‘Gladiator II’ cinematographer John Mathieson criticized Ridley Scott for being ‘lazy’ and ‘impatient.’
Mathieson called Scott’s process ‘really lazy,’ and also said on The DocFix Documentary Storytelling Podcast, “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.'”
He continued, “He is quite impatient so he likes to get as much as he can at once. It’s not very good for cinematography.” He also noted that it means 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. Having lots of cameras I don’t think has made the films any better…It’s a bit rush, rush, rush. That’s changed in him,” the cinematographer further shared.
Mathieson added, “But that’s the way he wants to do it and I don’t like it and I don’t think many people do, but people love his films and he’s Ridley Scott and can do what he wants. People want to shoot multi cameras because they get lots of performances and they put lots of people in. But there’s not the care.”
“Now it is this thing of ‘generally covering stuff’ rather than me being the cook cooking you something wonderful in my kitchen downstairs,” he then explained. “You just go to the supermarket and get one of those really big trolleys and you just put your arm on the shelf and just chuck all that stuff in and we’ll sort it out later.”
Scott and Mathieson teamed up for ‘Gladiator’ and other projects like ‘Hannibal,’ ‘Matchstick Men,’ ‘Kingdom of Heaven,’ and ‘Robin Hood.’
‘Gladiator II’ was written by David Scarpa and based on characters by David Franzoni and a story by Peter Craig and Scarpa. The cast features Paul Mescal, Pedro Pascal, Joseph Quinn, Fred Hechinger, Lior Raz, Derek Jacobi, Connie Nielsen, and Denzel Washington. The film is now in theaters.
