More than twenty years after the first “Gladiator” (2000), Ridley Scott took a daring gamble by directing a sequel to a film that has become legendary. For his cinematographer, John Mathieson, he was no longer up to standard.
A few weeks after the international release of the film “Gladiator II”, John Mathieson, cinematographer of the project, did not hold back his words against Ridley Scott. He accuses him in particular of having lost the attention to detail which was his in the first film.
At just 87 years old, Ridley Scott embarked on a difficult shoot for “Gladiator II”. The teams notably filmed in Malta, in the middle of summer, where they recreated an arena worthy of the Colosseum to do the fight scenes.
According to the film’s cinematographer, Briton John Mathieson, the feature film deserved better in terms of production. He doesn’t mince his words, speaking to The Doc Fix podcast: “He’s become lazy. It’s the VFX that fixes everything. There are things that remain in the frame, cameras, microphones, pieces of scenery hanging, shadows of poles. On Gladiator 2, everyone was just like, ‘Now clean this up in post’.”
A particularly significant disappointment for the cinematographer, who had his old performances as a reference: “Look at his oldest films: obtaining the depth of things depends a lot on the light. We can’t do that with lots of cameras, but he wants to finish quickly.”
Ridley Scott is indeed considered one of the best directors of historical films and some of his masterpieces have earned him an Oscar nomination for best director (“Thelma and Louise” (1991), ” Gladiator” (2000) and “Black Hawk Down” (2002)).
