Gladiator- Institution and history; Socio-culture
Historical and Institutional Factors:
The film Gladiator was a film directed by Ridley Scott in the DreamWorks studio as well as Shepperton Studios for specific reasons dealing with actors. This film was released in 200, yet it was influenced by 1960 films. Their isn’t any political background during this film to help influence it. Scott Ridley thought that since a new millennium was embarking, that he would reflect on the past through this film.
This film did extremely well for its time. This film was made in time for the 73rd Academy Awards and blew its opponents away. It one five awards: Best Picture, Best Actor (Russell Crowe), Best Visual effects, Best Costume Design, and Best Sound. It also won many awards in the Golden Globe Awards as well as the BAFTA Awards. This film led to the “Gladiator Effect” as named by New York Times that led to the upbringing in interest in Roman and classical history. This film ended up making among the top of the year 2,000. In the U.S., it made a total of over 187 million, and 457,640,427 throughout the world.
Socio-culture:
Gladiator is a film that attempts to portray the life of Ancient Rome. in this movie, Ridley Scott portrays this era as a very gruesome and bloody time. Not many films before this one has attempted to dive into this almost ancient life. Their were films though such as Sparticus that resembled this movie but included "annoying anachronisms of psychology" according to David Neelin. The main character, Maximus Decimus Meridus, was formally a commander of the Roman Army, but after the emperor Marcus Arelias tells his son Commodus that he is going to hand over his powers to Maximus, he goes frantic. To start his frenzy, he kills his father in order to hold the power to himself. with this power, he tries to create his own Rome with the initiative of trying to make people like him, which is uncommon for a successful ruler which is apparent as the film progresses. With the character of Commodus in charge of the empire, he allows us to be exposed to the brutal life of Rome. but with his came some faulty history. For instance, during this time, the emperor would never be addressed as "sire" or "my lord". Along with that, at this time their wasn't an emperor, yet their were two consuls who had equal power. with this being said, Rome was formed as a republic rather than a dictatorship. Also, this film depicted 3 years of Rome, but Commodus ruled for 12 years according to contentmaster. In addition, an aspect that wasnt shown was Commodus execution of his sister for trying to assassinate him, thus, showing more brutality of Rome. Gladiator did an exquisite job picking certain aspects of Rome to depict the life of Rome despite some minor changes in the history.
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