So direction. Winner. Yes, they won for best costume design. Me That's what I'm thinking. Best effects, visual effects they won for.
But yeah, unfortunately this this Arthur Max did not win for best art direction in that direction Yeah and there he's a he's only been he's been nominated three times Gladiator American Gangster in the Martian never won so yeah I mean this is a this is Ridley's Ridley's guy. Yeah. Production design. Yeah. Everything. Yeah. Oh yeah. Is is use him since G.I. Jane. So Gladiator, Black Hawk Down, Kingdom of Heaven. An American gangster. Yeah. The rest of them. Prometheus from. Prometheus.
So he's going to be the production designer on Gladiator two and Napoleon. Oh, fun. The reason it looks so good is largely the costume and production design. I mean, the cinematography is fantastic, but once you get when you get sets and costumes that look the way they do, there's no reason the image shouldn't just be spectacular. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And then you back it up with an excellent story that was, I guess, put on, you know, cobbled together on the fly. You know, you get a great a caveat.
I think the bones for the story were sound in the script, but there was some weird from what I remember, there's some weird stuff in the original script that they just were like, Oh, this doesn't make any sense at all. So yeah, they had a place to go. They had a road map. But yeah, that's it is still blows my mind. Yeah. Just because both of us know how hard it is to make a movie, like just to make a movie. That you already have scripted out. Just, just to make one.
Yeah. Is is such a feat, let alone to make a good one. Let alone to make a great one. Yeah. And then to do it in this manner, I'm I'm still flabbergasted that it is the movie that it is given how they they went about it. But Ridley Scott's one of the best, I mean, in my opinion one of the best ever do it.
Yeah. So kind of rewatching this or at least the beginning parts of it, I laugh because I know it's a big I like Hans Zimmer a lot, but this is so this this is so Hans Zimmer, this score, like he doesn't really change it up. Like I know, like in Black Hawk Down, he spent a lot of time to make it. So it didn't sound like a Hans Zimmer movie. Yeah, this sounds like a Hans Zimmer movie. So much so that he lifted parts from this score and used him in pirates.
You know, like, I'm listening to, like, the opening sequence, you know, in the battle scene, I'm like, Wait, is this pirates? Why is this sound like pirates? And sure enough, no, he just kind of like it was like, I really like this and put it in pirates. So. Yeah. And he's he's evolved really well because now he's doing you know he did Dune and Dune doesn't sound like a Hans Zimmer score. When he did Inner Deller as well And in Interstellar it doesn't sound like Yeah.
Now he's not he is still Hans Zimmer change it for a second He totally totally made Christopher Nolan mad and like I don't know if him and Nolan, I think they're still on friendly terms, but I don't know I don't know that Hans Zimmer will ever score another Christopher Nolan picture. Really? What? What happened? I don't know. This. Or are you just saying this? I'm not. I don't want to make more out of this. I don't want to make a mountain out of a molehill, because that's not what this is.
But there was a conflict when Nolan went to do what was Nolan's last movie. Tenet. Tenet? Yes. Nolan wanted Hans Zimmer to score Tenet and Hans had himself a decision to make. Do I score Tenet or do I score Dune Mistake? And he picked Dune and Nolan got a little little hurt.
Yeah. And had to he had to go off in a different direction with with who scored Tenet and I like the score for Tenet but yeah apparently like if you if you spurn Nolan once like he's he's not eager to like work with you again. So yeah this this loot Ludwig Göransson scored Tenet and he also is going to score Oppenheimer. So yeah for all the fanboys out there, I don't think you're going to see Nolan a Nolan Zimmer match up any time soon.
No, but tangent off of Ludwig, I mean, really does a good job because he he did the Mandalorian music as well. So like he's. Yeah this is the hot guy. Yeah. This is the hot composer right now in Hollywood. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, just a funny, a funny aside was, was old Hans and I love Hans Zimmer, but yeah, I feel like. I feel like he's evolved pretty well as far as branching out with the way his stuff kind of sounds because.
There's, there's a definitely in the like nineties and 2000, it was, it's sometimes very difficult to figure out which movie is this track from someone who, like I love listening to movie soundtracks and put them on shuffle. It's like, Wait, is this pirates? Is this, you know, Gladiator? Is this Crimson Tide? You know, like, what is the end like? They all kind of blend together.
And Gladiator started that I don't know the artist, but you have the you have the Hans Zimmer stuff, but then you also have that that female artist that sings as well. And he reused that in in more of that in Black Hawk Down. Yeah I think it works in both movies but it was a nice carryover to Black Hawk Down and frankly, Dune kind of uses a little bit of that like it does. It sounds Dune sounds kind of similar. I don't know if it's the same. I don't think it's the same artist, but so.
I only got one more question for you. What time are you not entertained or are you not entertained? I mean, some just great moments in this movie. Yeah, but I love that. I love that other moment where Maximus is with with PROXIMO, and he's like, You knew Marcus Aurelius. He starts laughing out of it is like, I didn't say I knew him. He touched me on the shoulder once.
Yeah. This is a this is a universally beloved movie, and it's 23 years old and it still holds up and, you know, if if somebody is listening, I feel I feel pity upon you if you've not watched this, But there's still time. There's still time. Yeah. Yeah. And we really haven't spoiled it at all. So, you know, some bits, but no. No, no, I you don't have to now. You know, I have to talk about a film like this by deep and diving deep into the plot now.
And I also the only thing that I can think doesn't you can kind of cut is the opening scroll where it talks about Rome and the battle. I mean, I don't think it really adds that much to it. I mean, it does give you some kind of context, but like you can get thrown in. This is a this is a Ridley Scott staple.
If he does it and he does it in Black Hawk Down, he's da he's done is in and Blade Runner like this is his thing this little bit of like a couple like two short paragraphs or one short paragraph of of like entry level text. Yeah. It's kind of his thing. It's kind of, it's, it's one of his monikers. And so, you know, it's kind of it's, it's the way he likes to set things up with some some print even though I like to say print is dead, but. Print is dead.
But sea is on film, so it's not truly dead. It's not actual. And films are dead either. Apparently so. All right. I appreciate everybody catching us on another episode of cinema to be Go see Gladiator again. Or for the first time, it does not matter because it's so damn good. Russell Crowe. At his best. At his best. Yeah. Than a Beautiful Mind. Yeah, Yeah. I mean. Yeah, different performances, but yeah, Russell Crowe is. At his best.
He's still yeah, he's still a really good actor, but it's just you get that window where you're the you're the man on top and. Just when it starts. It could last a few years. It could last a decade. Yeah. So. And I guess we didn't talk about the fact that there's could be a gladiator two but I, we'll just see what that's all about. I am reserving judgment and expectations for that. Much like Heat two, I'm not excited for either, but we'll see. Yeah. We'll see.
We'll call the directors retried and do just as well. We'll see. We'll see. We'll see. All right. Thanks for catching us. Leave us a review on the audio only podcast. So if you enjoyed it, if you didn't enjoy it, do not leave a review, please. Yeah. And then you can now you can follow us on Instagram, Facebook and TikTok. And yeah, we will catch you on then another episode of Cinema A to B. Thanks, everybody.