‘Gladiator II′: Enjoy the show, read books to learn history

A few minutes after the release of the Gladiator II trailer, social networks convulsed and swiftly the first criticisms of Ridley Scott’s historical rigor began to appear. These types of film have become the star in their own right of a competition in search of error, presentism, anachronism, and nonsense. An escalation of egos to demonstrate how wrong the director is about Roman history. Many of these critics — improvised and, in many cases, poorly versed in ancient Rome — even felt violated and offended. Some suffered an attack of responsibility for educating the public, to show the viewer that Scott’s vision is not the History of Rome.

They argue that the spectator takes the data presented on screen for granted — a problem that not only exists in cinema, but also in novels and video games with historical settings — and that Scott has the obligation to be completely faithful to history in order to tell his story.

But in this crusade in the defense of historical truth and rigor that a few people are arrogating to themselves, they forget that cinema is not required to teach history. Let’s face it: to learn history you read books; you don’t go to the movies.

Part of the blame for these rigorist movements lies with teachers who use movies in the classrooms of young students. I am not against their use in artistic disciplines. I am, however, against their use in classical culture, history, Greek and Latin. Professors and teachers, please: a film is not a historical document. It does not serve to talk about history in a learning space. Even if they argue that what they do is to take historical data to teach history. Let’s be honest, at the end of the day, the impression that remains in the students, and future viewers, is that a film is useful to learn about history. That it is at the same level as a textbook or an essay.

Cinema is art. Like novels, poetry, painting, architecture, music, or sculpture. It is the so-called seventh art. All of these have used ancient Rome as an excuse to create a work. We know that this is not the prerogative of cinema. It has been the case since Rome existed. Do they contain historical errors? Of course they do. But we understand them as art, and we ignore them in order to enjoy their beauty. Art has to make us vibrate. Art does not teach history.

Some people gnash their teeth and rage that Scott doesn’t listen to historical advisors. He’s not obliged to. Let’s face it, art is art. Who do we think we are to demand that an artist filmmaker make a film that meets our expectations of historical rigor? Maybe what happens is that we criticize what we do not try to understand. Let’s relax a little and enjoy art. Including that which Scott offers us.

I am sure that the second part of the Gladiator movie we enjoyed so much in 2000 will not leave us indifferent 24 years later. I look forward to Gladiator II thrilling us again with the quality of its scenery, its script, special effects, costumes, soundtrack and so many other elements that inspire a film that promises to be a work of art.

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