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Introduction

Gladiator Media assignment I am going to watch the film Gladiator by Ridly Scott. I hope to accurately describe and analyse how the director creates a feeling of tension, suspense and how overall he makes the film believable. I will not analyse the whole film, but just two of the scenes. The two scenes I have chosen are the first scene the battle of Germania and the last scene the death of the evil Emperor. The points I am most likely to focus on are the camera angles, sound effects, music, the acting and the shots, also I will describe how the two scenes were made to be realistic with the aid of computer effects. I will now briefly run through the plot of the story. The film starts on the battle of Germania. The Romans win this and have a big party, during this party Maximums is asked to be the emperor of Rome instead of the current emperors son. Maximus refuses the Emperors generous offer. But the Emperor tells Comodeus, his son that he will not rule Rome. Comodeus kills his own farther to take the throne. Comodeus, the new Emperor, kills Maximus's wife, son and burns his home, he also arranges for Maximus to be killed. Maximus escapes being killed and returns to his home to find his wife and son murdered. ...read more.

Middle

Loud sound effects of horses and metal hitting metal enters and the director chooses to show us close ups of a line of warriors faces psyching themselves up for the battle ahead the camera travels down the line of heads which helps the viewer actually believe that they, themselves are walking down the line. The barbarians slay the messenger and hold up his head shouting in some foreign language. The music speeds up now and the beat becomes louder building up the tension: sounding like the beat of a heart pumping blood to the muscles to prepare them for battle. The camera begins to move faster: flicking around from shot to shot, building up the tension. Maximus picks up some of the earth and rubs it in to his hands, this is very important also because it symbolises Maximus preparing for battle, this is a theme that continues throughout the film; like the harmony music. The number of camera flicks increases as the archers and catapults are loaded. Suddenly the music and sound effects stop just before the word "Fire," which starts the battle. This sudden stop makes the audience hold their breath for a moment, this is when the tension is at its peak. Again the sound effects start and the camera flicks back and forth between long shots of the battle field and close ups of the warriors being killed. ...read more.

Conclusion

The viewers are reunited with the fight and like in the last scene that I analysed the camera changes angle rapidly to add to the action. The director uses slow mo in this scene very cleverly; Maximus trips the emperor in slow mo but the film speeds back up again as soon as the emperor hits the floor. The emperor loses his sword in the fight and asks one of his armed guards for his but the guard makes it a fair fight and keeps hold tight of his sword. Maximus drops his sword and the emperor pulls out a dagger from his sleeve and begins to swipe at Maximus, Maximus beats the emperor to the floor and stabs him in the neck with the emperors own dagger killing him. At this point there is no music which makes the audience hold their breath as in the first scene. The audience sees a vision of Maximus's hand opening the door to the afterlife and meeting his family again then Maximus falls down dead because of the poison. I think that Ridley Scott achieved well in over all making this film very believable, exciting and epic with the use of acting, sound effects, camera angles and shots and with the music. I thought it was a good interesting action packed film with an excellent storyline. James Nutbrown ...read more.

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