Historical Inaccuracies In The Movie Gladiator
What is the worth of Historical films? How accurate a portrayal of Roman gladiatorial games and culture is the movie “Gladiator”?
In society today historical films are merely valuable to society as a form of entertainment. Historical events have become another form of stimulus for directors when creating an engaging film for audience’s .In the creation of a film many historical inaccuracies occur as seen in the film Gladiator. This film instead of being a historical recreation of the Roman culture and gladiatorial games tends to embody the idea of certain characters and events. They reflect 21st century ideals onto these historical events to create a film that will appeal to the masses. Ultimately these inaccuracies are in insignificant in …show more content…
While the film makers attempt to portray the emperor as the antagonist of the story, they however remove or add material where they see necessary. In the film Gladiator Marcus Aurelius describes his son Commodus as an “immoral man” and thus is unable to present him with emperorship but this is contradictory as Commodus was a joint ruler with his father Marcus Aurelis .While ancient historian Dio Cassius refers to Commodus as a “greater curse to the romans” the production team have excluded facts such as his self-portrayal as Hercules , his left handedness and the “conspicuous growth on his groin ” as these weren’t necessary to the plot line and catered to the needs of the actors. This sense of recognition is further seen in how the film Gladiator portrays ancient Rome to be a grand city full of white buildings. The Colosseum was recreated as Ridley Scott felt that the real Colosseum was “too small” so instead the CGI team created a grand “Rome of the imagination” with a much larger colosseum and fully white buildings as such to relate with the modern perception of this ancient society. This contradicts the actually state of the Roman Empire which had many coloured building but today modern society can only view these structure without the colour and in less
In society today historical films are merely valuable to society as a form of entertainment. Historical events have become another form of stimulus for directors when creating an engaging film for audience’s .In the creation of a film many historical inaccuracies occur as seen in the film Gladiator. This film instead of being a historical recreation of the Roman culture and gladiatorial games tends to embody the idea of certain characters and events. They reflect 21st century ideals onto these historical events to create a film that will appeal to the masses. Ultimately these inaccuracies are in insignificant in …show more content…
While the film makers attempt to portray the emperor as the antagonist of the story, they however remove or add material where they see necessary. In the film Gladiator Marcus Aurelius describes his son Commodus as an “immoral man” and thus is unable to present him with emperorship but this is contradictory as Commodus was a joint ruler with his father Marcus Aurelis .While ancient historian Dio Cassius refers to Commodus as a “greater curse to the romans” the production team have excluded facts such as his self-portrayal as Hercules , his left handedness and the “conspicuous growth on his groin ” as these weren’t necessary to the plot line and catered to the needs of the actors. This sense of recognition is further seen in how the film Gladiator portrays ancient Rome to be a grand city full of white buildings. The Colosseum was recreated as Ridley Scott felt that the real Colosseum was “too small” so instead the CGI team created a grand “Rome of the imagination” with a much larger colosseum and fully white buildings as such to relate with the modern perception of this ancient society. This contradicts the actually state of the Roman Empire which had many coloured building but today modern society can only view these structure without the colour and in less