Entertainment Weekly's Oscar Watch 2001
Best Actor - Russell Crowe - Gladiator
It goes without saying that today's movie business bears little resemblance to the days when he-men like Charlton Heston donned togas and mounted chariots in filmes like Ben-Hur. And to be honest, before Gladiator became GLADIATOR last year, the very thought of a $100 million throwback to those often-cheesy sword-and-sandal epics of yesteryear seemed not only like a deluded bit of nostalgia but also about as fiscally sound as a remake of Ishtar. But director Ridley Scott always knew he had an Aussie ace up his sleeve. "I noticed Russell way back in Romper Stomper," says Scott, referring to Russell Crowe's breakout role in 1993's portrait of a young man as a neo-Nazi skinhead. "I just thought, This guy's an animal. It was only later when I met him I also found out how smart and articulate he was."
In short, Russell Crowe - the thinking man's animal - is the reason we're still talking about Gladiator at Oscar time. As Maximus, the fearless swashbuckling Roman generall who's reduced to fight-to-the-death slavery by Emporer Marcus Aurelius' evil son Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix), Crowe is a revelation of vengeance - a mix of Spartacus and Shaft. Moviegoers who marveled at his performance as Bud White, the brutish cop with a heart of gold in L.A. Confidential, or his unrecognizable doughy (and Oscar-nominated) turn as The Insider's tobacco-industry whistle-blower Jeffrey Wigand, knew the 36-year-old actor possessed better chops that a Palm steak house. So it should have come as no surprise that rather than turning Maximus into yet another Hollywood action hero, Crowe paints on layers of emotional complexty that we rarely see in out celluloid alpha males: the fear of fate, the love and longing of a father and husband, and the world-weary resolve to turn destiny on its head. Crowe may have signed on to Gladiator as one of our moset promising actors, but by the end credits he had become something else entirely: a star.
Best Director - Ridley Scott (Gladiator)
After Ridley Scott created the dystopian sci-fi worlds of Alien and Blade Runner, it felt like every director unable to compose his own visual poetry of the future simply plagiarized Scott's. He defined the way we look to the future; now, with Gladiator, the 63-year-old British director (above with Oliver Reed, Djimon Hounsou and Russell Crowe) has us all rethinking the way we look at the past. "I enjoy myself most when I'm creating worlds, whether they're period or science fiction," says Scott. "I come from art direction, so I love to climb into the books and research. I just thought, God, what a good idea - to tackle the Roman Empire."
Breaking away from the stuffy Roman masterpiece theatrics of Ben-Hur and Spartacus, Scott's Gladiator seemed to take the "ancient" out of ancient Rome. Through his lens, the Collosseum became a swirling bread-and-circuses carnival of adrenalized Technicolor violence; the imperial palaces became icy-cold drawing rooms cloaked in shadows and dripping with treachery, incest, and paranoia. And while 1963-s Cleopatra signaled the decline and fall of the old-school toga picture, Scott dared to rattle the genre as he had with his science-fiction films 20 years earlier.
Scott's ability to complement his lavish pop sensibility with his character's more intimate moments elevates Gladiator above the one-dimensional summer action flick we had every right to expect from its rock-'em, sock-'em TV ads. Sure, Crowe unleashes hell on the battlefield and in the gladiators' ring, but Scott also gives his leading man plenty of quiet time to convey the desperation of a man alone in the world. With Gladiator, Scott's done more than dutifully tip his cap to the traditional Hollywood epics. Like David Lean on steroids, he has redifined the epic for a new millenium.
Best Picture - Gladiator
Ever notice how the words fall and Oscars automatically go together, while summer usually gets matched up with oh, say, Bruckheimer? Where does it say that if a multiplex's air conditioner is blasting that the celluloid on screen is inevitably ineligible schlock? Remember, Mel Giblson's full-tilt kilt epic, Braveheart, came out in May 1995 yet wound up winning the Best Picture haggis.
Well, hold on to your chariots, because beneath Gladiator's bone-crunching title you'll find a lot more to Ridley Scott's summer blockbuster - and Golden Globe winner- than just he-men with tridents circling each other in the ring. If anything, Gladiator has even more brains than brawn: There's a love story (between Russell Crowe's general-turned-warrior Maximus and the Caesar's siter); patricide (Joaquin Phoenix's fiendish Commodus murders his emperor father, Richard Harris' Marcus Aurelius); revenge (Maximus slashes his way to Rome to settle the score with Commodus for killing his wife and child); and even a dash of family dysfunction (Commodus' unhealthy yearning for his siter, Connie Nelsen's Lucilla). Heck, there aren't too many action flicks that debate the merits of a republic versus a monarchy.
And, of course, there's action, and plenty of it. Whether staging staggering battle scenes in the snowy forests of Germany or choreographing quick-cutting ultraviolence in the Colloseum, Scott says his goal was to pick up the gauntlet that Steven Spielberg had thrown down at the beginning of 1998's Saving Private Ryan. "He set a new standard," says Scott. "Battle scenes used to just be wide shots like a ballet or a dance, but now you can take the audience inside the battle like Ryan did. It's right in your lap in the theater."
Come March 25, if Gladiator earns the Academy's imperial thumbs-up, Scott, Crowe, and company will have pulled off a rare bit of cinematic alchemy - spinning popcorn into gold.
- Chris Nashawaty for Entertainment Weekly February 23, 2001
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