Someone isn’t happy with Ridley Scott’s late-period evolution as a filmmaker – but crikey, it’s his Gladiator II cinematographer.
Given his penchant for speaking his mind, we’re not entirely surprised to learn that Ridley Scott has upset somebody. However, it is somewhat eyebrow raising to discover that the person criticising the Gladiator II director is cinematographer John Mathieson, a long-time collaborator of Scott’s. The director of photography even shot Scott’s current film, Gladiator II, and that movie seems to be part of the problem.
In fact, Mathieson has worked with Scott on both Gladiator films, not to mention Hannibal, Robin Hood, Matchstick Men and Kingdom Of Heaven. It’s probably safe to assume that their creative partnership has reached its end considering the broadside that the cinematographer has launched at Scott’s late-period style of working. This came on the DocFix podcast, and was reported by World Of Reel.
“It’s really lazy.” says Mathieson. “It’s the CG [computer graphic] elements now of tidying-up, leaving things in shot, cameras in shot, microphones in shot, bits of set hanging down, shadows from booms. And they just said [on Gladiator II], ‘Well, clean it up.”
Read more: Gladiator II review | Ridley Scott serves up another sumptuous tale of blood and circuses
Scott is certainly racing through projects these days, having released four major productions in the last four years. While that kind of speed might necessitate multi-camera setups and digital clean-ups, it’s not to the liking of everybody: “It’s not very good for cinematography,’ states Mathieson. “[You] can only light from one angle. Look at his older films and getting depth into things was very much part of lighting. You can’t do that with a lot of cameras but he just wants to get it all done.”
The cinematographer ultimately concedes that “people love his films and he’s Ridley Scott and can do what he wants.”
Scott briefly talked about his concise way of working in our recent interview. These days, the filmmaker prefers a minimal number of takes (“Max three,” Gladiator II star Paul Mescal says) and scenes shot with as many as 11 cameras whirring away at once.
“Normally, it’s two or three takes and we’re done,” Scott told us. “And I always use 11 cameras. Four to 11 cameras. So you schedule for the day, but you’re done by 11 o’clock. And the actors say, ‘Goddamn, we did 40 set-ups this morning’. And they’re thrilled to bits with themselves.”
Read more: Ridley Scott interview | Gladiator II, Alien 3, tennis, art and baboons
Mathieson, if his recent comments are anything to go by, was less thrilled to bits through this whole process. Gladiator II is currently in cinemas at the moment and its use of CGI in some of the films fight sequences has once again sparked debate about the quality and use of such tools and the negative impact they can have on immersion. Still, as Mathieson says, Ridley can do things as he wants to do things. That much at least, is undeniable.
But crikey: all a bit unexpected.
You can read our in-depth feature on Ridley Scott and the making of his latest epic in the similarly huge, 168-page Film Stories issue 52, available to purchase now.
