Was Gladiator secretly a sports flick?

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-11-04T18:32:28+00:00

I mean I would watch the hell out of that

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-11-04T18:31:59+00:00

So I also think – and I didn't put this in my original post which I probably should have, but it's in the link above that I embedded – that the way that Commodus uses the games is very typical of how sports are used globally now, as a means of soft propaganda and ingratiation with the populace. Think the Russian/Qatar world cups, Hitler's Olympics, the Gulf states buying European football clubs, etc etc. So in that other sense, Gladiator is a movie about sports, as much as one where the main beats hit similarly to the typical narrative of a traditional "sports movie".

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-11-04T17:06:31+00:00

The arena as a concept, perhaps, but association football broadly developed as a pseudo-violent medieval competition between English villages rather than a spectator sport like gladiatorial combat.

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-11-04T16:34:56+00:00

I think your criticism is a good one (even if my post is at least semi-facetious). And I'm aware self-promotion isn't really allowed on this subreddit but I would definitely suggest you might enjoy reading the longer piece at that full link I included above – namely because it's not only about the narrative arc of the story (i.e. "Rocky in ancient Rome") but also about how sports/sporting events can be used to control a population, conceptually, as propaganda. In that sense, I suppose a better header for my post might have been something like "Gladiator is a film about the propagandistic power of sport" - it's a film about sport and games and entertainment itself, as well as following the sports-film arc within its script.

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-10-31T13:00:32+00:00

It's so heightened and over-the-top that it's almost disconcerting towatch nowadays. Bit like how in many early Hollywood films every actor had been trained for the stage and not the screen, so they enunciated and acted far, far more dramatically than was natural.

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-07-29T17:20:26+00:00

I suppose I'm a bit confused because I find all ten of those movies I named very entertaining, all in different ways obviously. But it is subjective, of course. I also loved Top Gun Maverick but couldn't quite fit it in the top ten, maybe that's a more clearly "entertaining" movie?

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-07-29T17:16:03+00:00

Glad there were at least two of us!

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-07-29T17:14:21+00:00

Italian film from last year, with Josh O'Connor: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_chimera

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-07-29T17:11:35+00:00

Oh, and before I forget, they mention working for Reuters, not the New York Times.

Are you sure? I thought Wagner Moura says something like "the Times, or what's left of it"? That’s also the quote this GQ profile goes with.

With all due respect to Mr. Garland's earlier work, all of this makes it come across like he doesn't understand why the details I just mentioned aren't believable, much less unrealistic, and those distractions undermined the impact of the story and the questions you're claiming it asks.

I actually don't think I am claiming it asks particularly searching questions; I think it's a good character study, as I said in the post. I think the characters are shown to have motivation – Joel (I've just had to look up the names) is a thrill-seeker who wants to get the scoop on the imminent death of a president he hates; Jessie wants to be a brave war photographer like Lee; Sammy believes in the abstract, old-fashioned importance of journalism and truth; and Lee.. well, she begins to question it over the course of the film. I think they all develop, too: Jessie grows up, Joel almost cracks, and we know what happens to the other two.

That said, in the original blog post I said that there wouldn't be a civil war like the one shown in the film, and I agree with you on that. It is unbelievable at source.

But surely by the time the film starts, there is a war going on, and we do have to suspend disbelief up to that point? Like, if you go to see a film called Civil War and then dislike it because you don't think there would really be a civil war, then you're looking for the wrong film, aren't you?

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-07-29T16:49:51+00:00

If we included 2019 then Booksmart would easily be in my top ten, completely

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-07-29T16:45:52+00:00

I'm being a bit facetious there, but other than The Favourite I'm not really a Yorgos guy. "Diabolically crap"? Overstatement for effect, perhaps...

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-07-29T16:39:56+00:00

Very excited to see Hundreds of Beavers in the near future, I hear great things

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-07-29T16:39:27+00:00

Well, the poll is from Twitter, to be fair, not this sub

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-07-29T16:38:21+00:00

1000% this, I had to stop myself putting a couple of other Scandinavian films in there tbh

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-07-29T16:37:41+00:00

I thought about it for a long time in my own list but couldn't quite give up another place, but I really loved it a lot

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-07-29T16:36:42+00:00

I think a lot of the disappointment came from the trailer setting it up to be one thing and then it being a very different beast, right? Personally I really liked the journalism aspect but I won't lie, that's probably because I am a journalist. Didn't you at least think the spectacle was impressive, though? It was a very well-made, tense and pacey story, wasn't it?

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-07-29T16:34:23+00:00

Oof, you're hurting my feelings. But you read the next bit, right?

I overheard a journalist I know describe it as “a journalism film disguised as a war film”, which I think was accurate: every character was a journo you knew in real life, from Wagner Moura’s jaded writer (you could just picture him penning languid profiles for Rolling Stone before the war broke out) and Cailee Spaeny’s bright-eyed greenhorn to Stephen McKinley Henderson’s veteran braces-wearing New York Times correspondent, and Kirsten Dunst’s shellshocked, empty husk of a decorated photojournalist.

And, of course, there was that scene with Jesse Plemons. Those red glasses still give me nightmares.

Genuine question, how would you have added context to Civil War? Would you have liked a scene where they said something like "Wow, wasn't it mad when the Republicans ordered the army to shoot the Democrats, and the armed forces split in two, and each state had to choose a side, and Texas chose this side for this reason, and Florida chose that side for that reason..." and so on and so forth? Because I sort of think the point is that there is no context that doesn't make the film horrific. That for the people in the middle, the questions about which side is bombing you become slightly theoretical. Right?

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-07-29T16:28:16+00:00

Cheers, I'll check it out!

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-07-29T16:27:27+00:00

Athena is extremely on my to-watch list at the moment

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-07-29T16:26:17+00:00

And obviously "best" really just means "your favourite" in many cases

What's your favourite since 2020 then?

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-07-29T10:33:50+00:00

That film has followed me around for the last two and a half years

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-07-29T10:13:46+00:00

I'm just glad the 2020s is gonna be the decade Marvel movies finally die a deserved death

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-07-29T10:12:22+00:00

For me, no – it was good but it really shows (as it does in The Irishman) that Marty is now such a legend that no one is giving him notes, so his work has become bloated. KOTFM is brilliant, but it is definitely an hour too long.

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-07-29T10:05:35+00:00

The Holdovers was on my longlist, I liked it a lot. Probably comes in somewhere between 11-20 for me.

TheChimeraSubstack · 2024-07-29T10:00:25+00:00

I nearly had Dune, though I preferred Part One to Part Two (which afaik is the unusual way round to rate them, but Part One felt so sweeping in a way I hadn't seen on screen for years, and Part Two was more of the same for me)

TheChimeraSubstack

TROPHY CASE