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EXCLUSIVE: A serious case of Thanksgiving indigestion was caused yesterday by caustic comments attributed to Gladiator II cinematographer John Mathieson against the film’s director Ridley Scott on The DocFix Documentary Storytelling Podcast. Today, both the DP and the podcaster today are each eating a bit of crow here on Deadline. Mathieson regrets an interview about his illustrious career done last March whose edit made him seem to savage his director, when a two-hour interview got condensed to 30 minutes. It made it appear Mathieson leveled disparaging comments about Scott, when he was actually talking about the industry in general, but it sounded like he said the director took a “lazy” approach to the epic sequel they did together that has been critically acclaimed and has so far grossed over $300 million worldwide and might finally get Scott that elusive Best Director Oscar.
Mathieson was Scott’s DP on the first Gladiator, as well as Hannibal and Kingdom of Heaven. It was Scott’s Alien that terrified the DP and became a career inspiration. Anyone who has spent any time with Scott would never use the word “lazy” to describe the filmmaker and his all-in process that includes storyboarding scenes from every angle. The podcaster said the negative implication of the edits were not done deliberately, but the confusion is plausible since Scott often shoots an economy of takes even on big set pieces by using as many as 11 cameras. Here, let them explain. You can find the disparaging stuff all over the web, so no need to wallow in the false stuff here.
First, this from the podcaster, Nigel Levy, himself a filmmaker. He said that his podcast focuses on filmmakers who make documentaries, which both he and Mathieson have done. They sat down when Mathieson had just returned from shooting Gladiator II, but the interview was not about that film.
“We covered many areas, including all the documentary and filmmaking tips I know my listeners would want to hear,” Levy told Deadline. “We did mention his time on the new Gladiator film, as he had just come back from location, but it wasn’t why we were talking. After we talked about how he filmed Gladiator, we then moved on to talk about how the industry has changed – not always for the better. The transition from digital to film, camera techniques, multi-camera versus single camera, how to light differently for each, blocking, and so on. All this happened over almost two hours. Then I had to cut it down to around 30. I mainly focused on discussing film techniques as this was the most interesting to my listeners and me. What I want to give people is practical support and advice. During that editing process, of course, things were condensed and this is where the problems arose.
“One thing I was sure about was that John never intended to criticize Ridley,” Levy said. “It does seem that bringing separate comments closer together might have made things ambiguous if people chose to take things out of context – which they did. I’m sorry John and I didn’t have a chance to go through it after my cutdown. In the end, some people have chosen to listen to it and imply things John certainly never meant…I’m sorry for any problems this has caused John, the film and Ridley Scott. He is, after all, a clearly brilliant film director.”
Said Mathieson: “The piece was about me. We talked about that, in the digital age, how things have changed. And I was talking about the downside of the digital age. We have to do more. We have to get more shots, we have to shoot more every day, and we have to light and think of many cameras at the same time. And I said, you ask any DP that they don’t really like doing that. And we talked about that and I said that people just come in the morning, switch the coffee machine on, switch the cameras on, say, what are we doing? Because the digital stuff doesn’t cost anything, but so you shoot a lot. And I saying that is that, and I said, this was the quote. I said, the industry, it’s really lazy. Lazy and sloppy are not two words I would ever put with this gentleman of a certain age and genius. But if you slide out — and you can hear it — you slide out a paragraph and put it right next to, oh, let’s talk about Rid and multi cameras. And he edits the piece down to 30 minutes…I could hear the blip of the sound. I said, well, that wasn’t said against that. That was probably said maybe 20 minutes later. However, this is what has risen to the surface. And I’m deeply regretful of that.”
He forgot about the interview until Scott’s camp told him it blew up all over the internet yesterday after it first got picked up by a British tabloid, and online media followed without seeking clarity. “I said, oh God, well, that wasn’t very good. But I didn’t really feel…we had offended him in any way. But in comes News Corp, particularly The Telegraph, and they stick something together, a misrepresentation of what was said. And here we are. The two pieces implies we were talking about him at the same time, which we weren’t. I was talking about the industry at large.”
Then it fell to Mathieson to call the filmmaker. “I said, ‘well this has happened,’ and he said, ‘Oh, God, what the fu*k? He said you’ve got to be careful.’ I said, I Know. I’m really story you got dropped into this, it’s very embarrassing and very hurtful.”
Scott’s birthday is tomorrow, and let’s hope the clarification puts this in the rearview. After all, the director who is about to turn 87 has a return match with Paul Mescal on The Dog Stars, with The Bee Gees, another Gladiator and who knows what else up the road.
