This film fails and excels in the same way, which is that it is too rich in content. Kingdom of Heaven is pretty much the pinnacle of epic. "Gladiator" is just a story about the revenge of modern people with the background of the Roman era, and it will be no problem in any other era, so it is a pseudo-epic film. "King Arthur" is a historical restoration and imagination of myths and stories, and it is not even history in essence. The Kingdom of Heaven is the only truly epic film that bears the strong imprint of the era at that time, and at the same time can use the past to satirize the present and express the results of the producer's thinking on contemporary issues.
But also because of this, this movie is very demanding from the audience. There are a lot of details and the setting of lines is very similar to the dictionaries in ancient Chinese cifu. It is difficult to know the intention of the maker without knowing the history.
For example, without knowing that when the Crusaders occupied Jerusalem, they slaughtered all the Muslims in the city, then it is impossible to understand what Barian meant in the first half of his pre-war speech (if Barian did not say that, the people in the city would think that Latin is the whip of God, it is God's sin to punish the slaughter committed by their ancestors. This will kill the will to fight);
without knowing the meaning of women's hair loss is redemption, it is impossible to understand the setting of Princess Sibera against The mirror cuts his hair and reveals his brother's face (Guy became king because Sibera didn't want to see his leper son grow up to be horribly distorted like his brother's) , poisoned her own son with her own hands, even though she knew that doing so would lead to the destruction of Jerusalem. So she was guilty of the destruction of Jerusalem. Brother Baldwin's horrific face was a rebuke to Sibera);
if not Knowing the relationship between the Knights and the secular king, it is difficult to understand the reason why Balian refused to marry Sibera and become king (the Knights were appointed by the Pope and were not subject to the control of the king, but because they were only military organizations, they largely depended on The protection of the local secular king, the two have equal status and rely on each other, so the Knights Templar will ignore Baldwin, and even rebellion will not bear the moral censure. Balian is worried that the Knights Templar will rebel and refuse. Before , Guy's threat to Sibera that daring to divorce would make her son's reign short and bloody, and Balian specifically asking what would happen to the Templars if they agreed to it).
This creates the problem of high and low scores in the movie. If you don't know the history, then the audience's attention can only be on the war, but this part is not the focus of the movie. For example, the famous Battle of Harding was mentioned by the director. This leads to a result that the audience who knows the history can discover the subtleties of the film, and the audience who does not know the history will see it in a fog and fall asleep. The truth is that the audience who do not know history accounts for the vast majority. Scott made a classic, but he had to castrate the classic himself, because Scott knew that the director's cut was his own wayward work, and he had to take into account the audience and the box office.
But the reason why this film has become a classic is that there is no disorder in such a complex material, and the plot and clues are very clear and smooth, which fully reflects the director's skill. Balian went to Jerusalem because of confusion, doubted God in the holy city and lost his faith, but when he was building a fief, he turned his attention to this land and the people on the land, and then established new beliefs, and then killed the enemy. , refusing to marry, and persuading Guy are all the implementation of this belief. The final pre-war speech summed up this belief, and the whole drama also ushered in the final climax. All this can be described as a matter of course, there is no blunt feeling at all.
Of course, the most commendable thing is that a story about the Crusades can also be told by Scott to put aside religious differences and seek common ground while reserving differences. At a time when ISIS is raging and Charlie Hebdo is attacked, it really makes sense.
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