300- Reprise
Ok.
Instead of writing an honors thesis, or working on identifying 15th century illuminated manuscripts, or worrying about financial aid being cut short because I'm only enrolled in two classes instead of three, or making a bevy of phone calls from my unreliable cell phone to people who don't want to give me a job, I'm going to do a little venting.
First up:
I've been thinking long and hard about "300". It was a little movie that came out a while ago; you may have heard of it.
My historical oppinion counts for very little in the wide world of the internet, as I realize, but I do feel a sort of onus to weigh in on a film so very much "my thing." I've begun to approach movies from the creator's point of view. Before judging a film I ask, "what was the writer/director/DP/producer trying to accomplish? Did they succeed? How does this movie affect me and why do I respond in that way?" This way I have some sort of neutral ground with which to examine the movie.
"300" is a movie targeted at a young adult male audience and based strictly on a successful surrealistic/historical comic book. The director certainly made it evident with the glorified battle scenes, the "John Wayne" characters, and the sex scene almost entirely focused on fuzzy shots of the woman's impassioned face that this was a movie made for men. (Which did not keep little feminist me from enjoying it, by the way.) He succeeded in making a movie look like exactly like the comic. My problem with the movie stylisticly is that it sort of forgot that it was a movie and not a comic book. That means it could have done all kinds of cool stuff, like showing things moving, instead of just all the intense and artfully composed hang-time shots. They got a little long after a while.
The movie sought to portray the heroism of the small band of Spartans who held the Hot Gates against an advancing and overwhelming army of Persian soldiers, despite all fears that the war was already all but lost. Largely successful in this regard. I think this is depiction of Spartans that a Spartan would have been proud of, honestly. The most galling error is probably that the movie convieninetly leaves out the fact that Spartan society would have collapsed without the forced labor of thousands of formerly-free Greeks when it makes its passionate speeches about the freedom of all Greece from the tyrannical god-king. Whether "historically acurate" or not though, the movie shows the badassedness and the dry wit that characterizes Spartans. Spartan women are portrayed as loving, but fiercely strong. Spartan soldiers are shown as a unified corp of men not just willing to give their lives for each other, but actually seeking a glorious death. They all look perfect, because for the Greeks, physically beauty translated directly into nobility of character.
The movie has been criticized for showing the Persians as ugly or effeminate. The Persian Empire was a place of culture and learning, ruled by a largely peaceful dynasty for centuries. But in the eyes and minds of the Greeks, they were ugly and effeminate. I don't think that "300" can in any way be regarded as a historical document. It tells one version of a story told originally by a Greek writer and it is necessarily biased. But I do not think it is worthless. I think it is one of the very few "sword and sandal" movies of recent years that gets close to recreating what I believe was a viewpoint at the time. This is probably more thanks to the writing of Frank Miller than any creative decisions on the part of the director. Yet the fact that it was picked up by anyone and scored such boxoffice success tells us something about what's happening in our own place in time: many of us want the escape of simple, exciting stories where we know who to root for and who to fear and we are willing to pay to have it.
Critics of the movie have said that it is an allegory of the current conflict in the Middle East. I don't think they could be more wrong. I think the story is simple in a way that none of world politics today can be and that with the sensory overload of conflicting media outlets trying to tell us who is good and who is bad, many of us just want to feel secure in our convictions. 300 is not about the Middle East conflict; it is about everything the Middle East conflict is not. It's also not about homophobia; it's about not caring that you had to vote yes or no to your state ever allowing civil unions just a few months ago, because damn, those guys are ripped! It's a movie for God's sake.
Let it go.
Instead of writing an honors thesis, or working on identifying 15th century illuminated manuscripts, or worrying about financial aid being cut short because I'm only enrolled in two classes instead of three, or making a bevy of phone calls from my unreliable cell phone to people who don't want to give me a job, I'm going to do a little venting.
First up:
I've been thinking long and hard about "300". It was a little movie that came out a while ago; you may have heard of it.
My historical oppinion counts for very little in the wide world of the internet, as I realize, but I do feel a sort of onus to weigh in on a film so very much "my thing." I've begun to approach movies from the creator's point of view. Before judging a film I ask, "what was the writer/director/DP/producer trying to accomplish? Did they succeed? How does this movie affect me and why do I respond in that way?" This way I have some sort of neutral ground with which to examine the movie.
"300" is a movie targeted at a young adult male audience and based strictly on a successful surrealistic/historical comic book. The director certainly made it evident with the glorified battle scenes, the "John Wayne" characters, and the sex scene almost entirely focused on fuzzy shots of the woman's impassioned face that this was a movie made for men. (Which did not keep little feminist me from enjoying it, by the way.) He succeeded in making a movie look like exactly like the comic. My problem with the movie stylisticly is that it sort of forgot that it was a movie and not a comic book. That means it could have done all kinds of cool stuff, like showing things moving, instead of just all the intense and artfully composed hang-time shots. They got a little long after a while.
The movie sought to portray the heroism of the small band of Spartans who held the Hot Gates against an advancing and overwhelming army of Persian soldiers, despite all fears that the war was already all but lost. Largely successful in this regard. I think this is depiction of Spartans that a Spartan would have been proud of, honestly. The most galling error is probably that the movie convieninetly leaves out the fact that Spartan society would have collapsed without the forced labor of thousands of formerly-free Greeks when it makes its passionate speeches about the freedom of all Greece from the tyrannical god-king. Whether "historically acurate" or not though, the movie shows the badassedness and the dry wit that characterizes Spartans. Spartan women are portrayed as loving, but fiercely strong. Spartan soldiers are shown as a unified corp of men not just willing to give their lives for each other, but actually seeking a glorious death. They all look perfect, because for the Greeks, physically beauty translated directly into nobility of character.
The movie has been criticized for showing the Persians as ugly or effeminate. The Persian Empire was a place of culture and learning, ruled by a largely peaceful dynasty for centuries. But in the eyes and minds of the Greeks, they were ugly and effeminate. I don't think that "300" can in any way be regarded as a historical document. It tells one version of a story told originally by a Greek writer and it is necessarily biased. But I do not think it is worthless. I think it is one of the very few "sword and sandal" movies of recent years that gets close to recreating what I believe was a viewpoint at the time. This is probably more thanks to the writing of Frank Miller than any creative decisions on the part of the director. Yet the fact that it was picked up by anyone and scored such boxoffice success tells us something about what's happening in our own place in time: many of us want the escape of simple, exciting stories where we know who to root for and who to fear and we are willing to pay to have it.
Critics of the movie have said that it is an allegory of the current conflict in the Middle East. I don't think they could be more wrong. I think the story is simple in a way that none of world politics today can be and that with the sensory overload of conflicting media outlets trying to tell us who is good and who is bad, many of us just want to feel secure in our convictions. 300 is not about the Middle East conflict; it is about everything the Middle East conflict is not. It's also not about homophobia; it's about not caring that you had to vote yes or no to your state ever allowing civil unions just a few months ago, because damn, those guys are ripped! It's a movie for God's sake.
Let it go.