The Movie Gladiator

The movie Gladiator by Ridley Scott is a historical Epic film about gladiators and ancient romans wars and historical periods. Epics are not just about wars and action scene the mise en scene of the movies might suggest that, but they underline much more deeper meaning that requires analysis. Epics can target some political point of views or parties and can rebell on then in the form of a nice story. For example in the first biblical epic, Ben Hur it was clear how the system ruling rome was tyrant and was very cruel to the people and followed hierarchy and discrimination. The common people were seen inferior and the film narrative shown how can the hero rise from nowhere to the top, which gives the message that evil doesn’t always win. In Ben Hur romans were portrayed

However this adds that gladiator was not a biblical epic, but a historical one, so the characters specially rome were portrayed more bright and powerful. Another fact about gladiator is the difference in engineering even in the gladiators costume and aesthetics. The art and style was way better than of the Ben Hur style and aesthetics, perhaps that’s why it won an oscar in the best costume and design. However better engineering and aesthetics of the city shows that the people are more active and productive, which favors gladiator over ben hur romans. Besides that Messala in Ben Hur played a negative role of the roman warrior that he took the protagonist and his family as slaves even tho they didn’t do the bad deed to the army leader. However this explains the post colonization way of thinking about coming to a land and taking over it without mercy even to innocent people. When masala tells judah that it’s a roman world it explains the colonial mindset of the romans, which also portrays them negatively. A unique fact about the mise en scene of the gladiator movie is that the camera displays the main character always from the bottom and he is on the top, which signifies power and higher