The Flying Scott

Ridley Scott has been a well known corner stone of the film industry for a long time...creating a large number of hits...lets briefly glance at 3...

Gladiator

The famous one, the one which he won a lot of awards for, this Roman epic in my opinion is one of the best films up there with Gandhi and Shindlers List. One of the reasons why it is so epic is the sheer quality of the writing. Take the evil character, who is wrought as an almost Shakespearean villain, using great phrases like ‘He vexes me, I feel terribly vexed.’ Most of the dialogue does sound as if it has come from Macbeth itself. The Quasi-religious symbolism is everywhere, promoting Rome as a wonder and a God. Russell Crowe plays another one of his perfect parts, proving that he is every much a chameleon actor than Alec Guinness or even Peter Sellers. The Cinematography is breathtaking, giving us shaky camera warfare at its intense. Contradicting the theatrical like dialogue, the camera is very naturalistic and Ridley Scotts attention to detail in many of the scenes is breathtaking.

Watch out for: The scene when the new Emperor returns to Rome, with cheering and the scene begging on the eagle standard, this is a copy of the Nazi propaganda video from the 1940’s using the same camera sweeps. In the Coliseums many of the spectators are wearing wrist watchers!

Bladerunner

One for the science fiction fans out there, this must be one of the most written about films in these few decades. The sheer complexity of the masterpiece cannot be taken in on one viewing so only watch this if you are prepared to watch it again. The story of a special cop in future LA tracking down ‘replicates’ bio-machines might sound simple but Ridley Scott has buried in this piece the whole question of what is human? Future LA is a dark underworld, very different from the glistening super city of ‘Star Wars’. Again Ridley Scott outclasses himself by creating this culture ridden decaying city, it’s just too intense to describe. The scenes are beautifully framed by music by ‘Vangelis’ and the mix of light and shadow everywhere gives this thrilling part detective thriller a shadowy edge.

Watch out for: Is Bladerunner a replicant? Who is the Bladerunner? Just think on that,

This film has had a troubled history, re-cut and released 5 times already as different versions you can occasionally feel the disjointed nature of the whole film, yet it fits with the plot perfectly.

Kingdom of Heaven

This film should have been a new ‘Gladiator’ and in places you can see the depth and the quality which reminds you of Gladiator. There are a few factors in which it falls down on, the first is most importantly that the script is not as good as Gladiators was, there are elements in which you can see flaws. This might have been because of the acting; Gladiator has the brilliance of Russell Crowe and Derek Jacobi to power it along. Yet Kingdom of Heaven does have Liam Neesom in (Shindlers List, Star Wars) and Jeremy Irons puts up a good show, yet it is ruined by Orlando Bloom. The boring man of cinema, Orlando Bloom found fame with Lord of the Rings, when everyone thought he was a great Legolas (an emotionally dampened elf) yet many people came to realize after that, that he really is emotionally dampened. We can now see a weakness in Ridley Scotts directing, he is a ‘design’ director, concentrating on the arty side of a film creating the detail. Kingdom of Heaven has immense detail in many of the army scenes and city scenes. Yet through concentrating on this he does ignores the actors on set. Harrison Ford playing in Bladerunner was very unhappy when he was ignored by the director and had to create his own image of the character (Ford was used to Spielberg and Lucas’s perfect balanced partnership). So Orlando Bloom played the main character in KoH and he ruined it, his zero emotional turmoil wastes good close up shots.

Watch out for: The number of time Orlando Bloom shouts ‘fire!’ in the same tone of voice at the end.