Collections: Nitpicking Gladiator's Iconic Opening Battle, Part I

I am led to believe Ridley Scott is over being told he isn't historically accurate. He knows. He also does care about some things, and doesn't like being nitpicked about others. He really cares about a visually beautiful, historically "acceptable" framing, colour matched and evoking a mood. "But the Germanic people didn't wear braes at this time and wolfskin wasn't worn with laminar armour" makes his temper show.

Bret Devereaux isn't wrong. He's also not in the film business.

Ridley Scott thinks "acceptable" means he may at least ask a historian to suggest things. He won't give Russel Crowe a raygun, he may misuse ballista freely and reinterpret gladiator school freely. They didn't die usually? Pshaw.

"nitpick" is the kind of pejorative he'd use I think. I don't think Devereaux is nit-picking, the battle scene and a shitload of other stuff is about as a-historical as you can get without Kirk Douglas and Ray Harryhausen.

"The Duellists" which is Scott's movie of a Joseph Conrad story is beautiful, "Barry Lyndon" (by Stanley Kubrick) levels of attention to detail. I have little doubt Historians of Napoleonic era rip it to shreds. Harvey Keitel and Keith Carradine .. just wonderful.