Violence

Similarly if we consider the portrayal of actual fighting in the arena, a contrast emerges. While both films portray the arena as a bloodthirsty place, the actual gladiatorial fight scenes are presented quite differently. In the earlier version of the movie, it is twenty five minutes before the first fight occurs, as Septimus contests against two other gladiators, one a retiarius and the other a scutarius. The gladiator trainer succeeds in dispatching both opponents, who die with agonised expressions on their faces and much jerky flailing, but, notably, no sign of blood. There is excitement here but no bloodthirsty emphasis on the slaughter. Throughout the film, there are three more occasions when gladiatorial combat is shown, in each case fights between the gladiatrices. The first of these is between Boadicia and the drunk Deirdre, and is played for laughs, with no killing involved at all. More serious by far is the next fight between Mamawi and Lusinia, when Mamawi is forced to kill her opponent, but even then, the camera cuts away as the trident falls, backing off from actually depicting it on screen. Even in the final fight scene, where Timarchus and his cronies get their comeuppance, the focus is on grimacing, shouting and clashing of swords, rather than blood and guts, and indeed the only blood seen is that of Timarchus himself, after his death, as Claudia kneels beside him, mourning. Overall, there is a definite lack of emphasis on bloodlust and gore.

In contrast in the later version, the arena is portrayed graphically and nauseatingly. Where the 1973 movie showed only one real fight before the climactic bout between the two heriones, in the more recent film there are three, the first less than 3 ½ minutes into the film, and, like the other arena scenes, tinted by a sepia filter that colours everything a rather odd antique yellow. Setting the tone, a gladiator is killed by an arrow through his open mouth, and we are shown blood spurting liberally. The scene continues with the last remaining gladiator alive in the ring crawling across the sand, with a Roman soldier looking over him, until Timarchus gives the thumbs down and this gladiator too is slaughtered. That this is slaughter rather than sport or entertainment is emphasised by the reactions of the audience composed of native Durostorians, whose faces register disgust, horror and who turns their heads away, nauseated. Similarly, this crowd give the thumbs up to spare the final gladiator, but Timarchus pays no attention to their wishes and feelings, as the arena itself is used as a tool to portray the wicked oppression of the native population by the Roman regime.

The next two fights occur at intervals of twenty minutes, and both show the same blooodthirsty approach. In the first of the two, a gladiator lops off the arm of a retiarius, resulting in blood spurting everywhere like a geiser. The second is the fight of Septimus against two gladiators at once. Again blood is everywhere, spurting all over, as one fighter is dispatched by a trident through his throat, spurting gore, revolting the audiences both on screen and off. When Jessemina is forced to kill Lusinia, she is also shown gruesomely, lying with a sword sticking out of her. Finally in the climactic scene in which Timarchus fights the two gladiatrices in the arena, and which ends this version of the film, blood and violence abounds, culminating in the repeated stabbing of Timarchus as blood spurts from his body.

So heavy is the emphasis upon blood that in fact little real fighting is seen in the arena segments, with the director choosing to cut away every time it appears that someone might be about to strike or make an impressive move. Indeed, in an interview, actress Karen McDougal herself expresses her frustration with the director constantly cutting away from the fighting action after the cast had worked so hard to learn their techniques. Clearly the concern here was not for entertaining duels, but for providing as much blood and gruesome violence as possible.