“He became lazy” Ridley Scott put in his place: he was not involved in the filming of Gladiator 2

Gladiator 2's cinematographer is not happy and lets it be known

Ridley Scott's journey is ultimately not extremely original. Born in 1937 in the north-east of England, he studied the arts, then became hired by the BBC as assistant, cinematographer, production designer, then director. Before hitting the big screen, he established a solid reputation in the world of advertising, and even once he became a successful director, continued to use his talents in this field. It didn't take long for Ridley Scott to appear on the radar, because Alien, the eighth passenger is his second film, while Blade Runner is the third.

Many films by Ridley Scott are cultsand we can for example cite Thelma & Louise, Gladiator, Hannibal, The Fall of the Black Hawk, American Gangster, Alone on Mars, The Last Duel or even House of Gucci. However, his films have not all convinced, like Kingdom of Heaven, Prometheus, Alien : Covenant and, more recently, Napoleon. He was even quite disparaging towards specialists criticizing his very free approach to historical events, which he himself said he took very seriously.

At any rate, Ridley Scott is a name that brings audiences to the cinema. Released in November, Gladiator 2 takes the straight path to success and just passed the $300 million mark generated at the box office. It doesn't seem to be able to compete with the first opus, which won multiple awards, but the film pleases. So everything could go well in the best of all possible worlds, but it was not to mention the vitriolic intervention of John Mathiesoncinematographer on the film and longtime collaborator of Ridley Scott. For the latter, who spoke on the microphone of the podcast DocFixScott became lazy.

He has 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. Everyone was just like, “Now clean that up in post.” Ridley Scott is an impatient person who likes to get as many things as possible in one go. But it's not very good for photography (…), because you always adjust the light for a precise angle.

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Multicam: useful technique or sign of carelessness?

As Écran Large reports, Ridley Scott has long taken the challenge of shooting his films using several cameras. This displeases Mathieson, who sees a larger problem: this theoretical time saving harms the composition of images and the act of thinking about a film through the chosen framework. What we understand above all is that the cinematographer criticizes Ridley Scott for using the multicam to botch his production and pass everything on to the post-production teams. Mathieson even seems a little resignedwhile being aware that all this is only his opinion:

I don't think having lots of cameras made the films better. It's a bit “faster, faster, faster”. It changed him. But that's how he likes to do things. Personally, I don't like it and I don't think many people like it, but audiences love his films. Plus, he's Ridley Scott, so he can do whatever he wants.

Such statements risk undermine the collaboration between the two menso far renewed six times. Either way, Ridley Scott is not ready to retire since there is talk of a biopic about Bee Gees and a science fiction film in which Paul Mescal would be present. This feature film would be titled The Dog Stars and would be an adaptation of eponymous novel by Peter Heller.