Author:
Simulacrum
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Date:
5/20/2016 9:01:15 AM
Subject:
Ridley Scott and history
I have touched on this subject before, but I felt that I should return to it in order to clarify a few things.
Ridley is a great director in his way. His brother Tony was actually better because he knew that action/military films were his forte and he perfected what he was good at. Ridley is more eclectic and thus can't help having hits and misses. He's also rather preachy, but his weakness is also his strength, in so far as he's not afraid to come up with unusual subject matter (Legend, Alien, Gladiator, etc.).
When he's not continuing his Alien saga or striking off into odd directions (The Counselor, The Martian, and the dreadful A Good Year), he does historical things like Kingdom of Heaven and Exodus: Gods and Kings.
You have to pat him on the back for throwing big budgets at risky ventures. Gladiator was a complete shot in the dark, but its success paved the way for Kingdom of Heaven, which only Ridley could have gotten financed. I still don't know how he got the money for a biblical epic about Moses.
Anyway, all three of these things take an interesting historical time, apply a feeling authenticity, tell a rousing story, and mix violence with wonderful special effects. They also, at certain points, decide to go wildly off-road with history. Ridley says that the story and art are more important than accuracy, and I tend to agree if the departures actually tell a better story and if the movies somehow hint that they're not altogether faithful accounts of what happened (something like "based on" or "mostly true" would be helpful). But Ridley's movies appeal to audiences who typically don't bother with researching the real events and people. If they did, they would probably find that reality was just as interesting as Ridley's strange shoe-horning and thematic hijacks. Sometimes, however, they would find that Ridley is completely wrong about something.
In Gladiator, for instance, one of the big sells is that Marcus Aurelius wants Maximus to end the succession of emperors and return Rome to the oversight of the Senate and "People." In reality, it never entered Marcus's head to do any such thing, and if it had, no one could have pulled it off. Additionally, his son Commodus didn't die in the arena. Actually, what happens in Gladiator bears a strange resemblance to what happens in The Fall of the Roman Empire (1964), which makes me wonder why Gladiator didn't acknowledge this.
I won't even talk about Exodus: Gods and Kings because the history is biblical and people get all skeptical about that, but the history behind Kingdom of Heaven should make them happier, as it's pretty well covered in various places. Admittedly, Ridley had to simplify the politics and crazed marriage schemes of the real Crusade-era Holy Land, but why on earth did he simplify things to the point where the Knights Templar were the bad guys, the forces of Saladin were the good guys, and the Hospitallers were sort of tolerant in-betweeners?
This is so far from reality that it trumps the Marcus Aurelius silliness. The Knights Templar and Church representatives at Jerusalem were never as bloodthirsty or self-interested as Ridley keeps insisting, and Saladin was certainly not the great statesman/saint he sells to his audience. As an example, the movie depicts the Patriarch of Jerusalem as a cowardly sell-out when in reality he was quite brave and compassionate. In real history, we learn that Saladin allowed people to leave the city before his final assault, but only if they could pay a ransom. The movie leaves out the ransom part and suggests that Saladin was far more benevolent than his Christian enemies. This is simply not correct, but it fits with Ridley's consistent pasting of the Church.
Even so, I like Ridley's movies. Gladiator is historically insane, but the story is great. Kingdom of Heaven never happened as Ridley tries to sell it, but the battle scenes are amazing, and I really like the romance between Balian and Sibylla (which never happened either, by the way).
In sum, I think Ridley is one of the greatest history-genre directors ever, but you should never accept his history.