Gladiator - Analysis

Gladiator - Analysis 

At the start it enters a depth of field shot of a person’s hand stroking some wheat in what looks like a field, the camera looks like it is mounted to a steady cam so that you can really see this where as if they used handheld it would be quite shaky and you would hardly see some of the movement, this shot is not only to get you to know who this person is without seeing his face but also to see how this person is feeling.

After a while of the DOF shot it suddenly cuts straight into a medium close up shot of the main character that is looking down, to resemble that he is daydreaming of the previous shot, the editing in shot Is that they have use a kind off greyish blue type of colour overlay to show that is a very cold Christmas time of the year. During that time it cuts to a robin bird to show the sense of freedom that they will get if they complete this war alive, another clue for that is after if flies away it cuts to a medium close up shot of the main character smiling.

A little while after it cuts to a establishing shot of the location they are in, also some text fades in with the location name, this is to get the audience to know where this war is going to take place, also the location itself has been damaged very badly which shows that a war has already happened and it shows the viewers how bad this war has become.

During the clips it then does a tracking shot of the main character walking down the lines of soldiers and as that is happening it keeps cutting into the soldiers faces with them either smiling or nodding at him, at that makes you realise how important this character is if these people will give him that much respect, also they are trying to get you to look at them so that you can see the battle marks and blood so you can see how bad this war has become.

When the main barbarian comes into the shot on the other side of the battle you have a medium shot of him holding a mans head and throwing it which then cuts in the a close up of the mans head on the floor, which makes the audience start to realise that this is serious not just a film full of solider laughing and smiling.

When the main character is riding his horse across the lines of solider it is used with a paned track on him then after on other 5-second clip it is then cut back to him in the forest riding towards some other soldiers hiding in the woods, they did this so that you didn’t have a watch a full on scene of him getting there and so that it wouldn’t bore the audience. When he arrives with the other soldiers there are a couple of medium shots but then a lot of really heavenly type of wide shots, which really bring out the cinematic to it.

When the war starts to happen not only does the music start building more dramatically but then it starts turning into a sort of montage of them setting up the weapons which really make the audience start to get excited that the action is starting. When one of the soldiers shoots up a flare into the sky to alert the romans to fire and when they actually start firing there are a lot of establishing shots of the back of the romans to show that the barbarians are over powered by them, also they are on a higher ground which also shows that.