"Gladiator" Opening Analysis

The primary scene of “Gladiator” – the nigh-legendary film released in 2000 starring Russell Crowe – comprises perhaps one of the most intriguing (albeit lengthy) cinematic openings of the modern age of film. In this scene (and, indeed, throughout the whole feature), excellent props and character design are expertly combined with pacey editing, evocative colour, clever use of camera and an unforgettable soundtrack.

The first thing the audience is presented with via sound bridge is the theme song, which is prevalent throughout the whole 3-hour experience. The music is slow, spiritualistic, mournful.  Its tone tells us with certainty that the movie will be a tragedy, and it surges with even deeper melancholic notes as the title of the film appears in blunt but graceful capitals: “Gladiator”. The very first real shot contains a written explanation (contextualising the story in archaic, dramatic story-telling language), pasted on a sandy, windblown background and backed by the same music as before. This is typical of epic cinema; whenever an in-depth narrative is about to be presented, directors use this visual cue to prepare their audience for the fact that the journey they are about to take will be full of minute detail, will follow a truly monumental tale and will be set in a complex fantasy or antique world. The background is rust-coloured and desert-like not only to create a historical feeling (as the main character is a former general in ancient Rome), but also to imply the severe dryness of the barren landscape where our hero will eventually end up.  

What comes next, however, truly begins to reveal the ingenuity of the picture. The screen shows a closed-frame, extreme close-up of a strong, tanned male hand, adorned by a single ring and a leather cuff. The man carefully, haltingly slides it through the tips of a wheat field, and the camera follows his progress for around 30 slow seconds. The colours are warm but muted to imply a dream-like state, showing the scene to be a memory as opposed to immediate reality. The lighting is natural but idealistic and soft (similar to sunset or sunrise) to further this effect. The iconic music from the opening titles continues, but behind it the distant, echoing voices of children playing can be heard. This haunting background noise causes the viewer to realise the character in question is missing home – a safer, calmer place than the one he is in – and is using sensory memory to recall these feelings and images as vividly as possible. As we later realise, the main character, Maximus, is doing this before a final battle in order to calm himself down. Similarly, the character’s hand itself is very telling of his personality; even if we hadn’t seen the film before and didn’t know anything about him, we could tell that he is of fairly high social standing (because of the ring) and that he spends a lot of time outside (as his skin is tanned). His fingers shake slightly as he moves; he is careful and extremely reverent of the place he is picturing himself in.   

The scene cuts away suddenly, and we get the first close-up Maximus’s face. He was looking down, but he slowly looks up and past the camera, still in a reverie, blinking as he emerges; pensive, distant, untouchable. This close-up lasts over 15 seconds without interruption; we thus recognise this man as our main protagonist, as it is made apparent to us that we must remember his face well. The light is still fairly natural, but now cold and wintery, giving a certain sense of hostility and danger to the situation. There are elements of backlighting (the face is shadowed, if slightly, to create an underlying sense of loneliness and heroism). There is also a suggestion of chiaroscuro; the soft shadows on the face and the black background contrast with the white fur around Maximus’s shoulders, dramatizing him and making him stand out, as well as suggesting a certain purity of character due to the symbolism of the colour of his clothes. A few new notes enter the music, but no other background sounds are heard yet, signifying the character has returned to reality but remains passive for the time being; the world is still far away to him. Maximus looks down slightly again, and the shot changes.

Via a point of view close-up, we are shown a small, red-breasted bird (presumably a robin or sparrow) sitting on a bare bush in the fog right in front of our hero. Mere seconds later, it flies away. This follows with another close-up of our main character, showing him craning his head to watch the bird’s ascent with a soft smile. The series of shots is brief, but the symbolism is apparent; Maximus yearns for freedom, and more importantly, for home; for a warmer place than the wasteland he is in. The arrival of birds is also often associated with spring and migration – the thought that the bird might be flying back to his home, to his family, makes Maximus smile, as does the fact that his campaign is almost over and he himself is almost free. The smile additionally serves the function of showing the audience that this flint-jawed man is, in fact, kinder on the inside than he looks, and finds happiness in the small things in life (a fact supported by his fond remembrance of running his hand through the wheat field in his homeland). Not only that but, just like our protagonist, the warmly coloured bird looks out of place in the fog; much like our protagonist, a good man, is essentially out of place on a battlefield, no matter how great a leader or fighter he is. Digging deeper, it should be noted that in ancient Rome the flight of birds was associated with the flight of the soul after death and so, to a certain extent, the inclusion of this scene is almost foreshadowing the ending of the film, as Maximus watches the small creature fly towards heaven, soon to join it himself. The sequence ends with our hero growing serious, and the shot cutting away to the next scene, wherein an establishing shot accompanied by fast-paced music shows him galloping from his vantage point to his advisors – away from solitude and relative safety, and towards his men and the looming battle.  

The entire described sequence thus boasts a certain elegance and sadness as a result of, predominantly, the attention to costume detail, the use of measured lighting and the melancholic tone of the music used. The effect is aided by the fact that the camera remains largely static throughout, only moving slowly once in a tracking shot when following the character’s hand at the very beginning of the film. All this creates an overall feeling of the calm before a storm – a feeling that is entirely justified, as the rest of the movie is full of suffering and hardship for Maximus.

DY