 |
|
|
|
|
Film Review by Warren D. Adkins
Hoping for a return to such a coliseum of yesteryear and for some kind of insight into why large groups of citizen-nobodies pay to applaud the spilling of their fellow creatures' blood, I traipsed to a local AMC theatre to see if I couldn't just get into the unnecessarily vengeful spirit of things. I'm not sure whether or not Gladiator flashes more pecs and biceps than it gushes blood, but I did notice that it moves, at certain times, like the old Soviet films did: too slowly, too deliberately. The dialogue is somewhat pompous and weighty too, but if I'd been one to pay to see spurting blood, Gladiator delivered. Russell Crowe plays Maximus, a Roman general who's just so “manly” that he stole my attention away from the film's disembowelments. I couldn't help but wonder what could be so maximally huge about him. Had he been named because of the size of his appendage? Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) is the evil emperor. Whereas Nero had killed his mother, Commodus smothers his dear old dad (Richard Harris) after discovering that general Maximus is his favorite to succeed him. Maximus is cruelly made single, his wife and his kid, appropriately, are crucified by Commodus' henchmen. He is thus available to receive the lust-throbbings of theatre audiences.
Although Gladiator attempted to give me an answer to my question about the bloodthirstiness of ignorant crowds, I felt let down by its sermonizing approach. While it poured on the gore, it remained rather too pious, indicating that the whole coliseum business is just tacky tacky tacky. This approach struck me the same way that blatant hypocrisy often does: Do as I say, not as I do. The evil emperor, it seems, favors gladiator bouts because they keep his subjects thinking about matters less weighty than his penchant for political skullduggery. This aspect of the film—keeping docile masses hypnotized by state-sanctioned violence—provided a possible answer to my contemporary question about the appeal of gore to “civilized” crowds. But I'd have only a slightly better grasp, I decided, on what makes hockey players beat each other into insensibility with their sticks while “God Bless America” plays on rink loudspeakers, or why World Championship Wrestling audiences fill arenas to the gills. Maximus struts about like The Rock, his contemporary likeness in championship wrestling. His goofy fans are every bit as brain dead as those who roar their approval when today's TV hero inflicts theatrical pain on his challengers.
Joaquin Phoenix and Russell Crowe star in Gladiator
If you're hoping to see some steamy sex in this ancient Roman setting, forget it. Nor is there anything approaching spirituality, as there was in Quo Vadis. Violence, not religion, is the opium of the masses. And though the blood flows, the violence itself has been rather sanitized so that its full horror is hard to grasp.
But isn't this what happens on Monday night wrestling? Nobody really gets hurt. It just looks like they do. And that's enough for people who've never given a rat's ass for reality in the first place. Finally, Joaquin Phoenix playing the evil emperor is no match for the unforgettable Peter Ustinov, that's for sure. |
It had been a while since I'd seen the classic, Quo Vadis, a Roman coliseum-based extravaganza in which the insane Emperor Nero, expertly played by Peter Ustinov tickled my fancy most. He presided, natch, over the bloodiest kinds of carnage and I felt most indebted to him when he said exactly what I'd been thinking all along: “Throw the Christians to the lions.”
© 1997-2000 BEI