In an article by Variety on the best films of 2024 of many famous directors, the magazine also interviewed the Oscar winner Christopher Nolan and his response was surprising. The author of Oppenheimer he confessed that his favorite film of the year that is about to end is… Gladiator 2 by Ridley Scott.
Nolan’s taste goes against the grain, the English filmmaker has confessed his enthusiasm for a spectacular and majestic big budget film, which has divided critics, but which he defines as “masterful”. Here’s what Nolan thinks of his colleague Ridley Scott’s film.
Nolan’s thoughts on Gladiator 2
In the first The Gladiator by Ridley Scott, Massimo asks us: ‘Didn’t you enjoy it?’ and we are confronted with the truth about why we visited the Colosseum through a film. Scott knows that we are not there to delve into Roman culture; we are there to observe our dark desires from a comfortable distance. But he is too experienced a director to be caught making parallels with our time. Let the world of Gladiator II speak for itself, showing us once again who we are by simply inviting us to enjoy the mad inflationary ride.
Because there are sharks in the Colosseum? Because we demand them, and Scott gives them to us masterfully. While revealing how the games are used for manipulate public opinionwe can’t help but see the shadows of our public arena cast on the sand.
Like the best long-overdue sequels, Gladiator 2 has to be a remake and a sequel at the same time, and it’s a testament to Scott’s brilliance that he manages to balance the individual pathos of the original with the expansionist demands of the film’s central theme. sequel, bringing the experience of a lifetime into the tone control.
Ridley Scott raises the bar with the staging of the action: its incredible multi-camera, hyper-attentive staging (so different from the original) amplifies the action sequence after sequence. The effect is not only to entertain, but to guide us towards awareness of the film’s themes.
Few directors have ever worked so invisibly on multiple levels. In films, from Blade Runner to Thelma and Louise to Gladiator II, the visual density of art by Scott serves as a counterbalance to its underlying thematic clarity.
Gladiator II, discovering historical inaccuracies in the sequel with Paul Mescal
For all his success, Scott’s contribution to the evolution of cinematic storytelling has never been adequately recognised. The visual innovations that he and his fellow directors from 1970s British soil brought to cinema were often dismissed as superficial, but critics of the time missed the point: the sumptuous cinematography and meticulous design brought new depth to the visual language of filmsthe mise-en-scène tells us how the depicted worlds might feel. This is never more clear than in the masterful opening shot of Gladiator II, in which Paul Mescal’s hand delicately cradles the swaying wheat fruit of the original film.
Ridley Scott’s influence on Christopher Nolan
It’s no secret that Ridley Scott had a huge influence on Christopher Nolan. He never hid it. Nolan is known for showing his actors Blade Runner before filming began. In 2018, he told biographer Darren Mooney that his love of Scott’s films dates back to his childhood:
“I’ve always been a big fan of Ridley Scott, especially when I was a child. Alien and Blade Runner blew me away because they created these extraordinary worlds which were completely engaging. I was also a big fan of Stanley Kubrick for this very reason […] And that’s what I was focusing on, the idea of the director and how the director could have control over the creative side of the film which is indefinable, but fundamental”.
