There is an affinity between ancient Rome and science fiction that is stronger than most

people realise. The depiction of both in the cinema requires the use of imagination and

creativity on the part of the director, the production designer and art teams. With science-

fiction, this is almost wholly imaginative. An element of imagination is needed to bring

the city of Rome to life, the archaeological data is incomplete and that which is known is

open to much debate, criticism and reinterpretation, such as the many location of the

Temple of Jupiter Stator. This gives those depicting Rome the scope to create their own

world in order to express a message and ideology which they wish to convey, be it Rome

as decadent, totalitarian or declining. These are also elements common in science-fiction.

Ridley Scott, the director of Gladiator, made his name with two of the most influential

science-fiction films of the twentieth-century, Blade Runner and Alien. I aim to show in

this paper how Scott’s depiction of Rome and use of landscape follows the tradition of

science-fiction architecture.

A key feature of science-fiction films is the dystopian element; large scale buildings

falling into corrupt decay whilst people are reassured from above that all is well.1 These

cities are often set in a mode that is semi-familiar, drawing on recognisable elements so

the illusion of ‘this could happen to you’ is not lost on the audience. Probably the most

famous example is the statue of Liberty at the end of The Planet of the Apes (1968). As

the major market is American, it is America we often see. This is no different in

Gladiator. The original screenwriter, David Franzoni, says his Rome in Gladiator stands

as a metaphor for the United States. Scott continued this theme, stating that he wanted

Rome to have the feeling of New York skyscrapers, towering over Maximus below, even

1
Mennel (2008) 140-6; Kuhn (1999) 75-6.
more striking when one considers that New York was the main visual influence Blade

Runner.2 These structures emphasised the competition and sign of success; there was a

grand scale. Scott wanted his Rome to utilise this scale and be reminiscent of New York

and a sense of greatness, but also corruption and subsequent decay.3 With decay comes

dirt. Traditionally cities in science-fiction were sterile, as in Metropolis (1927) or THX-

1138 (1971) and Equilibrium (2002), but Scott’s Alien and Blade Runner (1982) differ,

the future is a cramped and dirty place.

Scott wanted his Rome to have a grand scale. This matches his earlier films; in

Alien the Nostromo towers above the crew when they land on the alien planet, an effect

Scott achieved by using children in wide shots to make the ship appear bigger. 4 Scott

told his visual effects designers that he wanted the Colosseum to look like a ‘Mother-ship

coming to land.’5 It is clear that Scott has science-fiction on his mind when he imaged

the depiction of the city, and a clear source of inspiration is Blade Runner; Los Angeles

in Blade Runner consists of huge structures, like the CGI shots of Rome; it is also a

crowded and lived in postmodern city, a utopia gone horribly wrong in which people of

different cultures survive in the rubbish from excess consumerism and capitalism and are

in need of entertainment for distraction (for it is in a packed bar that one of the rogue

replicants, Zhora, is found, and let us not forget the distracting entertainment value of the

Roman games; as Gracchus says, ‘He will conjure magic for them and they will be

distracted. He will take away their freedom, and still they will roar’.

2
DVD Historical commentary; Sammon (1999) 75, 97
3
Commentary 2 disc; Lyman (2000); HBO First Look. 3 disc commentary, VFX Visual Effects.
4
Scott (1979).
5
VFX DVD 3
 Felperin wrote that Blade Runner and Gladiator act as a similar warning, the

architecture of Gladiator will become that of Blade Runner, doomed.6 It is here where the

people themselves have limits on their lives, for as J.F. Sebastian, the technician, and the

Replicants in Blade Runner, are all dying, so Maximus and the other gladiators are

conscious that they will likely die in the arena; all their days are numbered in the city.7

This decay is not universal but confined to certain areas of the city, Rome in

Gladiator, like many science-fiction cities, is layered. This is seen most starkly with Fritz

Lang’s Metropolis, the founding film of science-fiction and a huge influence on Blade

Runner. This film is built on architectural layering showing a person’s status in society

with the rich at the top and the poor living below ground and under the machines, living

in slavery and ‘dull obedience.’8 This film had a direct impact on Blade Runner; both

films depict the wealthy and elite, Joh Fredersen, the founder of Metropolis, and Tyrell,

the creator of the replicants in Blade Runner, live above the squalor below, in the light

and air (although the light itself is often tainted), a technique Scott later used in

Gladiator.9 Metropolis is noted for its segregation of the wealthy and the workers on

different layers of the city.10 The use of level elevation is a staple in science-fiction films,

featuring in the depiction of New York in The Fifth Element (1997) where lower New

York is service areas and the very bottom is caked in impenetrable, uninhabitable ‘fog’.

The layers play a central part in the use of elevation within film to show hierarchy

and ideologies of the characters. In Gladiator, this elevation is used to convey authority.
6
Felperin (2000) 34.
7
Bulkatman (2005) 12; Desser (1999) 93; Bruno (1990) 184-7.
8
Svhall (2010) 20
9
Bulkatman (2005) 61-3.
10
For more on Metropolis see Rutsky (1993) and Desser (1999).
Maximus surveys his troops from higher ground when he is first seen, but he is still

amongst them, and is amongst the cavalry charge that he had admitted, in the previous

scene, is at risk. Maximus is always on the lower levels being looked upon, whether in

the arenas or fighting on the field, even the children in Africa stand on top of his cage. If

he wants to be reached, then people come to his level; Marcus Aurelius comes from his

vantage point of the battle field to talk to Maximus, not vice-versa, and when Commodus

encounters Maximus in the Colosseum it is always in the arena. This established

Maximus as hard working, not elite, essentially an everyday man of the people, as well as

robbing him of his rightful elevated position. He is only elevated when encountering or

discussing death, including talking to Juba in Zuccabar on the rooftop, talking to Proximo

about killing in the arena and later rising up from the subterraneum passages below the

Colosseum before his fight in which Maximus kills Commodus, an act that will result in

his own death. When he finally does die, Maximus is carried above the shoulders of his

comrades. Death is Maximus’ elevation. It is how he can be with his family; his value is

in family and not money or status. Upon his death all are in the lower arena with

Maximus, the senators, gladiators, guards and Lucilla, the sign that now all are equal

under the look of the people, a true Republic.

In contrast, earlier in the film, the Senate and Commodus survey the action from

raised tiers and are only rarely amongst them. When they are with the people, it is the

popularist politicians of Falco and Gracchus in the bar, not the treacherous senator Gaius;

and when Lucilla and Gracchus go to speak to Maximus, Maximus does not go to them in

their homes or elevated positions but they instead visit him in the Ludus Magnus. Only

one character breaks this rule, Proximo. The character is an enigma in the film, a money-
driven business man, like Tyrell in Blade Runner, who looks for profit and cares about

little else, but Proximo has worked his way up. He walks amongst the gladiators as a

former one himself, but sits in a carried sedan chair and has a room overlooking his

complex. He is never as high up as the Roman elite, as a former gladiator with infamia,

that would be impossible, but he has risen. He surveys his kingdom of sand and barren

dust in Zucchabar from this elevated position, but his vantage point for the games is from

a ‘corporate box’, elevated but not with the senators or other Roman citizens who would

outrank him.

Commodus, the highest ranking man in the film, surveys all, be it in the arena or

the city itself from his palace, looking over cityscapes of Rome. This follows the Roman

tradition, as argued by Frischer, that the emperor and elite were on an elevated position,

with even statues and arches of such people elevated on plinths looking down on people

in a display of control over the state.11 Therefore, the emperor as elevated bears some

truth archaeologically, but in Gladiator the visuals stem from a science-fiction tradition

that features heavily in Scott’s own filmographic background. The comparisons between

these two shots of Commodus in Rome and Tyrell in Blade Runner is very strong. The

view of Rome when Commodus learns of Maximus’s capture is similar to the view of

Tyrell when he first meets Deckard in his 700-storey Mayan-styled ziggurat. The entire

city is below the person in complete power; the cities are even bathed in the same golden

light. Both leading men, Commodus and Tyrell, live in raised buildings above the

squalor below in a statement of wealth and power.12 In Gladiator, Rome is seen from an

elevated position by other characters, but always in relation to control, Lucilla looks over

11
Frischer et al (2006) 177-181.
12
Carper (1997) 186
Rome after her meeting concerning Commodus’ death where she has power over his life

and death, Commodus looks over Rome when he has captured the rebels and is

reaffirming his position, before threatening a seated Lucilla with the death of her son,

bending down to scream in her face ‘Am I not merciful?’ Lucilla, defeated, is forced to

look up to him.

Another feature seen in Gladiator and common in science fiction is the contrast

between urban and rural. Cities in films like Metropolis contain fear, danger, oppression,

and loneliness.13 These emotions are certainly felt by Maximus in Rome. The rural

landscape, however, stands for decency, honesty and good moral values, one might say,

traditional American values long associated with rural society since Thomas Jefferson

and an image used by other American thinkers including Poe, Hawthorne, Emerson, and

later presidents including Carter, Reagan and Clinton.14 Jefferson cited rural values

centred round equality, family and wholesome work to fend for oneself and family, as

central to American ideals. He said in his Query XIX, that ‘those who labour in the earth

are the chosen people of God, if ever he had a chosen people,’ and, in a letter to Benjamin

Rush, that cities are injurious to ‘the morals, the health, and the liberties of man.’15 As

Yarbrough points out in his work on Jefferson, this is in conflict with current American

suburban life. Maximus is the American hero of old, showing the people in the city of

the corrupting influences around them. He remains true to his values of family, farm and

faith, values engrained in him and connected to his rural home. There is a recurrent

theme in mainstream American cinema of morality and American values of family, faith
13
Neumann (1996) 36.
14
Cyrino (2005b) 141-2; Rose (2005) 162. Cyrino (2005a) 249. Yarbrough (1998) 55-85, AlSayyadd (2006)
6.
15
Yarbrough (1998) 84. TJ to Dr Benjamin Rush Sept 23 1800, WTJ X:173-6
and decency coming from rural connection. Superman in the 1978 film Superman learns

such values and, like Maximus, represents a conservative masculinity from his rural

American upbringing with the Kents and fights for “truth and justice and the American

way” in the city where the values are lost.16 In case some of you do not believe

Superman to be a true science fiction film then let us look at one of the defining films of

the genre, Star Wars. The hero, Luke, is raised on a farm in a rural, albeit desert, setting.

The majority of rebels are encountered in rural settings, Tatooine, Hoth, Endor and, of

course, Yoda and his swamp; in contrast the empire are based on a man made planet,

surrounded by greys, blacks and machines with nothing natural, even Darth Vadar is half

machine.17

The countryside is also the place of freedom from city oppression, with many

principle characters in science fiction films obtaining their freedom this way. It can be

seen, for example, in the 1982 cinema-release version of Blade Runner, which used

unused footage from the beginning of The Shining, Fahrenheit 451 (1966) and THX-

1138, and an original (but later disregarded plan) for Metropolis.18 In Terry Gilliam’s

Brazil (1985) this conflict is shown within a variety of dream sequences; the city literally

springs out of the countryside, it later on prevents Sam from escaping by literally holding

him down, but he and his lover, Jill, eventually escape, albeit only in a dream.

In the cities of Blade Runner, THX-1138 and in Metropolis outside the Greek-

stadium style Club of the Sons there is no greenery as science and technology have taken

over, even the animals are artificial.19 This influenced Scott’s depiction of Rome.

16
Mennel (2008) 137-139.
17
Lamster (2000) 231-234.
18
Desser (1999) 95; Elsaesser (2000) footnote 81); Schnall (2010) 20.
19
Bulkatman (2005) 63.
Ancient Rome was filled with horti, gardens, but none are in Scott’s vision. The only

person with any living trees in their garden is Gracchus, the only decent politician.

In essence, the countryside is fighting against the city. Maximus only wants to

return home, and when this is gone, he wants to go to Elysium which mirrors his home.20

Maximus, from the countryside, is connected to the earth, it is when he touches the earth

after he is taken by the slave traders that he is revived, and before every battle Scott

wanted Maximus to rub his hands in the soil; this is a connection to his agricultural roots

but also, for Scott, a connection to death for as a soldier he knows every battle could be

his last.21 Even in the barren city of Rome where the only plants are in pots or petals

falling from the sky, essentially false and dead plants, Maximus wears a tree on his

breastplate, a poplar from his home.22 It is clear Scott is showing nature as beneficial and

morally good, and the city as corrupting.

In conclusion, Scott’s presentation of Rome is as a dystopia. He presents this by

combining recognisable dystopian elements from science-fiction. Scott has drawn on his

previous work in the science-fiction genre to do this, a genre that has a long and establish

tradition of presenting cities as such. Gladiator is essentially Blade Runner with actual

blades, a science-fiction film set in Ancient Rome and the architecture is used

accordingly.

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Filmography
 Alien. 1979. [Film] Directed by Ridley Scott. USA. Brandywine Productions.
 Blade Runner. 1982. [Film]. Directed by Ridley Scott. USA. The Ladd Company.
 Brazil. 1985. [Film]. Directed by Terry Gilliam. UK. Embassy International Pictures N.V.
 Equilibrium. 2002. [Film]. Directed by Kurt Wimmer. USA. Dimension Films.
 Fahrenheit 451. 1966. [Film]. Directed by François Truffaut. USA, UK and France. Anglo
Enterprises. Vineyard Film Ltd.
 Gladiator. 2000. [Film]. Directed by Ridley Scott. USA. Scott Free Production.
 Metropolis. 1927. [Film]. Directed by Fritz Lang. Germany. Universum Film AG.
 Return of the Jedi. 1983. [Film]. Directed by Richard Marquand. USA. Lucasfilm.
 Star Wars. 1977. [Film]. Directed by George Lucas. USA. Lucasfilm.
 Superman. 1978. [Film]. Directed by Richard Donner. Panama, Switzerland, United Kingdom.
Dovemead, Film Export A.G., International Film Productions .
 The Empire Strikes Back. 1980. [Film]. Directed by Irvin Kershner. USA. Lucasfilm.
 The Fifth Element. 1997. [Film]. Directed by Luc Besson. UK/France. Gaumont Film Company.
 The Planet of the Apes. 1968. [Film]. Directed by Franklin J. Schaffner. USA. 20th Century Fox.
 THX 1138. 1971. [Film]. Directed by George Lucas. USA. American Zoetrope.