Gladiator (2000): Ancient Fantasy through the Mythology of the Western

Ward W. Briggs (University of South Carolina)

While the directors of many movies set in the Old West have adopted classical mythology to enlarge their themes and set themselves squarely in the western literary and mythological tradition, Ridley Scott’s Gladiator (2000) has done the reverse. Gladiator deserves its reputation as a cinematic epic both for the scale of its story, the heroism of its protagonist, and the breadth and detail of its canvas. Director Scott has reinforced his epic much as Virgil and other Roman poets did, by including key allusions to other “epic” films such as Seven Samurai (1954), El Cid (1961), Saving Private Ryan (1998), and of course the great sword-and-sandals epics Ben-Hur (1959) and Spartacus (1960). But by far the most cinematic allusions come from the mythical films of the old west. The scene of Maximus’ hanged and burned family is from John Ford’s The Searchers (1956), the confrontation of Commodus (dressed in villainous black) and Maximus in the arena derives (by Scott’s own admission) from High Noon (1952), and the final duel, with the antagonists surrounded by the Praetorian Guard, recalls the gunfight at the O.K. Corral in My Darling Clementine (1946). In an ironic twist on a staple of the Western (e.g. Red River), in the “Battle of Carthage” sequence, the gladiators are huddled together like a wagon train would do to fend off the encircling enemy (Romans actually in chariots) firing arrows at them. The Western motif even extends to the names Maximus gives the two white horses on his body armor, Argento and Scorpio (“Silver” and “Trigger”).Such allusions serve the purpose of any allusion: to enlarge the meaning of characters and events by association with the meaning or ethos of an easily recognizable version of similar characters or events.