ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME DIRECTOR PORTRAYS - AND EMBELLISHES - GLORY OF ANCIENT CITY, EPIC GENRE.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Writer

``Gladiator'' is not your grandfather's, well, gladiator movie.

The first film that Hollywood has produced in more than 3 1/2 decades to focus on ancient Rome's brutal ``circus'' games, the new epic - which stars ``Insider'' Oscar nominee Russell Crowe as general-turned-slave Maximus and was directed by English pictorialist Ridley Scott (``Alien,'' ``Blade Runner'') - boasts numerous up-to-the-minute movie qualities.

``It just seemed like, while risky, an irresistible challenge to try to bring this genre to a new generation of moviegoers ... and, hopefully, to try to reinvent it as something that is not just about spectacle or is not silly in any way,'' says DreamWorks executive Walter Parkes, whose company co-produced the $103 million picture with Universal Studios. ``We really wanted it to be a dramatically and emotionally legitimate piece of entertainment.''

Reportedly rewritten while it was being filmed, ``Gladiator's'' relative modernism is evident from the start. It commences with a massive, ``Braveheart''-style pitched battle and employs extensive use of computer- generated imagery to fill out its sumptuous visual plan.

And certain attitudes have been modernized from the genre's 1950s and early '60s heyday. Unlike ``Quo Vadis,'' ``Barabbas,'' ``Demetrius and the Gladiators'' and even the B.C.-set high point of the cycle, Stanley Kubrick's ``Spartacus,'' Christianity is not presented as ``Gladiator's'' alternative to pagan depravity; liberal democracy is.

Also, interestingly, the new film's demented, evil emperor Commodus (Joaquin Phoenix) is demonized by the desire to sleep with his sister, not the implied homosexuality that characterized the '50s and '60s tyrants. And the object of her brother's incestuous attention, Connie Nielsen's Lucilla, is a capable woman who would no doubt make a better ruler than he does - which is a far cry from the lust-crazed vamps who used to represent Rome's female aristocracy.

That stuff aside, though, ``Gladiator'' delivers the classic goods: extravagant sets, delectable decadence and mucho man-to-man struggling to the death. Filmed in England, Morocco and on the Mediterranean island of Malta, shooting involved actually burning down a stretch of British forest (it was scheduled for demolition anyway) and restaging the most elaborate of arena contests, some involving charging chariots and live tigers.

The movie's logistical centerpiece, of course, was rebuilding parts of ancient Rome and its massive Colosseum as it looked during the Empire's height, circa A.D. 180.

``I like making worlds as a director,'' Scott explains. ``I don't mind making contemporary movies, but I love getting into that whole process of getting a world right. It required all kinds of preconceptions and visualizations, from costumes to weapons to fighting choreography, but especially for the Forum and Rome itself.

``I had a model of the place I decided to do that in, which was an existing piece of architecture on Malta,'' Scott continues. ``It had been a military base for the English army against Napoleon in 1803, and it had been constructed in a Romanesque fashion. It was fantastic and it was derelict - so we loved it! It was like $10 million of free building work immediately.''

But even with such a start, it would have been economically prohibitive to physically re-create even scale facades of the entire Colosseum. It cost $1 million for production designer Arthur Max's team just to build a third of the circular stadium's first tier. The other two-thirds of the structure's circumference, as well as the entirety of its upper two tiers, were meticulously added in post-production via computer graphics.

The resulting images look terrific. But are they the most accurate reproductions of second-century Rome ever filmed? While he trumpets the exhaustive research that went into the production, Scott shrugs off the very notion that such fidelity is even feasible.

Or desirable.

``We had a scholar involved, but, you know, there's a limit to what you want to hear,'' the director says dismissively. ``When you hear that no women had colorful clothes, they all wore white, you go, 'Ohh-kaaay. How do you know?' ''

``We did all our due diligence,'' adds production designer Max. ``We did our research, we went to all the museums in Italy and England, we went to Pompeii. We looked at everything there was in all the books and all the archives ... And then we decided that it wasn't rich enough or exciting enough for us.

``So we took a bit of license. We got more inspiration from the painters of the 18th-and 19th-century neoclassical traditions; we liked the way they imagined Rome to be. Once we got rolling, we kind of left the scholastic and historical behind because we didn't find it juicy enough.''

Maybe not, but the historical record was certainly too bloody for the filmmakers' tastes. ``Gladiator'' is undoubtedly the most explicitly violent movie Hollywood has ever produced in the genre, if only by dint of being the first one made since the late '60s relaxation of the censorship code.

Since then, however, commercial considerations have had their own effect on how much off-putting, graphic gore producers are willing to approve, especially in big-budget movies that need as wide an audience pool as possible to make a profit.

``It is a violent movie,'' Parkes acknowledges. ``But honestly, what we show pales in comparison to what actually happened in the arena. In fact, very early on, I had intense conversations with Ridley about this. I said that, if we preclude the possibility of a father bringing his 10-year-old son to this movie, that would be a mistake. There is a classic aspect to this genre, there is a way that all of us grew up loving 'Spartacus' and these things, and although we want to make it real and present Rome in a way that audiences have never seen, it can never be gratuitous.''

``In the shooting, you've got to plan,'' Scott explains. ``In a fight, you've got have the person who's going to deliver the blow and the person who's going to receive the blow, and you've got to follow it through. But the decision comes in the editing room. You look at it and go, 'Now, do I need to see the arm coming off? Do I need to see blood shoot?' I'd rather leave it to the imagination, so I clip it right on the edge. It's where you cut it that makes it visceral, so you think you've seen a lot but you can't quite put a finger on what you've seen.''

Don't mention the word finger to the easily riled Crowe. As far as he was concerned, ``Gladiator'' came much too close for comfort to capturing the real thing.

``It was a very hard experience, the most physically demanding thing I'd ever done,'' says Crowe, who, besides having to train like a lunatic in ancient fighting techniques, was required to lose some 40 pounds he'd put on for his ``Insider'' performance in roughly a month between productions. ``When I made that (hockey) film, 'Mystery, Alaska,' I didn't think I could find a movie where I could punish myself any more than that. But I was wrong; I managed to.

``This was difficult, man, it was full on. I cracked a bone in my foot, I fractured my hip, both bicep tendons popped out ... I still don't have any feeling in the top of a finger 'cause it got slashed in the very first battle sequence by a sword that was covered in dirt. Different films just have different requirements, you know?''

And different emergencies, though few films suffer as tragic a bit of bad luck as ``Gladiator'' did. Oliver Reed, the larger-than-life English actor with the legendary appetite for living, died suddenly just before completing his role as Proximo, Maximus' greedy but secretly noble gladiatorial master.

``It was really sad, because I've known Ollie for 25 years,'' recalls Scott, who managed to complete Reed's performance with a little computer magic. ``He liked his drinking, but he saved it for the weekends - and he popped off in a pub on a Sunday morning. But, you know, he had a great time and a great life and great work, so you can't feel too sad about it.''

No sentimentalist Scott. The man's cool response to just about any challenge not only served him well on the massive ``Gladiator'' shoot, it helped him weather the stormy development of his currently lensing project: ``Hannibal,'' the long-awaited sequel to the widely loved, multi-Oscar-winning thriller ``The Silence of the Lambs.'' As Scott tells it, he never expected Jodie Foster to return as heroic FBI agent Clarice Starling, even though the actress hedged for months before finally turning down the part, in which Clarice may perform some rather alarming acts. (Anthony Hopkins opted to reprise his indelible performance as charismatic flesh-eater Hannibal Lecter.)

Scott was also amused by the swirl of press speculation over who would play Starling - which focused on such dainty unlikelies as Gwyneth Paltrow and Cate Blanchett - while he had his sights set on fearlessly adventurous Julianne Moore (``Boogie Nights,'' ``The Lost World'') all along.

``I'd be reading the news and the press would have another report, and I'd go, 'That's interesting, I didn't know that,' '' Scott says of the ``Hannibal'' buzz. ``It was good, thank you, it drives the bus. But at the end of the day, I think Julianne was a good choice; she's one of the best of her generation. And Tony was always in, providing the script was good. He thought (Thomas Harris') book was great fun, as did I; I mean, I managed to read it in three days toward the end of shooting this film, which must mean it's pretty good.''

How that tricky tale turns out on screen remains to be seen. But early reviews of ``Gladiator'' have been cautiously glowing, indicating that the genre may be back after a long absence from the commercial arena.

At least for those involved, it was a demanding spectacle worth suffering for.

``The whole experience helped me grow,'' Crowe admits. ``It was an extreme amount of pressure, very long hours, the difficulty of not having a fully realized narrative before we began ... But, you see, I took a leap of faith on this film. It's turned out OK, and what I've learned is that, as long as you're involving yourself with the right people, a leap of faith is possible.''

Sounds like one of Grandpa's gladiator movies after all.

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3 photos

Photo: (1 -- cover -- color) MAXIMUS ENTERTAINIUS

'Gladiator' roars into theaters with spectacular effects and daring action

(2 -- 3) Computer-generated sets of ancient Rome and its massive Colosseum, top, were used for ``Gladiator.'' Russell Crowe, above, says of his role, ``It was a very hard experience, the most physically demanding thing I'd ever done.''