Gladiator and Empire of the Sun

Gladiator and Empire of the Sun

Gladiator and Empire of the Sun are both historical films. Gladiator

is set at the height of the Roman Empire and moves from Germania at

the very beginning of the film to North Africa and then finally to

Rome for the end of the film. At the start of the film the central

character and hero, Maximus, an officer in the Roman army is in

battle. At the battle is the Roman Emperor who Maximus has a close

relationship with. It is the betrayal and murder of the emperor by his

jealous son and the killing of Maximus' family that set the events of

the rest of the film in motion. The new emperor orders that Maximus

should be killed but he escapes his death sentence only to be captured

by a slave trader who takes him to North Africa and forces him to

fight as a gladiator. The viewer watches Maximus fight his way to fame

and to the Coliseum in Rome where he becomes loved by the crowd. Here

is where the hero encounters the evil emperor once again. The emperor

challenges Maximus to a duel in the coliseum in front of thousands of

spectators, inevitably the fight is rigged and Maximus is injured to

favour the Emperor. The Emperor and Maximus take to the centre of the

Coliseum for the climax of the film where he kills the Emperor

avenging the deaths of the previous Emperor and his own family, he

repeats the last wishes of the previous Emperor that Rome should be a

republic and then dies from his injuries.

Music plays an important role in creating the atmosphere of the film,

in the battle scene the music takes a slow pace as the soldiers

prepare, here the music takes centre stage as there is no dialogue.

When the battle begins the music takes a faster pace and is

accompanied by the sounds of the battle even pausing completely for

some particularly dramatic moments where the cries and screams of the

soldiers are the only noises heard.