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I would now like to discuss one of the best stories I’ve seen in modern cinema And i’m talking about the movie gladiator that came out in 2000 starting russell crowe and jack win phoenix. You told me you saw it last night Yeah, I hadn’t watched it before so I knew we were going to talk about it. So I thought yeah I was very surprised by that I was very surprised by that I don’t know how I avoided it Yeah now and then now and then there’s a movie of Substantial cultural significance that you just missed and that was what I missed. So yeah. Yeah. Well you made up for it um, so gladiator, I think this movie is Engrained in the psyche of my generation more so than any other Like epic epic movie of its of its sort. So there’s other characters There’s there’s aragorn from lord of the rings. There’s hector from troy. There’s william wallace from braveheart. There’s spartacus. There’s leonidas from 300 All these characters are the same archetypal figures But somehow only maximus decimus meridius Really strict really sticks through the years and I have uh, i’ve I’ve put some thought into this and I have some ideas about why particularly this character and this movie sticks I want to present to you three points that culminate in what I think is the implicit central thesis that runs throughout the movie So i’m going to list now the three points and then the central thesis Point number one is that maximus is by far the best modern portrayal of the male archetype Um, so he’s highly capable but very gentle and he’s modest in word and body language and he’s admired and loved solely for his character And skill so that’s the that’s the portrayal of the archetype point two is that the movie also Contains the very best modern portrayal of the embedded villain whose character and skill are simply insufficient and he makes up for it through Deceit and cruelness while still knowing every step of the way that eventually he’ll lose. There’s nothing he can do about it and three The characters themselves are are exquisite in their own right but in this movie they’re juxtapositioned within a house star brother framework Which makes it Which is a deeply archetypal framework, which might be the reason that it it sticks so much more than all the other archetypal figures and this brings me to the central thesis and i’m I only figured this out two days ago and i’m very excited to get to share this with you I think this central implicit thesis throughout the whole movie is as follows That no matter how powerful someone is The pain of a man whose soul has been irreversibly corrupted far out exceeds the pain of a righteous man Whose wife and son have been murdered and who’s been reduced to abject slavery? Which is really something to think about Yeah, right Yeah, well, okay. So the themes that you’ve been developing there. Well, okay so the first thing we might also note though that you Um lost over maybe that’s the right way of thinking about it is that Maximus is a paragon of Soldierly virtue, right? He’s a physical combatant a warrior. Yeah, he’s dutiful he serves his Commander but also serves the principles more importantly, the principles that govern his commander And he serves the principles more than the commander himself and you can tell that because he chooses Not to serve the new emperor comodus Yeah, because he doesn’t believe that he abides by the proper principles and comodus, of course also killed his his own father Which means that he killed the principles by which the state He’s like he’s like the elder gods in the mesopotamian creation myth who kill apzu Who’s their father and then try to live on his corpse? It doesn’t work out well for them. All that does is breed chaos and that’s exactly what happens in in in the movie gladiator as well, yeah, um and Maximus as son is an interesting son Is also an interesting character because he becomes son as a consequence of his virtue rather than as a consequence of his birth right comodus has the has the advantage of birth, but Maximus has the advantage of virtue, but it’s virtue. It’s a virtue of strength and Um, you know that makes the movie in some sense also extremely barbaric. There’s just endless death and killing Which is a very strange thing When you’re talking about someone who’s operating within a fundamentally moral framework And I guess part of the moral of the story is that it’s better to be a soldier than a coward And that’s a you know, that’s it’s not I would say that on the one hand that’s self-evident and on the other hand, that’s a mystery Because the coward might be able to avoid the mayhem and killing that Characterizes the life of the soldier anyways, Maximus does organize himself under the virtues of courage and and forbearance and strength Forbearance and strength Yeah, so so my observation is actually of course he’s he’s a very powerful soldier But my observation is that that is not the reason not so much the reason this archetype sticks How I read this character that he is the the absolute embodiment of the characteristics that allow you to contend with tragedy and malevolence in an optimal way Not just on the battlefield. It’s not really about the battlefield, right? Well, you see you see his soldierly Capability as a representation of competence itself. Yeah, it’s guided by principle. Yeah, I think that’s reasonable And I also think that that’s probably how the conduct of the soldier should be judged, right? Yeah, it appears that soldiers are necessary despite the mayhem that warfare produces Yeah, we haven’t figured out how to dispense with that necessity So do you think sorry do you think the canine that do you think that the cane enable framework in which it is implicitly? uh structured do you think that adds to To how much a story sticks? Yes, definitely like why is that? Well because the story of cane enable does lay out very very elegantly and and It was incredible compression to fundamentally opposed modes of being The mode of being that characterizes able the favorite son and the mode of being that characterizes cane and able is competent and virtuous And god-fearing let’s say but more practically Which means he’s allied with the highest of principles that that’s the right way to think about it psychologically Whatever the that height the highest of principles might be There’s an attempt one of the things that you might Consider psychologically is that the movement from polytheism to monotheism parallels parallels the integration of the individual psyche and The development of larger and larger scale social organizations all those things happen at the same time so you imagine that The larger scale the organization the human organization so the more people included under the Umbrella of the same state the more organized and orderly The principles by which that state have to function must be because the increasing complexity and also the The problem of having to determine how the state can remain intact over a long period of time without fragmented So the state has to organize itself so that The needs and wants of the bulk of the population Are met with sufficient regularity so that the state itself doesn’t fragment And that means that the state has to organize itself In what you might regard as an a virtuous manner that can be iterated and at the same time The people who compose the state in its increasing complexity have to ally themselves with that long-term state goal So it’s a it’s a coalition between the two states It’s a coalition between psychological integration and sociological complexity and and that’s that is Foreshadowed we might say or accompanied by the movement from polytheism Which is the pulling of people in all directions by fundamental motivation or natural force into monotheism, which is the direction of the individual Under the rubric of a single set of principles a single superordinate set of principles now what those principles are is not obvious Which is partly why we’re having the discussion of gladiator So I can give you an example of this. So for example In the old testament you see the articulation of the guiding principles emerge in its most Fully formed Manner with the commandments of moses so you might say all of the diverse forces that might be pull people hither and yon have been Aggregated into a list of thou shalt nots. Here’s how to regulate yourself Here’s how to inhibit yourself across time so that you can have a stable long-term large-scale society but then there’s a mystery that emerges in the new testament, which is It emerges for example when christ is asked by the scribes and pharisees, which is the greatest of the commandments and christ actually performs a very intelligent sleight of hand and he says well You have to love god with all your heart and all your soul and you have to love your brother as if he’s Yourself love your neighbor as if he’s yourself on on those two propositions rest all the commandments and the law There’s an attempt to integrate Even the commandments into something that’s a higher order principle and that higher order principle actually manifests itself Into the christian society as the logos whatever that is and it’s something like truthful communication devoted towards the highest good and and the embodiment of that becomes the fundamental principle and in gladiator you see movement towards that embodiment right because maximus is An organized and disciplined person who’s governed by principle the question is and the question is posed throughout the movie Well, what is rome right that’s asked for It’s asked by marcus aurelius because he feels that along what he’s done is a failure It’s asked by comodus and it’s asked by the sister Whose whose name escapes me at the moment? lucille It’s what i think it’s lucille Okay, okay, okay And they all ask well what is robe and she comes the closest she says it’s a great idea But it’s not it’s an animating principle And the question is what is the animating principle now? Whatever it is maximus embodies it far more than comodus and maximus is a able figure a b e l whereas comodus or cometus is Clearly a figure of of cain Yeah He makes improper sacrifices and they’re never well regarded he says constantly, you know That he all he ever did was try to please his father Yeah Well his sacrifices went on appreciated and that’s what made him bitter and resentful and murderous and and doomed to A catastrophic death and a figure of great evil and a tyrant and all of that So yes, it’s got a fundamentally archetypal structure You