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DVD Tuesday: 300 Spartans at your door
300 courtesy Warner Home Video
DVD Tuesday: 300 divided critics and united moviegoers with its stylized vision of free men standing down monsters.
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See Maitland McDonagh and Ken Fox review this week's new flicks on the Movie Talk vodcast!
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300 was exhibit "A" when Variety editor Peter Bart launched a spiteful screed against elitist critics earlier this year. Critics lambasted 300 and audiences flocked to see it. Bart concluded, "filmgoers seem to be having a great time at the multiplexes… critics, by contrast, may be shopping around for a new line of work." Please: popular isn't always good. But it's not always bad, either -- I loved 300, and it's this week's DVD Tuesday pick. So there.
A highly stylized blend of CGI and live action, 300 is based on graphic novelist Frank Miller's bloody, visceral retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 BC, during which vastly outnumbered troops from a coalition of Greek city states -- led by a core group of 300 Spartan soldiers commanded by King Leonidas -- held off Persian king Xerxes the Great's massive, armed-to-the-teeth forces for three full days at a narrow pass overlooking the Aegean Sea. The battle ended when a traitor betrayed the one weakness of the Greek warriors' position.
Virtually all the film's backgrounds are computer generated; the actors were shot against a green screen and com posited into imaginary rooms and landscapes. Rather than try to gloss over the artificiality, director Zack Snyder highlights it, and the resulting imagery has a vibrant, pulpy energy and impact. Is the film painstakingly accurate history? No. Is it hugely entertaining and even moving? You bet.
And for all the chiseled flesh on display, 300's stars are anything but a collection of beefcake pin-ups (though you used to have to visit a gay go-go bar to see so many men in leather underpants): They include Scottish theater actor Gerard Butler as Leonidas, English Dominic West (of The Wire), Australian David Wenham and a slew of less well-known but equally accomplished (mostly UK) actors, and they lend a certain grace and depth to the movie's clipped, epigrammatic dialogue. Some of which, by the way comes from existing historical records via Miller: Spartan training was designed to produce world-class fighting men who were also tersely eloquent, witness Leonidas' response to Xerxes' demand that the Spartans lay down their arms: "Come take them." Any screenwriter would be proud to have concocted such an eloquently belligerent, beautifully pared down comeback.
Miller's version of the story takes some liberties with history and stylizes the rest, larding the Persian troops with flat-out monsters (though Xerxes' legendary 10,000 Immortals are perfectly human, faces concealed behind scary masks) and making the traitor Ephialtes a grotesque hunchback. In the name of vividly visual storytelling, I say bring it on. There's a reason 300 opens with Dilios (Wenhan), Sparta's oral historian, declaiming the story of the young Leonidas and his youthful victory over a larger-than-life wolf: It puts you on notice that this is a story, facts shaped and angled to a particular end. As to stripping Leonidas and his citizen-warriors down to their helmets, in scarlet capes, sandals and briefs, Miller and Snyder are hardly the first to evoke Spartan culture's muscular rigor through literal musculature. The monument at Thermopylae commemorating the Spartans'"triumphant defeat" depicts Leonidas butt naked, as does French neoclassical painter Jean-Louis David's "Leonidas at Thermopylae" Yes, everything old is nude again.
Things to consider:
How do you feel about hyperstylized movies like Sin City or Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow? Do dazzling, conspicuously artificial visuals detract from story and character?
What degree of accuracy do you think it's reasonable to expect from fiction films based on real events?
Is the power of a well-made movie to fix a particular version of reality in people's minds (think, for example, Oliver Stone's JFK) dangerous?
300 has been characterized as both spirited defense of American presence in Iraq (Spartans as outnumbered American troops, taking a stand against barbaric terrorist hordes) or a critique (Spartans as Iraqi insurgents, taking a stand against better-armed foreign invaders). Do you buy either? Neither?
Previously in DVD Tuesday:
Ace in the Hole
Eyes Without a Face
Apocalypto
Citizen Kane
La Jetée
Gone in 60 Seconds (1974)
Bob le Flambeur
Near Dark
Perfect Blue
Pan's Labyrinth
Les Girls
The Girl Who Knew Too Much
The Queen
Expresso Bongo
I'm Not Scared
Shocking Grindhouse Double Bill! — Scanners and The Candy Snatchers
Don't Look Now
Re-Animator
Casino Royale
http://community.tvguide.com/thread.jspa?threadID=800073953#comments">Pi
The Prestige
13 Tzameti
The Departed
Suspiria
Kiss and Make Up
Kiss Me Deadly
The Long Good Friday
What Alice Found
The Devil's Backbone
The Descent
The Devil Wears Prada
Pandora's Box
The Thief and the Cobbler
Nashville
Panic in the Streets/Jack Palance Interview
The Pusher Trilogy
Scarface
Slither
Sunset Blvd.
In Cold Blood
Brick
Also: This week's new DVD releases
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Jul 24, 2007 2:08 PM
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I've seen Sky Captian, and I thought that the styling worked wonderfully for what little story and dialogue they came up with. These kinds of movies, I think, try to make sure that ANY freeze-frame could be made into a beautiful poster or desktop wallpaper, much like the beautiful Lord of the Rings movies.
However, movie-makers should beware the pitfalls of Sky Captian and be sure to come up with enough story and character development to carry the movie by itself. Glossy artwork should be the icing on the cake, not the cake itself.
(I haven't seen 300 or Sin City, so I can't speak to those.)
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Jul 24, 2007 3:24 PM
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When I saw the trailer for Sky Captain I was really excited about it, mainly because of the visuals, but the movie and its imagery fell a little flat for me. However, Sin City and 300 were great! The visuals didn't take anything away from these movies, they added tons of ambiance and just plain ol' awesome stuff to gawk at.
As far as movies go that present a different reality, I think it depends on how that movie presents itself. Like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, 'til this day people still think that it's based on a true story, when it's really loosely based on one dude, but the movie posters stated that it happened.
Movies, like Catch Me If You Can, I think are probably very close to what really happened, because people involved in those events are still alive, but then you got The Perfect Storm, no one will ever know what was really said or happened on that boat.
I also don't feel that 300 has anything to do with Iraq or our military, it's just a cool movie.
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Jul 24, 2007 4:05 PM
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I myself loved Sky Captain and Sin City. Thought that they were stimulating, both visually and through a decent storyline. I have yet to see 300 but am planning on a DVD purchase.
I wonder about movies like "A Skanner Darkly" which is as bizarre visually as is it's script. The very realistic animation became more intersting to me than the storyline.
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Jul 24, 2007 4:16 PM
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Loved Sin City and 300. These are the kinds of movies the big screen was made for! Dazzling sights, sounds (even taste-can't leave out my garbage-can-ized bucket of popcorn!) These are the usually the only kinds of movies I go to the big screen for anymore. Besides, it's hard to get insightful with a deep, meaningful script these days with crying babies and buzzing cell phones-best left for DVD!
As far as being factual? it's only wrong if they claim it to be true and it is'nt. No one ever said these movies were documentaries! Can't it be true to say that almost every single movie ever made is based on at least a sliver of truth? Surly no one saw the ads for 300 and said "drat! not another history lesson?"
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Jul 24, 2007 7:50 PM
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Re: Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow : I saw it and liked it,
but was wondering: what was the source of Sir Laurence Olivier's performance? I've always wanted to know.
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Jul 24, 2007 9:44 PM
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I don't mind highly stylized films. In fact when a film blends myth and reality as 300 seems to do I think it's a great idea. I have less respect for a "realistic" film that plays fast and loose with the facts. If I'm watching a straightforward film about the Lincoln assasination I don't want to see JW Booth wielding an Uzi or growing to giant size and stepping off the balcony in one stride. I would not mind if such a film took on a highly stylized look however-played out like a cinematic graphic novel a la Sin City.
I absolutely hated Sky Captain. Not for its style but for its flat story and complete lack of interior logic. It was an utter bore and a disappointment. I had been looking forward to a film that paid homage to the comic book/pulp fiction and the aviation wonders of the 1930s. I was also excited about seeing a film that featured dirigibles. I was let down on all counts. But again, that was because of the script and direction not the actual look of the film.
And yes, I would like film makers to adhere as close as possible to known or newly discovered truths when dealing with historical events in a starightforward fashion. I feel there should be some obligation to history. I also believe that films affect our perception of history and historical events.
A great example is how movie westerns shaped our perceptions and points of view. The generation that grew up on the westerns of the silent era through the 1950s had an entirely different view of Native Americans than the generation which experienced Cheyenne Autumn, When Legends Die or Pow Wow Highway. And the contributions of Black Americans, Asians, Latinos and women to the building of not only the west but of our nation in general were either ignored or perverted by early filmamkers and that is a disservice to the audience and to history. For most of my adolescence I thought of Davy Crockett and Jim Bowie as heroes fighting for freedom. It was quite a letdown to find that the Texas/Mexican war was fought mostly so that Texas could continue as a slave holding society (which Mexico opposed); that Jim Bowie was not just a slave owner but a slave smuggler and kidnapper; that Crockett surrendered rather than dying by bravely falling into the munitions cache with a live torch taking several enemy soldiers with him as John Wayne had us think in the Alamo.
Similarly if you grew up in the fifties or sixties the movies would have you think that World War II was fought and won entirely by middle aged Christian white men except for the token Nisei, Chinese priest, Filipino or Jewish G.I usually nicknamed "Brooklyn".
I think the best example of how inaccurate historical film making can do an injustice to its audience and to history can be summed up in the great harm caused to this country by the sickening bigotry of Birth Of A Nation. That film shaped and influenced racial attitudes in negative ways for decades and the ill effects linger to this day.
The perceptions or misperceptions shaoed by film images affect the way we look at and treat people and even work their way into the way we live and vote and shape our laws.
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Jul 25, 2007 4:00 AM
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Ummmm... you have little problem with the massive liberties that 300 takes with an actual historical event but hate Clash of the Titans for reworking some completely fake myths? 
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Jul 25, 2007 12:22 PM
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Like I've said, when did 300 ever claim to be a documentary? Besides, how many respected docudramas depict private undocumented conversations between people no longer with us? Was the movie entertaining? Yes? Then it has met its objective-nothing less, nothing more.
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Jul 25, 2007 2:12 PM
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Are you talking to me, Mr Furley? Cause my last post was for DaMess...
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Jul 25, 2007 3:16 PM
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I'm Helping you talk to people complaining about inaccurate facts in fictional movies! You don't mind, do you?
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Jul 25, 2007 3:59 PM
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I quite enjoy the idea of completely CG worlds in movies. When you're not limited by physical materials, there's so much more you can do in terms of setting: buildings that aren't bound by the laws of gravity; giant freakin' robots [as perhaps one too many reviewers said of Transformers; alien landscapes that are genuinely alien...
In practice, the concept has worked beautifully, too. Sky Captain existed in a thirties-ish world that wasn't a complete analog of the real world [and, frankly, the story was at least as well-developed as Raiders of the Lost Ark - even if the dialogue wasn't as wonderful]. Sin City and 300 were faithful translations of Frank Miller's graphic novels - at least insofar as anything could be that didn't involve static shots and panel borders.
I get positively giddy thinking of CG versions of John Carter's Barsoom, or any of China Mielville's worlds.
As for the political implications/allegories of 300, there weren't any that didn't exist in the original 1998 graphic novel which is to say... none. Anyone who says otherwise is simply imposing their own political agenda on the film.
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Jul 25, 2007 5:59 PM
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Mr F:
I don't mind... but I was making a comment to DaMess about something we debated on this board a few months ago. So that's why it seemed what you were trying to say didn't really apply to me.
BTW, how is your Blogging going?
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Jul 25, 2007 6:06 PM
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Sorry for the interruption! Achy check your PM...
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Jul 25, 2007 6:56 PM
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Once again you missed my point achy. Read the post again.
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Jul 26, 2007 5:01 AM
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