Ridley Scott He should have already allayed the fear of viewers who approach his films expecting a minimum of historical accuracy. He did not care to distort the history of the Crusades by the kingdom of heaven (2005) than to imagine Napoleon firing cannons against the pyramids of ancient Egypt. And that’s their right: everything is fiction. Now with Gladiator IIpresents a new and fantastic show with sharks in the Colosseumkiller monkeys on the sand and senators reading newspapers in what looks like a modern café that in no way adapts to Roman reality and the era in which the film takes place.
The chronological line is precisely one of the most delicate questions of the film. At the beginning, it is announced that the plot takes place in the year 200, almost two decades after the events of the first opus. However, the emperors are Caracalla (Fred Hechinger) and Geta (Joseph Quinn), the children of Septimius Severus, originators who reigned until his death in 211.
According to the true story, Caracalla killed Geta that same year and ruled alone until 217, when he was murdered while urinating. The High Coup Macrin (Denzel Washington), who was not a freedman, but a successful lawyer, high-ranking administrator, and commander of the Imperial Guard born in North Africa, who reigned only a few months before dying violently.
Scene from “Gladiator II” with a recreation of the Colosseum in the background and with Pedro Pascal in the background. His character, General Marco Acacio, is fictional.
Paramount Pictures
In the film, all of these events take place within a few days, or so it seems. “It is just as cheap and just as expensive to put the label for the year 200 as it is for the year 211. I wonder why you choose the historical error when you can look it up on Wikipedia in three minutes, you don’t need a historian,” he explains to this newspaper. Néstor F. Marquesarchaeologist and popularizer, creator of the Antigua Roma al Día project His opinion on. Gladiator II is that it is “a peplum of the 21st century”: “It’s a fantasy loosely based on the names of historical figuresincluding the city of Rome and all the scenery. A film that taps into millennial nostalgia. I like the concept of hindsight: a sequel but making one remake of the first.”
A similar opinion is shared Maria Engracia Munoz Santosdoctor in classical archeology from the University of Valencia and co-author of Gladiators. Courage in the face of death (Desperta Ferro): “Entertaining, but fantastic. If you go see this movie, you won’t see one about the Romans, but rather science fiction and political struggle. It’s not a peplum style, it’s political decadence.” And he adds: “For me, a good Roman film is the one that comes out of the cinema and my heart is full, it beats, I feel victorious as if I were the one who was beaten. “There is no such thing.”
Paul Mescal plays Lucio Vero, the grandson of Marcus Aurelius and son of Lucilla (Connie Nielsen), who serves as a link to the first opus.
Paramount Pictures
Since the first trailer, analyzes of the film’s historicity have primarily focused on what happens inside the Colosseum. The first question was whether they were carried out naval battles (naumachias) at the Flavien amphitheater. Cassius Dio writes with complete conviction that “Titus suddenly filled the sand with water and introduced into it horses and oxen which had learned to swim” and describes the re-enactment of a fictional clash which took place in the 5th century BC JC between the ships of the cities. of Corcyra and Corinth. For his part, Suetonius speaks of aquatic spectacles, such as the “naumachia of Augustus”, without however specifying the setting: in Rome, spaces were built for this type of sumptuous events.
“Obviously, this extraordinary spectacle would not have been possible in the building as it stands today, because it is impossible that the foundations of the arena (with its complex elevators and other devices for lifting the animals) could be watertight,” write Keith Hopkins and Mary Beard in The Colosseum (Critical). According to most researchers, the first substructures date from the reign of Domitian, i.e. from the end of the 1st century AD, therefore the naumaquia of Gladiator II that would be impossible. Adding sharks, no matter how much Ridley Scott wanted to defend them, praising the know-how of the Romans, is “immense madness”, according to Pedro Huertasresponsible for the Rome project, was not done in a day.
Naumaquia de ‘Gladiator II’.
Paramount Pictures
El también arqueólogo dice que “a nivel de ambientación todo está mal, ni el Coliseo está bien hecho”, y señala otro patinazo: en la batalla naval que tiene lugar en una ciudad del norte de África algunos actores visten con unas armaduras de 400 años antes, como soldados romanos de la segunda guerra púnica. “Han puesto cotas de malla metálica, cascos del tipo Montefortino, de herencia helenística, pero están completamente descontextualizados“, lamenta el autor de Coronas de laurel, un caballo en el Senado y la nariz de Justiniano (Principal).
La historiadora Patricia González, autora de Soror. Mujeres en Roma (Desperta Ferro), incide en estos problemas en un artículo publicado en la web de la editorial: “La ambientación de una Roma blanca y sin pintar, mujeres desveladas y escotadísimas, de senadores con periódicos, responde más a un imaginario colectivo difícil de desterrar que a la realidad histórica. Pero es que Roma se ha convertido en un ‘no-lugar’ en que situar nuestras fantasías de masculinidad y épica, que en un lugar real que recrear”.
Babuinos asesinos en ‘Gladiator II’.
Paramount Pictures
En el apartado de las luchas de gladiadores, la película repite errores de la primera, como los pulgares hacia arriba y hacia abajo o las luchas masivas y desordenadas, de mayor espectacularidad para la gran pantalla —lo más habitual fue el combate singular—. Y además añade escenas todavía más inverosímiles, como reflejar a un luchador cabalgando sobre un rinoceronte. En el programa de estos espectáculos había cazas de animales (venationes), donde se demostraba el dominio de Roma sobre la naturaleza, pero no se trata más que de otra de las fantasías que Scott considera divertidas.
“Lo que me ha gustado son las ejecuciones: aparecen de varios estilos, aunque erróneas, sí, fantasía pura y dura. Tienen algo de verosimilitud pero están más basadas en películas anteriores que en la realidad romana”, comenta María Engracia Muñoz Santos. “Muchas escenas me recuerdan al arte, al romanticismo, a la decadencia, a la época anterior a la Revolución francesa…”, amplía, identificando guiños de filmes como Espartaco (1960), La espada y la cruz (1958) e incluso La guerra de las galaxias.
Néstor F. Marqués, who will publish a new book in a few days, Gladiators (Espasa), adds a touch of optimism: “I really liked seeing a gladiator helmet, which wasn’t in the first one. It’s something.” He is also the author of Constantine’s Rome (Desperta Ferro) made it clear that he was not going to see a strictly historical film and this is how he took it: “It was a lot of fun for me and I say that as an archaeologist. and historian, because there are winks which are not intentional and which made me very funny and others which show that there is a historical advisor who from time to time was authorized to insert a small detail: an inscription, graffiti in Quite obscene Latin…”. Small details for the very knowledgeable.
