Seth Paxton

Good post Dome, and from a good perspective I think.

Something regarding Gladiator winning the Oscar. I also think it beat it's competition because the competition wasn't up to the challenge.

CTHD was hurt BADLY by being a foreign film. In fact it did amazingly well despite that. Had it won it would have been considered a pretty big upset or a least a groundbreaking vote for the Academy.

Traffic did not pick up enough momentum going into the Oscars. It was solid and had respect but it didn't have that moment that kept it on everyone's lips during the Oscar run.

Chocolat had no business being in the mix at all.

Erin Brockovich was a very solid film but just didn't have enough to win a best pix. If it had been a bit more of a cultural phenom like a Tootsie were it really played long and loud at the box office it might have won it all, but that wasn't the sort of picture it was.

Soderberg in that way is slightly at a disadvantage because his best work seems to be with soft, introspective characters and in the 90's that hasn't really paid off well with the Oscars.


So I think Gladiator also had the advantage of being the one "major" film of the year.

Had CTHD been American or at least English language I honestly think it would have won big time. It still was the only other film to become a phenom before the Oscars. Brockovich the character became a phenom too, but the win helped a lot and the film never became something culturally referenced.

We see CTHD stuff in commericials, etc for example. An image or concept that people can latch on to and remember the film. Gladiator had that too being a big popcorn hit all summer by itself.

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Terrell

At least we can agree on that Seth.

Tino

Well...I don't! I loved Chocolat.

So quit picking on it Seth!

Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus.

Seth Paxton

You, sir, are a pansy.



Chocolat was just Pleasantville in France with Chocolat for Color TV. It's not like Pleasantville was up for an Oscar...

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Mike Broadman

Did Scott really say that? If so, that's just absurd.

I studied Roman history in school and on my own. The movie has nothing to do with history, except for the fact that Marcus Aurelius (the old emperor who dies at the beginnning) was a real emperor. He is considered one of the strongest emperors of post-Christ Rome, because even though the empire was sliding downhill, he was able to keep it together. After him, the empire fell into political chaos for over 100 years, where almost every emperor ruled for less than 5 years and was murdered. This happened until Diocletian (sp?) enforced the "myth" and power of the office of emperor, opening the road for Constantine.

What the movie does is show us a nice little fiction of what "could have" happened to send the empire into chaos after Marcus Aurelius. In the movie, it was a nasty emperor and a bad-ass gladiator. In real life, it was an economic downward spiral, a military that was losing its loyalty, the constant threat of outside invaders, the lack of strong central leadership, widespread disease and population decline, and religious conflict. The former makes a better movie.

Brian Lawrence

I feel that Chocolat was more Oscar worthy than Gladiator. I'm not saying it was a great film but I don't agree with all of the negative press this one got, It wasn't that bad.

Terrell

Brian, I felt Chocolat sucked major moose tool and should have been thrown off a cliff. Opinion, opinions. To each his own, I guess.

TheoGB

Well he didn't in the version of the commentary I heard. What he said was that if it made sense for the movie he ignored what the historians said because he wasn't making a historical film but a movie.

A couple cases spring to mind, first being the little trench of lit pitch that the archers use to light their arrows with. Historical this wouldn't happen apparently but Scott says that he saw it as a logical thing to do and saw no reason why they shouldn't have used that.

Later on he points out that they probably didn't have coffee shops but people must have congregated to talk, in his opinion, so why not have a cafe essentially?

I don't think he took a snobbish attitude - he merely stated that he put the movie before the historical nitpicking.

As a parallel, I believe Indy takes a boat plane to Italy a year before such commercial flights were run and an airship out of Germany a year after such commercial flights were stopped. Last Crusade is still an excellently enjoyable movie regardless of this. *shrug*

I Shot the Deputy

Mike Broadman

Yeah, that's what I figured. I have a genuine interest and respect for history, and I hate it when people put down movies for historical innacurracy. A true student of history knows he can get his history from other sources than entertainment. There's a difference between a movie and a documentary.

I just remember all the slack Braveheart got for this. Well, yeah, it was completely bogus historically. So what? Just grab a bucket of popcorn and enjoy it for the story. If you want, look it up in the library the next day.

In fact, these movies do serve history: people enjoy the movie, develop an interest in the story, and research the history behind it. How many people, including myself, learned of William Wallace this way?

And now A Beautiful Mind is getting the same slack. People never learn.

Matt Stone

Yes...but first, no one said that Gladiator wasn't enjoyable, and second...Last Crusade didn't win Best Picture



I know that it wasn't 100% accurate, but I watched a show on the History Channel that had historians comparing the real events to the movie, and they all said that it was pretty dead on. Most of the stuff that was changed wasn't made up...just moved so to speak. An example I remember was the battle with the horses running into the spears. That actually happened, but historically it was in a different Wallace-lead battle. I do agree with you on the fact that people watch these movies, and then research the real events. I've done this with countless films, most recently Black Hawk Down.

Tom Ryan

Matt: The style of battle and the combat may have been true to history, but the story was not. There were many changes made to the story of Wallace's life so as to make the story more "movie-like".

For instance, Wallace never even knew the French princess, much less was he able to impregnate her. The king's son was not a homosexual, or at least not strictly one. He fathered sons with the princess.

Mel Gibson was also a much shorter man than Wallace, who was actually about 6'7" I believe (though that was referenced to with the men in the army who believe Wallace is 7 feet tall).

There are tons of changes like this, separating Braveheart from historical record and setting it apart where it should be; merely a film.

-Tom

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