Gladiator showed nothing but contempt for the crafts of directing and editing - typical of the current trend of smash-cut music video and commercials editing. Someone should inform Lynne that if he really wants the audience to understand and fully enjoy a battle sequence, it really does matter where he places his camera in relation to the actors. Lynne also seemed to be aping Spielberg's use of a strobing camera effect in Private Ryan, but in this context is was bizarre and wholly unmotivated by the setting. The constant shifts in camera speed from one shot to the next were meaningless and confusing. Even in the film's more quiet moments, Lynne constantly jumped the stage line and left me disoriented as to the spacial relationships between characters.
All in all, Gladiator was a terrible waste of production resources. I must have known at least ten guys in film school who could have done better, much better.
