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Gladiator: Tragic Hero Analysis

Introduction

Gladiator, a historic drama film, directed by Ridley Scott, is a tragedy in many ways because it comprises many plots throughout the movie. A tragedy is a movie in which one characters actions lead to their downfall or death. In the movie Gladiator, tragedy is shown through Commodus' (Joaquin Phoenix) actions to become emperor, the fall of Maximus (Russell Crowe) and the pain that he goes through in order to get revenge and the death of both Commodus and Maximus at the end of the movie. Though Maximus is the hero of the film but the character of Commodus is equally important and powerful that is why their characters as tragic heroes are analyzed in this paper.

Discussion

Gladiator's argument has plenty in common with the movie, 1964: Tenth Maximum Roman general, commander of the Roman legions in Germania, is appointed by the old Emperor Marcus Aurelius as his successor, to the detriment of Commodus, his own son. Comfortable, jealous of the preference that both his sister Lucilla as shown towards his father Max, murders Marcus Aurelius and orders to kill the general and his wife and son, after which he proclaimed new emperor. The general's family dies, but he manages to survive, at the expense of serious injuries. Captured by slave traders, Maximus is sold to lanista East, who convinces the former general to fight as a gladiator, allowing you to win favor with the public and carry out his desire for revenge. After successive battles, in which Max reveals his skill as a warrior, became a folk hero to the point of which is claimed in Rome to fight in the Coliseum?

This synopsis could suggest a typical protagonist of modern action movies, passed through the filters of history on film. However, the character of Maximus is very different from one-dimensional to those heroes that Hollywood usually does, since it brings together very diverse and evocative nuances: before a relentless warrior beset by revenge, is a chief responsible, a loyal comrade, and, above all, a man devoted to his family, who wants to return to his estate of Hispania to harvest their crops. Certain features of the character of Max, as his religion, his modesty, his capacity for tenderness, even stoic fatalism with which endures the pain for the cruel loss of their loved ones, they are rarer in film consumption in recent time.

Amidst the classic Hollywood epic which is filled with muscular heroes and their sentimental martyrdoms and sacrifices, Gladiator is a harshly tragic movie. The details of the plot bind Maximus and Commodus together dedicating life for the destruction of each other. The whole story of the film presents a deadly logic of enmity which intertwined their tragic destinies. The movie is consisted of two tragic plots. One is of Commodus' and other is of Maximus'. Commodus tragedy is of evil and tyrant character and then there is Maximus whose tragedy falls under the heroic one. The tragedy of ...