Transcription
You might think that the reason many men and a good deal of women love Gladiator is because of the 15 year old and now it's full of gore action and spectacle. But that's not the reason I think people love this movie and watch it again and again over the years.
They love it because it tells a compelling story about the kind of man men want to be and women want to be with. The ideal man, Gladiator, is about how the ideal man acts when confronted with the sometimes brutal and malevolent nature of our world. The name of the ideal man in Gladiator is Maximus. That's a fitting name because he's man at the maximum. He's not just one of the classical archetypes of manhood such as the king, the warrior, the magician, or the lover. He is a very satisfying combination of all the manly archetypes.
In the opening act of the movie, we're presented with what happens to a man who lives life properly. We find Maximus on the tide of a great battle. And even more impressive than the ordered and capable army he commands is the moving way in which his men respect him. It's clear he has won his position through his competence. He's not just a technician expert that gives orders on the sidelines. Maximus plays the game at the highest level and rides at the head of his men into the arena.
Maximus is the epitome of a gentleman. You cannot be a gentle man without being a man first. Someone who can rip off heads in power and fury, but a gentleman then restrains that power to gentleness in order to respect his elders, women, children, and society. What Maximus touches turns to gold. The battle is won and Maximus is the great man. And the more we look, the more we find he's the great man because the way he lives is great. He doesn't want to be on the battlefield shedding blood. "Back to barracks, general." Yet he is on the battlefield because he believes in higher ideals and he lives a life of sacrifice to those ideals. He sacrifices to the political ideal, even in a world where the political ideal has become corrupted. "In reality, I've seen much of the world. It is brutal and cruel, and dark. Rome is the light. Yet you have never been there. You have not seen what it has become." He sacrifices to the ideal of the home and the family. He sacrifices to the transcendent, the higher, and yet uncomprehending forces at play in the world that he has the humility to honor. "My liver to hold them again. Ancestors, I honor you. We'll try to live with the did you've taught me." What he does, he does in service and duty to these ideals, and he lets everything else fall as it may. He is not interested in manipulating the world to his preferred outcome. He sacrifices the present to what is right and lets the future consequences follow with the faith that the future will be the best it can possibly be if he partners with and sacrifices to life. In this way, and onto this type of man, spills the favor of existence. Men want to be this kind of man. Women want to be with this kind of man.
When the Emperor, the god of the Roman Empire, needs a successor who will turn a corrupted state back to its ideal, he turns to Maximus. "What would you have me do, Caesar?" "I want you to become the protector of Rome. After I die, I will empower you to one end alone. So give power back to the people of Rome and end the corruption that has crippled you. Accept this great honor that I have offered you." "With all my heart, no. That is why it must be you." "And what of Commodus, the Emperor's real son?" "The Emperor cannot favor Commodus. Commodus is not a moral man. You have known that since you were young." Commodus and Maximus are not brothers by blood, but the story emphasizes their symbolic brotherhood. "Rome salute you, and I embrace you as a brother." While Maximus sacrifices and his sacrifices bring him the favor of God in life, Commodus also sacrifices. "Congratulations. I shall sacrifice one hundred bulls to only or triumph. Save the wolves. Honor Maximus. He won the bet." But Commodus's sacrifices are not of the same quality and hence do not have the same results as Maximus's. Commodus yearns for the favor of his father and the same kind of favor which life has shown to his brother Maximus. In essence, even Commodus wants to be Maximus. But Commodus is blinded to the ways in which Maximus had to partner with life and sacrifice to life in order to curry its favor. Commodus believes that life can be manipulated according to his own terms, and he's willing to use any means to gain his ends. This sort of manipulation is demonstrated throughout the movie through his relationship with his sister Lucilla, who he doesn't just love as a sister, but with whom he thinks he can twist the rules of affection and make her a sexual partner as well. "Stay with me tonight." He is willing to do anything to manipulate her to act in the way he desires, apparently blind to the way his means make the accomplishment of his goal impossible. And while his manipulations get him some immediate results, he finds that the things he wants the most elude him. "Are you ready to do your duty for Rome?" "You will not be Emperor." Commodus is such a fantastic villain because he is worthy of our pity. He's genuinely trying. We have all met these kinds of people who seek so earnestly to succeed but have had their perception dwarfed to think they can write their own rules for obtaining success. "My decision disappoints you." "He wrote to me once, 'The four chief virtues: wisdom, justice, fortitude.' As I read the list, I knew I had none of them."
The story of Cain and Abel, the archetypal story of the hostile brothers, tells us what happens next when the older brother finds his offerings rejected by God. Instead of accepting his responsibility for his failings, instead of cursing himself, he casts blame on everything else, including existence itself and everyone in it. He curses God and he curses his brother, who stands as a gleaming accusation of everything he is not. And because I loved you beyond simply cursing his ideals, he seeks to destroy them. In Gladiator's version of the story, Commodus succeeds in destroying his father and attempts to destroy Maximus as well. But not just destroy him, he wishes to destroy Maximus's spirit by making Maximus suffer in the most acute way possible because Maximus had stolen the love of the people from whom Commodus most desired it. Commodus would take from Maximus the love of those he most cared about. Those who feel pain most exquisitely know exactly how to produce it in others.
Maximus loses everything: his family, his home, his health, his position, and his people. Everything that is, except his character. And here's where the story gets especially interesting. Maximus is beat down, a shadow of his former self. The story wouldn't be believable unless it were so. "I knew a nobleman, a man of principle who loved my father. That man is gone." And yet, when pressed, aspects of his former character awaken. And just as before, those around him can't help respect that which commands respect. "That's enough for the moment. His time will come." Like having to construct himself anew, Maximus initially lives merely for the ideal of survival. Maximus has made to fight in the gladiator arena, where his supreme confidence once again becomes apparent. And people again rise to their feet in honor of that supreme competence. Maximus despises what he's being made to do in the arena and calls out the crowd for their warped taste for blood, and still they cheer him. Learning that his capability could earn him the chance to be presented in front of the Emperor, now his hostile brother Commodus, Maximus's ideal turns from survival to revenge. "I too understand." "In front of the other." As word of his ability grows, admiration begins to grow in the men around him, and even in Youth, the nephew of the Emperor. This is the story of Joseph of Egypt, the story of how when you try to destroy the ideal man and even thrust him into slavery and the lowest dungeon, an eventual and inevitable collision of opportunity with competence will rocket him back to the top because of a certain attitude that kind of man possesses toward life. "I know any have been in the army." "Yes, I served with your Vindobona." "You can help me. Whatever comes out of these gates, we've got a better chance of survival if we work together. Do you understand?" "If we stay together, we survive."
Maximus's achievements place him right back before the Emperor Commodus, who is unaware he still lives. And Maximus considers killing him then and there to achieve his vengeance. But his principles awaken and get the best of him instead. He lives according to his ideals and lets the consequences follow, just as before. "Your fame is well-deserved, Spaniard. I don't think there's ever been a gladiator like you." "He insists you are Hector reborn." "I was a Thracian." "Why doesn't the hero reveal himself and tell us all your real name?" "You do have a name." "My name is Maximus Decimus Meridius, commander of the armies of the North, General of the Felix legions, loyal servant to the true Emperor Marcus Aurelius, father to a murdered son, husband to a murdered wife. And I will have my vengeance, in this life or the next." As the deadened parts of his character begin to resurrect, everything begins to restore itself. Men honor Maximus wherever he goes, and his motivation slowly transforms from seeking vengeance to the nobler pursuits of sacrificing himself to the higher ideals. Commodus is incensed with internal conflict and rage. He plans a final manipulation where he mortally wounds Maximus before pretending to challenge him to battle in the arena to prove his strength and valor and gain the admiration of the people. But once again, Commodus misjudges the nature of being. He misjudges the ways that the ideal man has contracted with being with a certain attitude that, in the long run, however unexpectedly, ensures him the favor of life.
Both Commodus and Maximus suffered tremendously in life. Both died at the end of the story, as we all will. But Commodus dies having lost everything he ever valued, while Maximus dies having gained all he ever valued. What was the essential difference, the key of wisdom separating these two opposing brothers? If we're not, if things are not laying themselves out for us as they should be, then we cannot curse God. We have to look to ourselves. Well, and you think, well, why not curse God? Because maybe it's his fault. And that's a really good question. And one of the things that I've tried to figure out over the last 30 years is, well, why not just curse God? Because there is this arbitrary element to existence, and we are vulnerable, and there is plenty of suffering, and things are unfair. Like, there's problems, right? There's injustice and unfairness and all of these things and endless suffering. So why not just lay it at the feet of God? And the whether God exists or not, in some sense, by the way, with regards to the metaphysics of this particular discussion, is not relevant. It's the point remains the same either way. And the answer is, as far as I can tell, that if you refuse to take on the responsibility yourself and you attempt to lay it at the feet of either society or being itself, then you instantly start to act in a way that makes everything much worse, not only for you but for everyone else, and maybe even for being itself. And so, no, it's not helpful. Now, if you're, if you decide that it's you, you've got the problem, maybe that's not even true. Like, maybe you are someone who's being tortured by the bet between God and Satan, and like, too bad for you if that happens to be the case. But it still seems to be the appropriate thing for a human being who's standing on his or her own two feet in a proper manner to take the responsibility on for themselves, regardless of the counter arguments that might be made against it. That's really something you.