How does gladiator die

A foolish choice in art direction casts a pall over Ridley Scott's "Gladiator" that no swordplay can cut through. The film looks muddy, fuzzy and indistinct. Its colors are mud tones at the drab end of the palette, and it seems to have been filmed on grim and overcast days. This darkness and a lack of detail in the long shots helps obscure shabby special effects the Colosseum in Rome looks like a model from a computer game , and the characters bring no cheer: They're bitter, vengeful, depressed.

By the end of this long film, I would have traded any given gladiatorial victory for just one shot of blue skies. There are blue skies in the hero's dreams of long-ago happiness, but that proves the point. The story line is " Rocky " on downers. After Maximus defeats the barbarians, Marcus names him protector of Rome. But he is left for dead by Marcus' son, a bitter rival named Commodus the name comes from the Latin for "convenient" and not what you're thinking.

After escaping and finding that his wife and son have been murdered, Maximus finds his way to the deserts of North Africa, where he is sold as a slave to Proximo the late Oliver Reed , a manager of gladiators. When Commodus lifts his late father's ban on gladiators in Rome, in an attempt to distract the people from hunger and plagues, Maximus slashes his way to the top, and the movie ends, of course, with the Big Fight.

This same story could have been rousing entertainment; I have just revisited the wonderful " Raiders of the Lost Ark ," which is just as dimwitted but 12 times more fun. But "Gladiator" lacks joy. It employs depression as a substitute for personality, and believes that if the characters are bitter and morose enough, we won't notice how dull they are.

Commodus Joaquin Phoenix is one of those spoiled, self-indulgent, petulant Roman emperors made famous in the age of great Roman epics, which ended with " Spartacus " Watching him in his snits, I recalled Peter Ustinov's great Nero in "Quo Vadis" , collecting his tears for posterity in tiny crystal vials. Commodus has unusual vices even for a Caesar; he wants to become the lover of his older sister Lucilla Connie Nielsen , whose son he is bringing up as his heir.

The moral backbone of the story is easily mastered. Commodus wants to be a dictator, but is opposed by the senate, led by Gracchus Derek Jacobi. We believed it once. Make us believe it again.

He was a soldier of Rome. Honor him. Maximus' heroic death, and the ensuing funeral procession Lucius, Quintus, Gracchus, and others all participate in carrying his body out mark his complete and total resurrection, both into the afterlife and to the rank he held before the events of the film a general in the Roman army.

The messages are clear: good triumphs over evil, non-cheaters triumph over cheaters, and good government will eventually vanquish tyranny. The other important thing about the ending is the way in which the film attempts to guide our reaction to it. When the funeral procession carries Maximus out of the arena, all of the people in the stands of the Colosseum rise and silently observe. That, in some ways, is our reaction to the film's final sequence, and a model of how we should respond: quietly, and reverently.

However, the ending, while sad, is true to Maximus's goals. He wanted to avenge the deaths of his wife and son, as well as clear the way for the Senate to restore order in Rome. Conveniently, both of these goals are achieved by killing Commodus. Once that's done, he only has one more goal: reunite with his family in the afterlife. The ending, however sad to viewers, allows him to do that. Indeed, director Ridley Scott's vision of Maximus slowly walking toward his family through the fields of their farm as he's dying is one of the most moving moments in movie history.

Interestingly, it took Scott a while to realize that, like a sadistic emperor at a gladiatorial display, the ending demanded Maximus's death. Unlike Commodus, Maximus isn't driven by a desire for power but by loyalty to "the true emperor" whom Commodus murdered — and to his family. Dying and going to Elysium is a more fitting reward for him than taking control of Rome.

Maximus is given a very clear ending, but what about the rest of Rome?