Gladiator

ECHOES IN ETERNITY

by Monsterbeard

Death smiles at all of us, all a man can do is smile back…

Gladiator always springs to the forefront of my mind when I’m asked for my favorite movies.  Any movie fan knows that picking just one is nigh impossible and would take an endless discussion of the merits of filmmaking technique versus storytelling.  So when I’m turning over movies in my head trying to think of one that would aptly capture my movie tastes (nothing can do this, unfortunately, but I try nonetheless.)  And there it is, jostling to the front of the line.

I try to push it away.  I think of The Godfather (cliche), Traffic (too slick), Amelié (too soft), anything that will make me seem less barbaric than this bloody, inaccurate glorification of another time (see Braveheart for other examples I love).  But here is my reckoning.  And it is time for confession.

I love Gladiator.  Ridley Scott’s work speaks for itself, whether it be the sci-fi horror of the original Alien, the philosophical futuristic noir of Blade Runner, or the powerful female defiance of Thelma & Louise (yes, that was him too).  The list goes on and on, and even if you don’t like all of them, his films at least command respect.  Gladiator, however, captures me for its exploration of a man doing what is right while always yearning for death.  I’m a sucker for any character who denies what is easy in the face of responsibility.  If I have my own film motif, it would have to be that, again and again.  That’s me, and those are the movies I love.

Yes, there are grisly and gruesome deaths.  A headless messenger, ferocious lions, and who could forget the woman run over and sliced in half by a runaway chariot?  It is brutal, savage, and completely masculine in just about every way possible.  I won’t lie, I enjoy the action, the savagery of battle, etc.  But that part is easy.  It’s the glaze on the donut, nothing more.  No, Gladiator pulls you in during the in-betweens.  The motif of Maximus’ hand caressing the tall grass, lightning cutting across a Spanish landscape, the closer and closer we get to that cold wooden door, longing to be free.  And the dirt.  Oh the dirt, rubbed between his hands before each fight, as if he’s somehow giving himself over to the battlefield.

I relish history as well, and I can’t help but be pulled in by talk of Praetorians and the SPQR mark of the Roman military, by remarks about the ‘bread and circuses’ of an empire losing itself to grandeur, and the thought that such a corrupted state can be made great again.

Perhaps I’m getting ahead of myself.  Yes, it can be a bit melodramatic, some of the lines are too action-movie, but I can’t help being moved. I love Gladiator simply because I hold onto the hope that one man can change the world, and that “what we do in life echoes in eternity.”

Monsterbeard is an aspiring screenwriter living in Los Angeles.  He tumbls here.

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