While Christopher Nolan continues to be busy developing his upcoming film for Universal, the Oppenheimer director has named Ridley Scott's Gladiator II as the top film of 2024. Taking part in Variety's list of directors' best films of the year, the acclaimed filmmaker highlights the reasons why he thought Gladiator II was a masterpiece.
From the start, Nolan praised Scott's brilliance and masterful directing. He wrote, "Like the best long-awaited sequels, Gladiator II must be a remake and sequel in one, and it's testament to Scott's brilliance that he manages to balance the individual pathos of the original with the expansionist demands of the sequel's central theme, bringing a lifetime of experience in controlling tone." While some fans and critics alike have claimed historical inaccuracies as a downfall in the film, Nolan defended the choices, "Scott knows we're not there for insights into Roman culture; we're there to see our own dark desires at a comfortable remove. But he's far too experienced a director to get caught making parallels with our time. He lets the world of Gladiator II speak for itself, once again showing us who we are simply by inviting us to enjoy the crazy inflationary ride." He adds, "Why are there sharks in the coliseum? Because we demand them, and Scott masterfully gives them to us. As he reveals how the games are used to manipulate public opinion, we can’t help but see shadows of our own public arena projected onto the sand."
On Scott's filmmaking, specifically the action sequences and the filming style used in the film, Nolan claims, "Scott raises the game with the staging of his action – his incredible, hyper-observant, multi-camera mise-en-scène (so different to the original) masterfully wrestles the action into clear and jaw-dropping sequence after sequence. The effect is not just to entertain, but to drive us towards awareness of the movie’s themes. Few filmmakers have ever worked so invisibly on multiple levels." Nolan gives a nod to his other projects and Scott's longevity as a director adding, "In films from Blade Runner to Thelma And Louise to Gladiator II, the visual density of Scott’s art serves as foil for his underlying thematic clarity."
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