‘Gladiator II’ DP John Mathieson & Podcaster Fall On Swords For Botched Edits That Insulted Ridley Scott

EXCLUSIVE:

Yesterday, harsh remarks made by Gladiator II cinematographer John Mathieson against the movie's director Ridley Scott on The DocFix Documentary Storytelling Podcast gave rise to a severe case of Thanksgiving indigestion. Here on Deadline, the podcaster and the DP are both enjoying themselves a little today.

 Mathieson regrets a March interview on his storied career that was cut short from two hours to thirty minutes, giving the impression that he was savagely critical of his director.

 It sounded like Mathieson said the director took a "lazy" approach to the epic sequel they worked on together, which has received critical acclaim, made over $300 million worldwide so far, and may finally win Scott that elusive Best Director Oscar. 

However, it was actually his remarks about the industry as a whole that gave the impression that Mathieson was disparaging Scott.

Scott used Mathieson as his DP for Hannibal, Kingdom of Heaven, and the original Gladiator. Scott's Alien frightened the DP and served as a source of motivation for his work. The term “lazy” would never be used to characterise Scott, the director, and his all-in approach, which involves storyboarding scenes from every perspective. 

Although the podcaster claimed that the edits' negative implications were not intentional, the mistake is understandable given that Scott frequently uses up to 11 cameras to capture an economy of takes, even on large set pieces.

 Let them explain. There's no need to dwell on the lies here; you can find the derogatory content online.

First, this is from Nigel Levy, the podcaster and a filmmaker himself. He stated that he and Mathieson had both produced documentaries.

Which are the subject of his podcast. The interview was not about Gladiator II, but Mathieson had just returned from filming the movie when they sat down.

Levy told Deadline, "We talked about a lot of things, including all the documentary and filmmaking advice I know my audience would want to hear." 

Since he had just returned from filming the new Gladiator movie, we did bring up his time there, but that wasn't the main topic of conversation. 

We first discussed how he filmed Gladiator before discussing how the industry has changed, sometimes negatively. The switch from digital to film, camera methods, using multiple cameras as opposed to just one, lighting each one differently, blocking, and so forth. 

All of this took place over about two hours. I then had to reduce it to about thirty. Since my audience and I found talking about film processes to be the most fascinating, I concentrated mostly on this topic.

 I wish to help individuals by offering them guidance and helpful support. Naturally, things were streamlined during that editing process, which is where the issues started.