‘The Gladiator’ and ‘Spartacus’

In this essay I will be comparing certain scenes from two films.

The scenes in which I will be comparing are from two of the greatest films to be produced, they are 'The Gladiator' and 'Spartacus'. I will be finding the differences and the similarities from within these two motion picture scenes. I will also be explaining in both scenes, the camera movements whether they are fast or slow, and which scene has captured the greatest effect. I will be including the names of the characters, the names of the actors who play the parts of the characters and also what the characters are doing in each scene.

Here are some brief descriptions of both scenes from 'The Gladiator' and 'Spartacus'. Gladiator was made in year 2000 and was directed by Ridley Scott. The cast for Gladiator include such names as Russell Crowe who plays the character of The Great Roman General Maximus Decimis Meridus, Joaquin Phoenix who plays the character of the Emperor Commodus, Richard Harris who plays the part of character Emperor Marcus Aurelius and Oliver Reed who plays Atonius Proximo. The film has won three Oscars for Best film, best actor and Best special effects. The location was Germania.

The music in which was played throughout was orchestral and heroic, there was also a lot of sound effects used and special effects, which therefore makes the scene quite loud. The scene that I was watching was the part in which they were in the arena and Maximus has been handcuffed to another slave, and are fighting together against Roman Gladiators that are all dressed in armour and riding in chariots. The scene is very fast and in during parts in which there is victory the camera is slowed down to make it look a victorious and ceremonial event.Before the gladiators enter into the arena, the camera just focus's on one person, Maximus. Then just as they begin to enter inside the arena, the camera begins to circle around the whole of the arena, on the crowd, on the gladiators and on the emperor. The camera then circles round to the balcony and looks out onto the arena in which the gladiators are now standing.

The camera then takes a 'medium' shot on Commodus as he talks to the gladiators. As the emperor gets half way through his speech the camera starts to circle the audience which is seated in the arena.The camera begins to take close-ups on each of the gladiators. As the fight begins and the chariots come thrashing into the arena, the movements made by the cameras are extremely quick.

There are many camera angles shot from the chariots, and there is evidence of very fast editing being used to create such dramatic and thrilling scenes, lots of low shots on the horse's hooves banging on the ground are also used to create a sense of tension. As some gladiators begin to attack it is shown in slow motion to give realism by showing the faces made by the men.At the end of the fight the gladiators which were on foot show their exhilaration over winning, but is soon dampened by a confrontation between Maximus, which is played by Russell Crowe and Commodus, who is played by Joaquin Phoenix. The atmosphere is very tense and drawn as Maximus removes his helmet and is recognised to be Maximus a very dear friend of Caesar, (Commodus's father). The special effects are exceedingly good in this scene, there is lots of blood and there are close-ups of all the attacks.

The special effects are particularly realistic and do not look fake and computerised. Spartacus was made in 1960 and was directed by Stonley Kubrick. The cast included such actors as Kirk Douglas who plays Spartacus, Tony Curtis who plays Antoninus and Laurence Olivier who plays Marcus Licinius Crossus. This scene starts off with Spartacus sitting inside of a tunnel and there is a fight going on outside.

There is a little hole in the tunnel in which Spartacus begins to look out of it and observe the fight that is going on.He seems to have a very fearful look in his eyes as the other fight is going on outside. The camera then looks through the little hole but it only catches little glimpses of the fight. Then it's Spartacus's turn. The camera shots are quite long on this fight and then it goes to close ups on the people in the fight.

One of the gladiators is killed and there is a close up shot of that. The camera then rotates on to Spartacus to capture the look on his face as the other gladiator is killed by the emperor's friend.I think that the atmosphere has been tried to be portrayed to be quite a tense moment but I don't think that it has been successful. There was also no fast or slow moving camera motions in the scene, there are No special effects and there is also no music which could make the scene look much more effective.

There also isn't much movement in the scene either and it is very quiet. The only noises that you can hear are the clanging of the swords. The only audience in the arena that you hear are made by the emperor's friend and a couple of women.There is only a small bit in the scene when you hear noise and that's the scream of the gladiator as he is killed by the spear thrown at him by a roman soldier.

He is hanging on to the balcony with the spear in his back as the emperor's friend slits the back of his neck with a knife. The effect that they have tried to portray is that of violence and death but doesn't really look realistic as you can see that they have started to roll the film from him just fighting and then falling on the floor. It was easy to see that the spear had been attached to his body in someway or another.The actual fighting between the two gladiators also isn't very realistic, as it is very slow moving and there aren't many actions. There are only two main camera angles one is from the balcony and the other is in the arena watching the gladiators as they are fighting. If they had used faster actions and more angles for the scene it would of looked much more realistic.

Both scenes use long and short close up camera shots. Spartacus doesn't use any fast or slow motions, and by doing this it doesn't help to make any realistic effects to the scene.In the Gladiator fast and slow motions are used to make the realistic effect and it works tremendously. The slow motion is used for dramatic effect and the fast motion gives the illusion in which that the audience has seen more than is actually shown to them. Spartacus uses smaller venue compared to Gladiator as this film uses a lot more venues.

Spartacus uses only two camera angles or views, which are from the balcony and from the arena floor. Gladiator uses many camera angles from the chariots, the arena floor which is the same as Spartacus, but is much quicker and also from the arena.Spartacus only edits a minimum amount of the footage which has been shot by the camera, and Gladiator has used a lot of slow and fast editing. Spartacus has only two people fighting in the arena and in Gladiator there are hundreds of gladiators fighting in the arena and there are many horses and chariots in the arena as well. There is only one effect in Spartacus and that is where they have attached a spear to the back of a gladiator and made it look as realistic as they possibly could.

There are many special effects in Gladiator, there are things for people dying, being cut open and there are many stunt actions used in the scene as well and all of this makes the scene look very realistic. There is no music in Spartacus and I feel that if music was added it would make the scene more exciting and interesting to the audience. In Gladiator there is a lot of heroic music and this makes that little bit of difference to the scene, it makes u want to sit there and watch it intrigues you.The scene in Gladiator lasts a lot longer than Spartacus and has a lot more attention-grabbing parts to it. I felt that Spartacus was quite boring throughout most of the scene and it is fundamentally the same all the way through as well, nothing much seems to change in it.

I think that the most successful film scene is the Gladiator scene because it has a lot more effects in it that are quite modernised than Spartacus which didn't have half the modernised technology to help them with the making of the film as Gladiator did.