Big Screen Rome - Amazon Web Services

American imagination, the line between this world and the next is becoming
blurred, and the passage after death is made easier by the comforting
presence of our immediate family members and closest friends. The phenomenon
of communicating with the dead is readily apparent in the
American popular media, in films like M. Night Shyamalan’s The Sixth
Sense (1999) and Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris (2002), and in television
shows like HBO’s Six Feet Under (2001–5) and NBC’s Medium (2005–
current). These all highlight the theme of reunion, the compelling belief
that loved ones are still accessible after death, and it is never too late to
reconnect with family members and close friends who have “crossed over.”
Implicit in these popular constructions of the afterlife is the concept
that the boundary between life and death is permeable and will disintegrate
under the forces of human love. When Juba asks Maximus if his
family can hear his voice in the afterlife, Maximus answers without hesitation:
“Oh, yes.” When Juba presses, “What do you say to them?” Maximus
says: “To my boy, I tell him I will see him again soon, to keep his heels
down while riding his horse. To my wife . . . that is not your business.”
His wistful answer evokes the idea of the afterlife current in Roman antiquity
that the spirits of the honorable dead could engage in the same
activities they enjoyed during their lifetimes. Yet it also resonates with the
growing popular notion that the souls of one’s deceased loved ones do not
reside in a traditionally construed Judaeo-Christian heaven or hell; rather,
they exist in some neutral place where they can still communicate with the
living. In Gladiator, the loss of his family is the single most powerful force
motivating Maximus, and the viewers’ feelings of assurance that he will be
reunited with them after his death imbues the harsh ending of the film
with a sense of gratification and positive resolution.
Maximus’ yearning for his family in the afterlife is represented in a
series of mesmerizing moments, the spiritual meaning of which becomes
apparent only in the last scene. At the opening, and punctuating important
transitional moments throughout the movie, dream-like images
appear that are initially difficult to understand. A man’s brawny hand ruffles
through a wheat field in the first shot, as children’s laughter is heard. A
long row of mournful cypress trees stands still against a gray, rocky landscape.
There is a desolate stretch of pale stone wall, overgrown with weeds,
and above it a dramatic sky streaked with color promises a storm. The
vision of wheat fields suggests an association with the story of the Roman
goddess of the underworld, Proserpina, who is restored to her mother,
Ceres, the goddess of the grain, in the summertime as the crops bear fruit.
GLADIATOR (2000) 253