SubscribeOh, and I kid you not that watching this extended trailer is as much satisfaction as you'd get from watching the film.
“300” is about as violent as “Apocalypto” and twice as stupid. Adapted from a graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, it offers up a bombastic spectacle of honor and betrayal, rendered in images that might have been airbrushed onto a customized van sometime in the late 1970s...And on the history front:
The Persians, pioneers in the art of facial piercing, have vastly greater numbers — including ninjas, dervishes, elephants, a charging rhino and an angry bald giant — but the Spartans clearly have superior health clubs and electrolysis facilities. They also hew to a warrior ethic of valor and freedom that makes them, despite their gleeful appetite for killing, the good guys in this tale. (It may be worth pointing out that unlike their mostly black and brown foes, the Spartans and their fellow Greeks are white.)...
There are a few combat sequences that achieve a grim, brutal grandeur, notably an early engagement in which the Spartans, hunkered behind their shields, push back against a Persian line, forcing enemy soldiers off a cliff into the water. The big idea, spelled out over and over in voice-over and dialogue in case the action is too subtle, is that the free, manly men of Sparta fight harder and more valiantly than the enslaved masses under Xerxes’ command. Allegory hunters will find some gristly morsels of topicality tossed in their direction, but you can find many of the same themes, conveyed with more nuance and irony, in a Pokémon cartoon....
In time, “300” may find its cultural niche as an object of camp derision, like the sword-and-sandals epics of an earlier, pre-computer-generated-imagery age. At present, though, its muscle-bound, grunting self-seriousness is more tiresome than entertaining. Go tell the Spartans, whoever they are, to stay home and watch wrestling.
Myron of Priene, cited by Athenaeus (XIV, 657 D), specifies the humiliations they were subjected to: they had to wear hats of dog skin (κυνῆ / kunễ) as well as sheep hides (διφθέρα / diphthéra) to distinguish themselves from others. The canine symbolism was clear to the Greeks: that of a servile and cowardly animal. Each year, the Helots were ritually flogged, apparently for no other reason than to affirm their servitude; though it seems that only a small group was actually flogged, symbolically representing the whole Helot population.Sounds peachy to me! I'm sure you'll be volunteering for helotry any day now!
Plutarch (Life of Lycurgus, 28, 8-10) also indicates that they were forced to drink pure wine (which was considered dangerous - wine usually being cut with water) "...and to lead them in that condition into their public halls, that the children might see what a sight a drunken man is; they made them to dance low dances, and sing ridiculous songs..." during syssitia (obligatory banquets)[10]. Conversely, it was reported in the same source that the Thebans ordered a group of Helot prisoners to recite the verses of Alcman and Terpander (national poets of Thebes); the Helots refused, on the grounds that it would displease their masters.
What is more, when the Ephors took office, they routinely declared war on the Helots, (Aristotle cited by Plutarch, Life of Lycurgus 28, 7), thereby allowing Spartans to kill them without repercussion. Most of the time, this was done by kryptes, graduates of the difficult agoge who took part in the Crypteia. In 425 BCE, 2,000 Helots were also massacred in a carefully staged event. Thucydides (IV, 80, 4) states:"The Helots were invited by a proclamation to pick out those of their number who claimed to have most distinguished themselves against the enemy, in order that they might receive their freedom; the object being to test them, as it was thought that the first to claim their freedom would be the most high spirited and the most apt to rebel. As many as two thousand were selected accordingly, who crowned themselves and went round the temples, rejoicing in their new freedom. The Spartans, however, soon afterwards did away with them, and no one ever knew how each of them perished." [9]Myron of Priene also indicates that Helots who became too fat were put to death, with their masters fined for letting them get fat.
It doesn't matter what Miller or Snyder intended; 300 is about as beautiful and enlightened as Triumph of the Will.As you know, Triumph of the Will is widely considered, by critics and moviegoers alike, as a masterpiece, despite whatever one thinks of the narrative of the film. Want to talk critical distance? My grandparents and great grandparents escaped the Nazi's during WWII, namely because they feared for their lives as Jews. I've seen the film as part of a class on documentary film. Though the narrative turns my stomach in a very personal manner, I can still be entertained, entranced, and in awe of the film. Sometimes you bring critical distance to the art, sometimes the art brings it to you. 300 is not the New Yorker, but it's also not monster, Monster, MONSTER TRUCKS.
And seriously: why is this piece of trash getting all the hype, when one of the best monster movies in years & years just opened?It's called advertising. For someone who is apparently a professional film critic, you seem completely unaware how the rest of the world finds out about movies.
...Helots could be artisans or tradesmen.
They were required to hand over a predetermined portion of their harvest (ἀποφορά / apophóra), with the helot keeping the surplus... Having paid their tribute, the Helots could often live quite well; the lands of Laconia and Messenia were very fertile, and often permitted two crops per year. A certain amount of wealth was achievable: in 223 BCE, 6000 Helots purchased their freedom for 500 Drachma each, a considerable sum at the time....
Helots lived in family units and could contract unions amongst themselves. This was a significant difference from chattel-slaves, amongst whom contracts, marriages, and family relationships were not legally recognized. Helots were thus much less susceptible to having the family unit dispersed....
According to Myron of Priene, cited by Athenaeus (The Deipnosophists, VI, 271F), the emancipation of Helots was "common"...
posted by Burhanistan at 8:29 PM on March 9, 2007 [4 favorites]