Gladiator and the Roman Army

Gladiator and the Roman Army

The Roman Army was a masterpiece in itself. There was no other army like it, and was impenentrable. This was probably because of the extreme patriotism and pride in battling for Rome, and maintaining their superiority. Gladiator, "RomanArmy.com", and The History of the Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire all portray this patriotism in many aspects.

Gladiator was directed by Ridley Scott. He is a graduate of London's prestigious Royal College of Art. Scott began his directing career at the BBC doing commercials. In 1977, he made his feature film directorial debut with the period drama 'The Duelists,' for which he won the Best First Film Award at the Cannes Film Festival. In 1984, Scott made a brief return to commercial directing for what was to be one of the most groundbreaking ads ever created- The introduction of the Apple computer. Following the record-breaking success of his follow-up film, 'Alien,' Scott directed the futuristic hit 'Blade Runner,' starring Harrison Ford. In 1993, Scott re-edited a director's cut of 'Blade Runner,' which was released to great critical acclaim. He also executive produced 'Monkey Trouble' and the anthology series 'The Hunger.' Scott's reason for developing Gladiator came from his interest in Roman history. He "loves the pride show by the Roman soldiers in their country and themselves." He planed to bring the Roman history to us, for knowledge and understanding.

Gladiator's purpose was to portray the life of the particular Roman general; Maximus(played by Russell Crowe)—the general-turned-gladiator whose popularity does threaten the power of the emperor—was key to the success of the project. The reason they picked this as the main focus of the movie was because the government of Rome was a very corrupt society. ''Maximus is the very soul of the movie.'' ''It was crucial to find an actor who you could believe possessed the ferocity of this great warrior, but in whom you could also see a man of strong principle and character. Russell Crowe's name came up pretty fast. His intensity, his dignity and his utter conviction in every role he undertakes made him everyone's first choice.''

I think ''Gladiator'' presented the prospect of helping to re-establish a film genre which had not been stumbled upon successfully in a long time.