The Battle of Germania
Director Scott’s quest for authenticity is found throughout Gladiator, but best exemplified in the extraordinary battle scenes in Germania at the beginning of the movie. For the battle scenes against the Germanic tribes, Scott’s crew constructed a war camp that paints a very real portrayal of ancient Romans preparing for battle. The Roman camp is a place for living, with animals wandering about, as well as a camp which must be defended and from which the warfare must be launched. The actual battle scenes include interesting use of flaming arrows which end up setting the entire forest on fire. The Romans unleash hell on the Germanic tribes. Arguably, movies such as Spartacus also include realistic battle scenes, but Gladiator more emphatically captures the horror, savagery and barbarity of the actual battle. It is hand to hand combat and it is gruesome. Additionally, Gladiator acknowledges and shows Roman battle tactics such as the tortoise which appears later in the film during a gladiator battle. By hiding behind shields, the gladiators are able to withstand the onslaught of a group of armed warriors.
This is the tortoise a common Roman battle tactic
The opening battle scenes in Gladiator also seem particularly realistic because of the director’s use of a real fire, in a real forest. This is not a computer generated fire, but rather a real fire in which the forest was ultimately burned to the ground. The roaring flames add to the feeling that war is desperate and hellish. Some of the battle scenes also seem to have been filmed late in the day, and are dark and foreboding. Nothing from prior films such as Spartacus, Quo Vadis, or Ben Hur matches the feel of the Gladiator battle scenes. The Gladiator battle scenes feel less heroic and inspiring than these prior films, because they are full of horror and terrible violence. Nothing in these scenes makes the average viewer want to become a Roman soldier or gladiator, because the director does not hold back on authenticity.
This shot captures the Roman's bombardment of the barbarians.
Following the battle, the Director shows the audience the clearest portrayal of how rough life in Rome could be, when Maximus visits his men in the military hospital. It is dark and dirty, and they are bone weary. We see Maximus pass through what is an ancient Roman field hospital. Men’s limbs are being sawn off without benefit of anesthesia. The “doctors” rinse the blood off of their hands in a bucket of dirty water, so they can proceed to the next case. It is oddly quiet as the camera follows Maximus through the encampment, encouraging and greeting his soldiers, despite his weariness. The silence of the hospital is another exception to Scott’s quest for realism: the quiet feels artistic but not authentic for a battlefield hospital. Other, prior movies, have also shown the gritty, gruesome side of these ancient battles. The movie Spartacus shows the use of fire in the battle scenes, and shows the soldiers’ encampments in a not favorable light. But, Spartacus does not use fire in the same way as Gladiator. It does not create a conflagration that appears unstoppable and hellish, as in Gladiator. Except for the overly quiet hospital scene, Gladiator gives the viewer the sense that they are seeing these things as they might actually have been. Without sanitation, antibiotics, or any modern medicine, the Roman warrior encampment would have seemed like or felt like Hades. Interestingly the Directors chose to leave this scene out of the movie which is a shame because it accurately depicted the horrors of war to the audience. However the directors likely viewed it as irrelevant to the overall plot line and cut it out.
This shot depicts the infirmary and the effects of war on the men who partake in it.
