Popcorn and Circus: An Audience Expects

In early 2010, I watched Gladiator (Scott 2000) with a friend. While discussing it afterwards they asked me how accurate it was and why I thought they had changed things. The discussion got me thinking; I was aware that the re-creation of the ancient world in film was a popular area of research among classicists but was often discussed in relation to arguments and debates about the potential of cinema and film as an educational tool. Martin Winkler's Gladiator: Film and History is a prime example of the academic's analysis of historical film; a series of works by professors at the top of their fields either analysing inaccuracy in the films or explaining the historical facts behind what we see in an attempt to inform and convey a proper understanding of the real events. Winkler discusses the problems in faithfully re-creating authenticity and questions how important accuracy and detail really are; his argument is based upon an idea that the production of accurately detailed sets and props does not affect the audience's enjoyment of the film. This raised an unexplored area of research, the lack of academic literature exploring the reception of the historical world from the audience's point of view. Whilst it is understandable that those wanting to teach about the past will want to utilise cinema to their advantage, a different question arises when we begin to ask what the public think.