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Is George Bush Leonidas, or Xerxes?
March 9, 2007 8:24 PM   RSS feed for this thread Subscribe

300 opened today. Slate's reviewer didn't like it -- "No one involved ... seems to have noticed that we're in the middle of an actual war. With actual Persians." Some people took him/her to task over it. Still others asked the director, "Is George Bush Leonidas, or Xerxes?" Obviously, the Frank Miller fanboys love it. And one of the guys from AintitCool says, "Just ass kicking that kicks ass that, while said ass is getting kicked, is kicking yet more ass that’s hitting someone’s balls with a hammer made of ice but the ice is frozen whiskey." But who knew the trailer's catch phrase "Then we shall fight in the shade" is actually lifted from Herodotus?
posted by frogan (192 comments total) 2 users marked this as a favorite

Hmm, it just seems the sexed-up-violence-obsessed-questionable-historical-accuracy genre is really not going away.
posted by Burhanistan at 8:29 PM on March 9, 2007 [4 favorites]


Wesley Morris didn't like it, either.
posted by yhbc at 8:31 PM on March 9, 2007


Hmm, it just seems the sexed-up-violence-obsessed-questionable-historical-accuracy genre is really not going away.


I'll gladly take that over the snipped-balls-passive-pedantic flicks any old day of the week.
posted by Bookhouse at 8:34 PM on March 9, 2007 [2 favorites]


"But who knew the trailer's catch phrase "Then we shall fight in the shade" is actually lifted from Herodotus?"

Those of us who studied Latin from Wheelock got "In umbra, igitur, pugnabimus!" from Cicero.

.
posted by RavinDave at 8:35 PM on March 9, 2007


Dean Barnett reacts to the Slate review.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 8:36 PM on March 9, 2007


Is George Bush Leonidas, or Xerxes?

Tell me which one of the two would be described as chicken hawks and i'll tell you who Bush is.
posted by nola at 8:41 PM on March 9, 2007 [1 favorite]


I haven't seen the movie yet but I can't imagine how it can improve on the original book, seeing how so much of the drama and performance was a result of Miller employing amazing wide-page spreads.

Also, it's the best writing Miller's ever done. Hands down, the lines delivered in 300 top anything in the Sin City or Dark Knight books.

Odds are the book costs less than a pair of tickets to the movie, and you get to keep it. Take the better deal.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 8:41 PM on March 9, 2007


"If 300, the new battle epic based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, had been made in Germany in the mid-1930s, it would be studied today alongside The Eternal Jew as a textbook example of how race-baiting fantasy and nationalist myth can serve as an incitement to total war. Since it's a product of the post-ideological, post-Xbox 21st century, 300 will instead be talked about as a technical achievement, the next blip on the increasingly blurry line between movies and video games."

Ouch.
posted by homunculus at 8:41 PM on March 9, 2007 [1 favorite]


I was pretty unsurprised by the reviews but color me a Frank Miller fanboy, I'm going to see it tomorrow afternoon anyways.
posted by saraswati at 8:42 PM on March 9, 2007


Also, it's the best writing Miller's ever done. Hands down, the lines delivered in 300 top anything in the Sin City or Dark Knight books.

As a rabid fan of Miller's work with Batman I'm going to have to kill you for that comment.
posted by saraswati at 8:43 PM on March 9, 2007


Re: An actual war with actual Persians.

Or, as I like to explain it 'round Casa Docgonzo, the reason why I find 24 abhorrent.

Good thing Guantanamo isn't a prison!
posted by docgonzo at 8:44 PM on March 9, 2007


I saw it a few weeks ago. Beautiful to look at. Nice choreography. Well edited. Overall? The movie's poo. Shallow characters, little story, atrocious narration and, worst of all, captital- B Boring. The friend I went with walked out 20 mins in. I wish I'd followed him.
posted by dobbs at 8:44 PM on March 9, 2007 [1 favorite]


Ya gotta love a movie that brings out the venom in critics; both Joe Morgenstern at the WSJ and A.O. Scott at the NYT came up with some great lines today as they slammed 300. Morgenstern said there were two battles going on, the Spartans against the Persians and "millions of fans of brainless violence against a gallant band, or so I choose to think of us, who still expect movies to contain detectable traces of humanity." Scott starts off by saying it's "about as violent as Apocalypto and twice as stupid."

Morgenstern's usually spot on, for what that's worth.
posted by mediareport at 8:46 PM on March 9, 2007


I saw the movie this evening with my my fiancee and we both walked away pleased with the experience. Her general takeaway was that it was satisfying and entertaining, though she might say the same about Jackass 2 or Borat. I, on the other hand, really wanted to come home and play 300 the video game, but quipped, as only a person who no longer owns a PS3 could, "It would probably be a PS3 exclusive."

It's exceptionally violent and sexualized, but it's not over the top for the narrative. Other than some gratuitous nipples, which may or may not be period or genre appropriate, the sex and violence flowed nicely with the plot.

I'd recommend it, but I'm not entirely certain I'd take my mother to see it. For a point of reference, I saw 40 Year Old Virgin the unrated version with her and had to leave in the first fifteen minutes because my liberal mother was clearly shocked to be seeing such filth. Thankfully, she left so I could enjoy the filth in relative privacy with my fiancee.
posted by sequential at 8:46 PM on March 9, 2007


As a rabid fan of Miller's work with Batman I'm going to have to kill you for that comment.

I'll just have to come back as a clone with new super-powers then before you dump me in a pit of lava.

Also, the goddamn Batman already called me a retard.
posted by XQUZYPHYR at 8:48 PM on March 9, 2007 [1 favorite]


Dean Barnett reacts to the Slate review.

Well, that was pointless.
posted by mediareport at 8:50 PM on March 9, 2007


At least one review I skimmed today noted that the Spartans, as tkchrist once put it were assholes. No, wait, what was noted was that they were slaveholders. My bad. What tkc noted bears repetition:

The Spartans, while oozing with valor and badassness, were at their very core complete fucking assholes and their society doomed as a result of that.

posted by mwhybark at 8:52 PM on March 9, 2007 [1 favorite]


Batman Year 100 sounds interesting.
posted by homunculus at 8:55 PM on March 9, 2007


The Spartans ... were at their very core complete fucking assholes

Spoiler alert!
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I find it interesting that none of the reviewers seem to notice that, in the Miller version of the story, it is precisely their assholeness about those deemed unfit to be a Spartan that is the ultimate downfall of the heroic 300 of the story.
posted by frogan at 9:04 PM on March 9, 2007


Oh, and I kid you not that watching this extended trailer is as much satisfaction as you'd get from watching the film. You'll just have a lot more time on your hands when you're done. (Trailer has some nudity and a shot of Rorschach from Snyder's next piece of shit adaption at 1:52.)
posted by dobbs at 9:04 PM on March 9, 2007


dobbs said:

Beautiful to look at. Nice choreography. Well edited. Overall? The movie's poo. Shallow characters, little story, atrocious narration and, worst of all, captital- B Boring. The friend I went with walked out 20 mins in. I wish I'd followed him.

Yep.
posted by bigmusic at 9:07 PM on March 9, 2007


Victor Davis Hanson. "...purists must remember that 300 seeks to bring a comic book, not Herodotus, to the screen."
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 9:11 PM on March 9, 2007 [1 favorite]


I was really excited about 300, went to the midnight showing at the IMAX, and left with mixed feelings. I did not expect much in terms of plot or character but even still I felt somewhat disappointed. The film was visually stunning, well choreographed, and I enjoyed the camera work. It was satisfying to watch the Spartans fight, but everything else was boring filler. The film could have been a good deal shorter and still had the same effect.

But don't compare the movie to current events in the world. The movie was made solely to be a feast for the eyes, not deliver some deep, preachy message.
posted by god particle at 9:13 PM on March 9, 2007


That was possibly the gayest fucking movie I have ever seen.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 9:15 PM on March 9, 2007 [3 favorites]


Persia = Iran

And did the Spartans wax their chests?
posted by joseppi7 at 9:21 PM on March 9, 2007


I object to the title. There were 4,900 other Greeks in addition to the 300 Spartans.

Oh, and I kid you not that watching this extended trailer is as much satisfaction as you'd get from watching the film.

That trailer was stupid.
Except for the titties.
posted by kirkaracha at 9:30 PM on March 9, 2007


So what does that tell you?
posted by nola at 9:34 PM on March 9, 2007


After two days of battle, a Greek shepherd showed the Persians an alternate way through the mountains. Because of that, the battle became hopeless. Leonidas told the other 4900 Greeks (or as many of them as were still alive) to flee, and he and his 300 stayed and fought on. They all died. That's why it's called "300".
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 9:38 PM on March 9, 2007


Did it have the historical man-man love? Or did that, you know, not happen?
posted by adipocere at 9:43 PM on March 9, 2007


300 : How to make million-person epic battles boring as fuck

Just walked out in the middle of it at IMAX.
Last movie I walked out of was Shrek....or The Mummy Returns. One of those pieces of shit.

Anyhoo...

This thing was boring as fuck. Note to director: when you shoot EVERY DAMN THING in slow motion, it becomes boring as a slap fight in a candle store. At regular speed this is a 25 minute film. Tops.

And before you jump to conclusions, I didnt go in expecting art at all.
I just wanted eye candy and some kickass battles. They had some pretty cool batttles choreographed, and then sucked the fucking life out of them by shooting EVERYTHING in slow motion.
Everything.
Im not kidding.
Even in-between shit like people walking across rooms and stuff was in Epic SloMo.

A beautiful-looking bore and a half.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 9:44 PM on March 9, 2007


Shallow characters, little story, atrocious narration and, worst of all, captital- B Boring.

In other words, a faithful latter-day Frank Miller adaptation.
Aside from the occasional bit of artistic flash, most of his work in the last 15 years reads like unintentional parody - the forced, embarrassingly self-conscious "This is an epic, can't you see this is epic, I dare you to say it isn't epic, god, this is so fucking epic" tone of 300 is a particularly good example of his failings as a writer.

Still wouldn't mind seeing the flick, though. Purty lookin' pitcher.

That said, Stevens' review was a hoot in its wrongheadedness, getting plot points wrong (I could swear that the fifth paragraph originally said that Leonidas killed a messenger, implying one of his own men, not a Persian envoy. Otherwise, what the hell does a breach in diplomatic protocol - if killing a representative of an invading force counted as such back then - have to do with being a tyrant?) and far overestimating the box office influence comic readers really have in her rush to get her political licks in. Disingenuousness or complete obliviousness indeed.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 9:46 PM on March 9, 2007


Miller's stuff was shit-hot when I was 15. At 33, not quite so much. I think I would have thought Sin City was the best thing evar if I'd seen it as a teenager, but when I saw it last year, the only impression it made on me was "Man, this guy's got some serious issues with women."

When I saw the trailer for 300 in the theatre, a couple of guys were loudly counting out each of the "AAAAARRRRGGGHHHH!!!!!"'s, which kind of took away from the awesome epic-ness, not to mention cracked up the rest of the audience.
posted by The Card Cheat at 10:01 PM on March 9, 2007 [3 favorites]


Some entertainment cable station interviewed Dad the Emeritus Historian of Graeco-Roman Egypt today about the film's fidelity to the historical record. It's non-existent, apparently, which I'm sure comes as a shock to...er, no one. Dad did find the whole nude warrior thing rather amusing, though.
posted by thomas j wise at 10:03 PM on March 9, 2007


MetaFilter: Overall? The movie's poo.
posted by kirkaracha at 10:03 PM on March 9, 2007


Did the guys who volunteered to fight alongside the spartans at the battle show up in the movie? There were more of them than there were spartans, in real life.
posted by Mitrovarr at 10:05 PM on March 9, 2007


Yeah they did, but the general theme is that they were pussies that werent really warriors anyway.

I learned from 300 that the Spartans were dickbags.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 10:07 PM on March 9, 2007


My biggest problem with this movie, which I haven't yet seen, is that they really didn't figure out a way to yell "Sparta!" compellingly with a British accent. "This... Is... Spaaaah-Daaah!" isn't quite doing it for me.
posted by staggernation at 10:13 PM on March 9, 2007


I saw this last week. I was so hyped to see the "fight in the shade" line. I still don't know how I felt about the film. It was gorgeous. But the violence was so choreographed and slo-mo'd that it stopped feeling violent. It was a dance. Also, the scenes they added with Gorgo that weren't in the book did nothing but slow it down. I too felt uncomfortable with the vilification of blacks in the movie. The blacker the member of the Persian empire, the more evil. Also, the one thing I didn't like about the book was the freakishly deformed turncoat. it was too over the top. Snyder seemed to view it instead as a license to add even more freaks.

One interesting comparison that I haven't seen anyone make is how this movie was in many ways the exact opposite of Troy. Troy took the Illiad and attempted to strip the myth out of it and make it seem much more real. 300 took a real event and made it into myth.
posted by thecjm at 10:16 PM on March 9, 2007


Dulce et decorum est, the movie. Your entertainment dollars this week are way better spent on The Host.

And Dana Stevens is a she.
posted by muckster at 10:21 PM on March 9, 2007


Some entertainment cable station interviewed Dad the Emeritus Historian of Graeco-Roman Egypt today about the film's fidelity to the historical record. It's non-existent, apparently, which I'm sure comes as a shock to...er, no one.

We should simply have faithfully adapted the works of the Greeks, who were famous for nuanced, absolutely accurate presentations of their own history.
posted by Astro Zombie at 10:28 PM on March 9, 2007 [1 favorite]


I love how the default Hollywood european/foreigner/figure from the classical period is always British.

"Ok boys, we'll do the whole they speak in the bog latin for a minute jibber-jabber and then we zoom in on the guys mouth and zoom out and everyone's a fucking Brit."

No I mean I really love that, it helps me out. Nothing more exotic than a dude with a spray on tan and a tonsured neckbeard for me please.
posted by Divine_Wino at 10:40 PM on March 9, 2007


Did it have the historical man-man love? Or did that, you know, not happen?

Not only does Spartan man-man love not happen, I'm told, but Miller actually turns Sparta into an uber-hard hetero bastion, and uses faggy gayness to evil-ize the Persians even more. The Voice review is fun:

Delicacies of dismemberment aside, 300 is notable for its outrageous sexual confusion. Here stands the Spartan king Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and his 299 buddies in nothing but leather man-panties and oiled torsos, clutching a variety of phalluses they seek to thrust in the bodies of their foes by trapping them in a small, rectum-like mountain passage called the "gates of hell(o!)" Yonder rises the Persian menace, led by the slinky, mascara'd Xerxes. When he's not flaring his nostrils at Leonidas and demanding he kneel down before his, uh, majesty, this flamboyantly pierced crypto-transsexual lounges on chinchilla throw pillows amidst a rump-shaking orgy of disfigured lesbians.

On first glance, the terms couldn't be clearer: macho white guys vs. effeminate Orientals. Yet aside from the fact that Spartans come across as pinched, pinheaded gym bunnies, it's their flesh the movie worships. Not since Beau Travail has a phalanx of meatheads received such insistent ogling. As for the threat to peace, freedom, and democracy, that filthy Persian orgy looks way more fun than sitting around watching Spartans mope while their angry children slap each other around. At once homophobic and homoerotic, 300 is finally, and hilariously, just hysterical.

posted by mediareport at 10:41 PM on March 9, 2007


He's like Sean Connery doing Robert Duvall in "Apocalypse Now" in a chicer version of the costume Connery wore in "Zardoz."

...and you, Wesley Morris, are like Dennis Miller doing TV's Frank in a cheaper version of the sweatsuit Jay Sherman wore midway through the first season of "The Critic". You have laid for us a mystery wrapped inside an obscure reference wrapped inside a big ol' who-gives-a-poop tortilla wrapped inside the Boston Globe.

Now, Frank Miller...there's a dude who writes from the heart.
posted by unregistered_animagus at 10:50 PM on March 9, 2007 [1 favorite]


Oh and did I mention that theres a narrator that sounds like a cartoon wizard that shows up just to describe the inane shit that you are LOOKING AT AT THE TIME?

Fuck this movie.
posted by Senor Cardgage at 10:55 PM on March 9, 2007 [1 favorite]


You know what really pissed me off? The blatant pandering to 9/11 by Peter Jackson in naming the movie "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" The title is clearly meant to refer to the attacks on the World Trade Center. In this post-September 11 world, it is unforgivable that this should be allowed to happen. The idea is both offensive and morally repugnant.
posted by Smedleyman at 10:57 PM on March 9, 2007 [3 favorites]


I just got back from it. I expected a 50/50 retarded/awesome ratio but it ended up more like 80/20.

Someone said above that the movie should have been 25 minutes long. With no slow motion, they could have hit 20, I think.

Not as bad as Sin City was, but still not good enough.
posted by BlackLeotardFront at 11:14 PM on March 9, 2007


I kind of have the impression that Dana Stevens wanted them to do to this story what Oliver Stone did to Alexander the Great.

Only problem is that movie making is a business, and Stone's "Alexander" lost a bundle.

300 cost a lot less to make ($60 million instead of $150 million) and apparently didn't try to repaint the story with a thick coat of modern sensitivity and multiculturalism, and I bet it ends up being profitable. Say whatever else you will about them, knuckle-dragging Neanderthals have a lot of money to spend on tales of martial prowess with well-delineated good guys and bad guys (and I don't mean their muscles), and larger-than-life heroes.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 11:15 PM on March 9, 2007


Senor Cardgage: "This thing was boring as fuck. Note to director: when you shoot EVERY DAMN THING in slow motion, it becomes boring as a slap fight in a candle store. At regular speed this is a 25 minute film... A beautiful-looking bore and a half."

Did you not like the movie or something?
posted by Effigy2000 at 11:21 PM on March 9, 2007


AFAIK, adult male homosexuality was not an accepted part of Spartan culture. They did practice pederasty, however.

Based on some of the reviews linked here, I have to say that I'm a little bemused at the near-hysterical reaction emanating from certain segments of the Left--and I say this as a man of the Left myself--in response to this harmless, if surprisingly dull, film. Why does a brainless action flick with a veneer of historicity have to be interpreted as a political allegory? Why does being a fun, if hollow, exercise in macho heroism open a work up to charges of crypto-Nazism? I'd hate to see Dana Stevens do a retrospective review of Patton. She'd eviscerate it with all the overpoliticized earnestness of a teenage Marxist.

I'm glad to see that Nathan Lee at the Voice gets more into the spirit, but the whole 'The Spartans are really masculine; that's really gay. The Persians are really feminine; that's really gay.' thing has all the depth of a schoolyard taunt.

Now, to make the circle complete, we just need a review from the Right interpreting 300 as an all-American, pro-Bush tribute to our war against the godless Oriental hordes.
posted by Makoto at 11:23 PM on March 9, 2007 [2 favorites]


(The British being honorary Americans, of course, except in Mel Gibson movies.)
posted by Makoto at 11:26 PM on March 9, 2007


Based on some of the reviews linked here, I have to say that I'm a little bemused at the near-hysterical reaction emanating from certain segments of the Left--and I say this as a man of the Left myself--in response to this harmless, if surprisingly dull, film. Why does a brainless action flick with a veneer of historicity have to be interpreted as a political allegory? Why does being a fun, if hollow, exercise in macho heroism open a work up to charges of crypto-Nazism?

Because it celebrates martial prowess, and could be interpreted to mean that there are things worth fighting for, worth killing for, and worth dying for. To the lefties to which you refer who are having this near-hysterical reaction, that idea is obscene.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 11:36 PM on March 9, 2007


The trailer for this film just looked awful, so I'm not sure what people were expecting. Consider the elements:

1. Lost cause.
2. Aggressive, irrational, frothing leader.
3. Dickbags.

All the ingredients of a profound film, right?

Regarding Frank Miller: After listening to his interview on Fresh Air a few years ago, I pretty much gave up on his work. The ridiculous assertion that '9/11 changed everything' hasn't lead to anything particularly rewarding yet, and I can't imagine it ever will.
posted by Kikkoman at 11:51 PM on March 9, 2007


The History Channel or Discovery Times has an interesting piece running currently addressing the historical context of the story of the 300 and it's pretty interesting. Check it out if you can.
posted by iamabot at 12:05 AM on March 10, 2007


from the spartans re: your fabled fight

we'll keep digging you up 'til you get it right
posted by pyramid termite at 12:13 AM on March 10, 2007


could be interpreted to mean that there are things worth fighting for, worth killing for, and worth dying for.

It's interesting you should mention that, because the 300 referenced in the crappy movie were ostensibly fighting, killing, and dying for sovereignty against foreign invaders. Ponder that while you bravely risk carpal tunnel.
posted by dirigibleman at 12:32 AM on March 10, 2007 [5 favorites]


This thread is confused. I haven't seen the movie, but I'm familiar with the Battle of Thermopylae:

1. Herodotus is one of the main sources on the Peleponnesian War -- how is the quote surprising? It's apocryphal, but commonly attributed to a Spartan soldier.

2. There were more than 6,000 other Greeks at the battle (I've never heard the 4,900 figure before), but the fighting was almost all done by Spartans. And it's generally accepted that the Spartan contingent was the decisive factor, especially given their strategic experience, unit discipline, and that they never really got a chance to rotate out of the front lines. Also, armored Hoplites were significantly different than regular infantry, as was demonstrated many times before and after during the war. In this case, the pass faces the ocean, so the Spartan phalanx would set up diagonally and the advancing Persian infantry would essentially roll off into the ocean. That wouldn't have been possible without a unit that was trained to fight in formation (the shields have to overlap in a particular way).

3. "300 took a real event and made it into myth." Ummm... the Illiad is a myth, true. But, the battle of Thermopylae did occur, and aside from the literary embellishments, it did happen much as it seems to be portrayed in the movie. That's why it's a good story.

4. The "slavery" line strikes me as somewhat nonsensical. The Lacedaemonian state was run by the Spartan warrior-class, who were in theory above the helot worker-class who were "owned," but the Spartans weren't allowed to own material possessions or trade in currency. Hence the term 'Spartan living' -- it's not as if they were some bourgeois class living in luxury on the backs of their workers. The soldier life was in many ways pretty harsh and miserable, even if they were the nominal leaders of the state. If anything, it's reasonable to characterize the relationship between the two classes as symbiotic.

5. "Leonidas told the other 4900 Greeks (or as many of them as were still alive) to flee, and he and his 300 stayed and fought on. They all died. That's why it's called "300"." It's generally considered important that 700 Thespians -- who weren't professional soldiers nor members of the honor guard -- stayed behind and were killed with the Spartans. But whatever.

6. Oh, and as long as I'm on the topic, Dana Stevens is a fucking idiot, and has no idea what he's talking about:

If 300, the new battle epic based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, had been made in Germany in the mid-1930s, it would be studied today alongside The Eternal Jew as a textbook example of how race-baiting fantasy and nationalist myth can serve as an incitement to total war.

Mobilizing 300 men out of a 10,000-man-army is an incitement to total war? That's fucking moronic. And actually complaining that the movie portrays the Greeks and Persians as being physically distinguishable? Would it have been preferable to give everyone the same skin color? What a twit.

One of the few war movies I've seen in the past two decades that doesn't include at least some nod in the direction of antiwar sentiment, 300 is a mythic ode to righteous bellicosity.

Yeah, because god knows it wouldn't be a war movie if it didn't have some of that good old token antiwar sentiment. And of all the "Greek cultures" Dana Stevens manages to somehow lump together in a monocultural mass (note to moronic Slate reviewers: unified "Greek" culture was still a couple hundred years down the road at the time), surely it would have been much more accurate to portray them as Athenian diplomats.

What a fucking ignoramus.
posted by spiderwire at 12:47 AM on March 10, 2007 [19 favorites]


And incidentally, did it ever occur to anyone that maybe there's not a fucking historical parallel to be drawn here? Why does everything have to be about the United States? It's ancient, city-state-era Greece, for christ's sake. Get a grip.
posted by spiderwire at 12:49 AM on March 10, 2007 [2 favorites]


Because it celebrates martial prowess, and could be interpreted to mean that there are things worth fighting for, worth killing for, and worth dying for. To the lefties to which you refer who are having this near-hysterical reaction, that idea is obscene.

I think they're reacting to its resemblance to Fritz Lang's Niebelungenslied, and to a plethora of other nationalist epics drawn out in spectacle and male sacrifice.

Now, I happen to love the classical epic form, but I'm not going to dissemble and claim that the pure heroics of the Aeneid, the "arma virumque," do not share the page with appeals to Roman national pietas, with shameless bootlicking of Augustus, with politics, cheap and simple.

The Chinese martial arts film is of this same species. The genre is on its face a celebration of stylized martial prowess, but any familiarity with it also reveals brazen allegories of national superiority, of triumph over assorted Euro/Jap racial and cultural bogeymen. To not see it, you'd have to want to miss it.
posted by kid ichorous at 12:58 AM on March 10, 2007


Also, Filmfreak's review of 300 is good.
posted by kid ichorous at 1:00 AM on March 10, 2007


Just saw the flick. Seriously, I wanted it to be longer, not shorter. A set-up about fighting first with your head, then with your heart, and no pay-off. I wanted to see smart Spartans showing the hordes what-for. Some amazing visuals. Not quite enough punch to go with them, though.

I'm sure it'll be a fixture in every high-school football team's locker room, though.

how is the quote surprising?

Because it sounds like a scriptwriter's line. It's too good to be true (or apocryphal).
posted by frogan at 1:01 AM on March 10, 2007


The genre is on its face a celebration of stylized martial prowess, but any familiarity with it also reveals brazen allegories of national superiority

True 'dat. The Jet Li movie Hero was a giant hand-job for the Chinese ruling party. The king simply must oppress his subjects. You know, for the good of all China.
posted by frogan at 1:03 AM on March 10, 2007


I'm going to go see 300 for two reasons:

Frank Miller's original comic. Memories are a bit fuzzy, but it was pretty damn awesome.

An actor from my graduating film is in the film.
posted by slimepuppy at 1:12 AM on March 10, 2007


It's generally considered important that 700 Thespians -- who weren't professional soldiers nor members of the honor guard -- stayed behind and were killed with the Spartans.

Yeah, but they were just actors. Who needs 'em?
posted by erskelyne at 1:31 AM on March 10, 2007 [2 favorites]


"Yeah, but they were just actors. Who needs 'em?"

Whenever I hear about the Thespians voting to stay behind and fight with the Spartans, I always picture their general giving a grand speech. It ends something like: "Your sacrifices will not be forgotten. After this battle, the word Thespian shall always stand for courage, honor, and valor in combat."
posted by Mitrovarr at 1:42 AM on March 10, 2007 [4 favorites]


Okay, a cartoon wizard narrator?

I mean, I was looking forward to watching this. On about the same level that I looked forward to watching Ong-Bak or Iron Monkey, but, still.

Of all the gibbery words that have been typed about that movie in the past whatever months and on this very thread, this alone gives me pause. Oh, man.
posted by furiousthought at 1:58 AM on March 10, 2007


Wait, we're at war with Persians?

Did we invade Iran when I wasn't looking?

...anyway. I haven't seen 300, and I don't plan to. The acting seems overblown, the action scenes I've seen look extremely silly, and most importantly, I didn't like the graphic novel.
posted by Target Practice at 2:54 AM on March 10, 2007


"Since it's a product of the post-ideological, post-Xbox 21st century"

You damn kids with your damn Xboxes! Back in my day, we had ideals. Get off my damn lawn!

Are film people really that bitter and threatened by games growing in popularity? Or is it just that all the horrible video game movie adaptations have tainted their perceptions?

I mean "post-xbox"? What the fuck does that mean?
posted by blenderfish at 2:54 AM on March 10, 2007


kirkaracha

To be fair to Miller, he does show large groups of other Greeks fighting in the Battle of Thermopylae. Not 4600, but more than the Spartans.

...Of course, he also makes them out to be cowardly novices, but what're ya gonna do.
posted by Target Practice at 2:58 AM on March 10, 2007


Because it sounds like a scriptwriter's line. It's too good to be true (or apocryphal).

The point is that saying the quote was "lifted" from Herodotus is like saying that "These are times that try men's souls" was "lifted" from Thomas Paine. It's the original source.

And the term "Thespian" (as in actors) doesn't come from Thespiae the country, it comes from the actor, Thespis of Icaria.
posted by spiderwire at 3:02 AM on March 10, 2007


It was the most homophobic, gay soft-porn film I've seen.
posted by paddbear at 3:09 AM on March 10, 2007


No, wait, what was noted was that they were slaveholders.

As were the Athenians. Some reckon, and I agree, that the very flowering of Athenian culture around the fourth century BC to which the west owes so much could not have happened without the institution of slavery. It's uncomfortable, but no less likely an explanation for that.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 3:23 AM on March 10, 2007


Juat as an aside, smedleyman, you do realise that Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers in 1954, quite a few years before Peter Jackson's movie and September 11... I'm pretty sure he didn't realise at the time that either of those were coming. (just in case anyone's interested, my flatmate worked on all 3 movies, in quite a senior role alongside Peter Jackson. She has some awesome photos of that period, and also got to dress up as an orc as an extra when they had to go back and shoot added scenes after production had all but shut down.)
posted by Jubey at 3:50 AM on March 10, 2007 [1 favorite]


The movie looks pretty and a bit over the top, much like the original comic was. It short, it looks like fun and worth $8. Movies are sometimes supposed to be fun, you know?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 4:13 AM on March 10, 2007


Also, Filmfreak's review of 300 is good.

From that review: "300 is a luxury-car commercial with beheadings." That's so true. It wouldn't feel out of place to a Lexus cruise through a scene or two.
posted by Meridian at 4:21 AM on March 10, 2007 [1 favorite]


Okay, a cartoon wizard narrator?

No, there's not cartoon wizard narrator. The narrator is one of the Spartans. And yes, the narration tells us what's happening on screen, but it works, and makes sense by the end of the film.

I saw it in IMAX yesterday, and thought it was very entertaining. As that AICN review said, it's a bunch of guys killing the ever living crap out of a bunch of other guys. It sets the bar for fight scenes. There are some extended, balletic moments that are pretty damn amazing. The fast-slow-fast motion technique I didn't find distracting at all. Honestly, people are complaining about slow motion in an action movie?

I also wasn't distracted by the nakedness of the Spartans. Though I do wonder if all of those six pack abs were real or digitally enhanced.

I'm 36, so I'm no testosterone fueled fanboy. I'm not sure what those of you who proudly walked out of the thing were expecting. Did you not see the trailer? What part of the blood-spattered title, shouting Spartans, raging beasties, and writhing naked chicks confused you?
posted by schoolgirl report at 4:38 AM on March 10, 2007


Seriously, if you're going to see this movie, see it in IMAX. There's no other reason to see it. It's visually stunning, much like the Matrix, but without all the troublesome depth or, you know, plot.

This movie would be nothing without the following credit, either:

"Transsexual Asian #2: Cindy"

...I mean, how do you get cast in such a film and not rate being Transsexual Asian #1?
posted by thanotopsis at 4:38 AM on March 10, 2007 [3 favorites]


Honestly, people are complaining about slow motion in an action movie?

No. People are complaing about a slow motion action movie
posted by Senor Cardgage at 4:46 AM on March 10, 2007


Just as an aside, smedleyman, you do realise that Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers in 1954, quite a few years before Peter Jackson's movie and September 11...

Hmmm, the conspiracy deepens...
posted by Meridian at 5:13 AM on March 10, 2007


how do you get cast in such a film and not rate being Transsexual Asian #1?

it doesn't matter ... you can always put #1 on your resume
posted by pyramid termite at 5:14 AM on March 10, 2007


the narration tells us what's happening on screen, but it works

No, it completely doesn't work. People were groaning in the theatre whenever the guy opened his mouth. We don't need voice over, EVER, to tell us what we're seeing. "The wolf circles..." No shit! Look, the wolf is circling. The narration started out hysterical and quickly became one of the most annoying things about a very annoying movie.
posted by dobbs at 5:20 AM on March 10, 2007


Wow.... so many people that just don't get this movie.

Disclaimer... I'm biased, my son is one of the producers, Zack is a friend, I watched days of the filming and sat through a few days of color and sound editing.. (that scene with the arrows... I beat Snyder at ping pong about ten times in the lobby of the Hitchcock Theater while the techs were adding all those little arrow hits on the shield... Zack's a great movie maker, not so much at ping pong! :)

That said..

At no time was there ever any discussion or thought of this as a reflection or comment on current events. They had been working on getting this production off the ground way before we stepped foot in Iraq.

Those that are looking for historical accuracy are looking at the wrong film, the whole intent was to recreate Millers look/feel.

Those that find too much/too little homosexuality content probably didn't read the comic carefully... it does it differently, but doesn't stray too far from the graphic novel.

The film is what it is, there was no doubt in my mind from the time I saw the first shot months ago that there would be those that loved it and those that hated it....

Personally, I think it is a nice work, worth seeing, and hopefully will allow my son to support me in my old age! :)
posted by HuronBob at 5:40 AM on March 10, 2007 [3 favorites]


At once homophobic and homoerotic

I'm going to use this to describe everything Miller's done from now on. It just fits.

Well, that and WHORES WHORES WHORES WHORES
posted by ArmyOfKittens at 6:05 AM on March 10, 2007 [2 favorites]


Can someone please, please explain to me the attraction of Miller?
Yeah, I get the whole "he revolutionized the genre" argument. But, really, when you step back from it all, all he seems to have brought to the table was psychotic violence wrapped in a thin, thin candy-coating of stilted, pop literary pretension.
I suppose it was interesting once.
All imho, of course
posted by Thorzdad at 6:06 AM on March 10, 2007


I can't believe people (above the age of 14) are actually going to see this movie. The reviews have been devastating. Since nobody's quoted A.O. Scott yet, I'll do the honors:
“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...

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.
And on the history front:

The "slavery" line strikes me as somewhat nonsensical... If anything, it's reasonable to characterize the relationship between the two classes as symbiotic.

Uh huh. From the Wikipedia article (fully referenced, for you Wiki haters):
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.

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.
Sounds peachy to me! I'm sure you'll be volunteering for helotry any day now!
posted by languagehat at 6:27 AM on March 10, 2007 [4 favorites]


Saw the film last night. Visually amazing, predictable characters. We know who is good, who is bad, who is the traitor. NOW LET'S FIGHT! (slow motion style) Overall, a very enjoyable theater experience due to the visuals.

Any suggested parallel with Bush is way off the mark. Yes, the leader of the Spartans decides to fight despite the views of the senate, but HE is the one who leads them onto the battlefield. He doesn't send others off to die while he sits at home safe.

One disturbing aspect of the film: Spartans are the heroes of the story. Spartan culture is depicted as completely dedicated to training warriors. They show scenes in the film where they train and tell their youth that death for their people is the highest achievement they can ever earn. In the real world we vilify such behavior when practiced by fanatical Islamists or the Japanese during WWII. Yet we should view the Spartans as heroes for the same?

And if you really want some fun, view the U.S. presence in the Middle East as the Persian invasion, and the Islamic people of the Middle East as the hopelessly outmatched Spartans. It actually works on many levels.

We don't need voice over, EVER, to tell us what we're seeing. "The wolf circles..." No shit! Look, the wolf is circling. The narration started out hysterical and quickly became one of the most annoying things about a very annoying movie.

You completely missed it. If you noticed who's voice it was, you would realize that it was a soldier telling the tale of Leonidas and the 300 Spartans to his troops before battle. As he was commanded to do by Leonidas. That the story of the 300 was told, and survives to this day, is the entire point of the movie.
posted by jsonic at 6:28 AM on March 10, 2007


To the lefties to which you refer who are having this near-hysterical reaction, that idea is obscene.

Oh please. Most of the reactions are about the lameness of the filmmaking and the editing decisions. And for every dumb reaction on the left, there's going to be an equally dumb reaction on the right, like that ever-so-thoughtful one in the link you posted near the top. If "all the right people might wind up hating it" doesn't count as a "near-hysterical" reason to go see a movie, then nothing does.
posted by mediareport at 6:41 AM on March 10, 2007


The Slate review confirms my suspicions. I am full of dread now as I have no choice but to take a kid I work with to this movie next week, who of late has become obsessed with the storyline. Problem is, this kid feeds off racist and homophobic bullshit. Gak.
posted by moonbird at 6:46 AM on March 10, 2007


Can someone please, please explain to me the attraction of Miller?

... psychotic violence...

You answered your own question.
posted by synaesthetichaze at 6:48 AM on March 10, 2007


I'm sorry, but it really is a camp masterpiece.
posted by Astro Zombie at 6:52 AM on March 10, 2007


There's a really odd quote from Frank Miller in this pre-film release look at the book by GayLeague.com's Joe Palmer and the Gay Comics List's François Peneaud:

During the original miniseries, a reader took Miller to task for [the "boy-lovers" remark], and the author gave a rather strange answer: "Being a warrior class, the Spartans almost certainly did practice homosexuality. There's also evidence they tended to lie about it. It's not a big leap to postulate that they ridiculed their hedonistic Athenian rivals for something they themselves did. 'Hypocrisy' is, after all, a word we got from the Greek."

Of course, we couldn't dare mention that in the book or movie. Palmer and Peneaud aren't stupid about why, nor are they particularly "hysterical" about it:

This is an action-adventure comic and movie aimed at young straight men, meant to pile up book sales and box-office cash by piling up dead bodies as graphically and artistically as possible. That is an audience not likely shell out $9 to see even a mere implication of same-sex love.

The real issue is that Miller (and apparently Hollywood, in adapting his work) did include homosexuality, but negatively. If neither the effeminacy of Xerxes nor the insult were included, or if by some miracle they were balanced out with the other half of the historical equation, gay viewers would have less reason to feel insulted by yet again more historical inaccuracies.


The key words there being "yet again."
posted by mediareport at 6:53 AM on March 10, 2007 [1 favorite]


You completely missed it.

No, I didn't miss it. It was unnecessary. Have you never seen a movie which properly uses narration before? The narrator sets up the story and then we see visuals which we interpret as the story he is telling. Though visuals are being supplied to us, the implication is that they are manifestations of the narration. Therefore, the audio narration becomes redundant.

You're implying that were the narration not used sparsely (introducing the story and closing it--bracketing the main visuals) instead of constantly telling us what we are watching, that the audience would somehow become lost--that we wouldn't understand the narration came from the very soldier we were watching tell the story at the end whose voice matches the monotonous one we'd be hearing for 2 hours. In which case, I'd suggest that it is you who missed it.

I have not read the comic book. Perhaps the narration comes right out of the comic. In which case, I'd argue that, perhaps, the wolf isn't circling in the comic book because it's made of stills not moving pictures, therefore the narration is providing context that Miller feels is necessary.

Snyder, like many filmmakers who adapt things, doesn't seem to understand that comic books and movies are different mediums and have different strengths and weaknesses.
posted by dobbs at 6:54 AM on March 10, 2007


it really is a camp masterpiece.

Yeah, that Voice review makes it sound like a hoot in the right frame of mind, which is why I'm gonna see it. But I'm not paying for it, that's for sure.
posted by mediareport at 6:57 AM on March 10, 2007


No, I didn't miss it. It was unnecessary.

You're still missing it, and it's really not that subtle. The story-telling, actual human voices telling a story, is the very thing that keeps the sacrifice of the 300 from being completely pointless. Without it, this is simply a movie about 300 idiots who were obliterated for no reason. The dialog between Leonidas and Xerxes explicitly says this.

The movie is therefore portrayed in the past tense, as a story being told to others. It's the only way Leonidas can be victorious over Xerxes.

You're incorrectly assuming that the only reason for narration in a movie is for explaining the plot to people who are too stupid to figure it out.
posted by jsonic at 7:22 AM on March 10, 2007


I really can't believe I paid to see that shit.
posted by odasaku at 7:25 AM on March 10, 2007 [1 favorite]


i'll save everyone the trouble or watching - the greeks turn all the persians into rugs and bluto vomits over everyone on pledge week

oh, no wait - that was "animal house 2 - trouble in terhan"
posted by pyramid termite at 7:38 AM on March 10, 2007


If anything, it's reasonable to characterize the relationship between the two classes as symbiotic.

Except for the part where Spartans would declare war on the helots and kill any ones that had been making trouble that year. The helots were obviously slaves. obviously.
posted by delmoi at 7:42 AM on March 10, 2007


Looking at the trailer and stuff, I think if you view the movie as a comic book, or as a legend or tall tail it seems like it might be good. It's obviously not meant to be realistic. All the political introspection seems ridiculous. And "we" are not at war with any Persians.
posted by delmoi at 7:49 AM on March 10, 2007


It doesn't matter what Miller or Snyder intended; 300 is about as beautiful and enlightened as Triumph of the Will. It's one thing to show us Spartans doing what Spartans did (more or less), tweak it, mythologize it, aestheticize it--but how come we're supposed to celebrate their two-thousand-year-old warrior mindset without any critical distance? This, and not any direct one-on-one topicality, is what Dana Stevens and other "lefty" commentators are responding too: the movie just brings the ancient lie about the glorious death for your country up to speed for the 21st century. We don't need it.

I happen to agree with Dobbs about the hamfisted narration--yeah, yeah, the story is the point, but it's still poor filmmaking to describe what we're seeing. They could have saved it for the end or something. Then again, everything about 300 is hamfisted.

And seriously: why is this piece of trash getting all the hype, when one of the best monster movies in years & years just opened? In case you missed it up there, here's more about Bong Joon-ho's The Host, the highest-grossing Korean movie of all time, which (unlike 300) is getting rave reviews everywhere: Dave Edelstein, J. Hoberman, Manohla Dargis, Andrew O'Hehir, Anthony Lane, and, uhm, me.
posted by muckster at 7:56 AM on March 10, 2007 [1 favorite]


While I have enjoyed this discourse on race, homosexuality, violence, class systems, and, perhaps most importantly, slow motion – I just want to add that I saw it last night and I thought it kicked ass.

I mean, c'mon, aren't you taking it just a little too seriously, maybe? Can't a bunch of Spartans just kick ass anymore?
posted by kbanas at 8:22 AM on March 10, 2007 [1 favorite]


I have to agree with mediareport that there must be something worth seeing in a movie that pisses both A.O. Scott and Joe Morgenstern (and about 500 other so-called Movie Reviewers).
posted by blucevalo at 8:41 AM on March 10, 2007


Juat as an aside, smedleyman, you do realise that Tolkien wrote Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers in 1954, quite a few years before Peter Jackson's movie and September 11... I'm pretty sure he didn't realise at the time that either of those were coming.

Please recalibrate your sarcasm meter, kthxbye.
posted by Cyrano at 8:41 AM on March 10, 2007


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.
posted by sequential at 8:58 AM on March 10, 2007


Can someone please, please explain to me the attraction of Miller?
Yeah, I get the whole "he revolutionized the genre" argument. But, really, when you step back from it all, all he seems to have brought to the table was psychotic violence wrapped in a thin, thin candy-coating of stilted, pop literary pretension.
I suppose it was interesting once.
All imho, of course
posted by Thorzdad at 2:06 PM GMT on March 10


Replace Miller with Tarantino if it helps. Or Warhol, I suppose. I love it all, superficial though it is.
posted by slimepuppy at 9:09 AM on March 10, 2007


It doesn't matter what Miller or Snyder intended; 300 is about as beautiful and enlightened as Triumph of the Will.

translation - "MY intent is the only thing that matters, so if i want to call it a quasi-nazi documentary with greeks as americans and persians as iranians, then i can, because interpretation is all that matters in the postmodern age, man"
posted by pyramid termite at 9:19 AM on March 10, 2007


sequential: it's called a rhetorical question.

pyramid termite: not all interpretation is postmodern. Movies have meanings. When I say that Miller/Snyder's intentions don't matter, it's because I want to talk about the movie, not their character. You want to discuss 300, or make up stuff I didn't say?
posted by muckster at 9:34 AM on March 10, 2007


Spartans always make me think of Ikea and birch veneer malm. I expect the movie to be visually impressive and mess with my furniture plans.
posted by srboisvert at 9:35 AM on March 10, 2007


When I say that Miller/Snyder's intentions don't matter

you can make up anything you want

You want to discuss 300, or make up stuff I didn't say?

your intentions don't matter

ps - did you read the review we're discussing?

pps - should i just invoke godwin?
posted by pyramid termite at 9:41 AM on March 10, 2007


I can't believe people (above the age of 14) are actually going to see this movie. The reviews have been devastating.

Actually, as of this morning the Tomatometer is 61% positive.
posted by Steven C. Den Beste at 10:06 AM on March 10, 2007


One of my favorite reviewer's take on 300:

The first person who uses any aspect of this flick to justify the American debacle in Iraq is getting a swat across the nose with a copy of My Pet Goat. Which King Leonides of Sparta does not sit reading while his country is threatened and attacked.

And if that’s not enough, I point to the villains here: politicians who are in it for the money, a tyrant who thinks he’s doing the work of a god (even if that god is himself), and priests whose advice and counsel can be bought. King Leonides of Sparta holds those priests (and their crazy-ass religion) in disdain, actually, and does not invite them to the White House-- er, palace.

Oh, and Sparta is the invadee, not the invader.

posted by quin at 10:13 AM on March 10, 2007 [3 favorites]


CHUD has an interesting take on the politics.

I haven't seen it yet, but I probably will today. However, I will say that the Slate review struck me as the kind of humorless liberal puritanism that would go over well at my mother's UU church. It reminds me of the initial critical reaction to Starship Troopers.

Also:
300 will instead be talked about as a technical achievement, the next blip on the increasingly blurry line between movies and video games.

Give me a fucking break. As near as I can tell, this statement is completely meaningless. Computer animation is a technique used in traditional narrative movies. Hell, 300's shot on celluloid for Christ's sake. Unless you can play a Leonidas/Xerxes death match in this flick, there are no lines being blurred.
posted by brundlefly at 12:29 PM on March 10, 2007


haven't read any of the thread, since I want to avoid spoilers and such...

Don't people know that it's, y'know, a movie? Not a propaganda piece, or a documentary?

Were the theological implications of Little Nicky picked at to this degree?
posted by CKmtl at 1:28 PM on March 10, 2007


Smedleyman's joke raises a good point, though. Despite some padding, the film seems (Detrimentally) faithful to the comic, which was released in 1998.
Somehow I doubt the film's political detractors would be willing to give Miller credit for such 'prescience'.

Me, I figger he meant it as an allegory for U.S. v. Microsoft:
"This is madness!"
"This... is... REDMOOOONNND!!!"
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 1:55 PM on March 10, 2007


We saw the movie last night. I came out of the theatre feeling as though I was positively soaked with testosterone, and feeling that the movie was about half an hour too long. I remember seeing yet another close up of the hero's helmet and thinking, okay, this particular view is getting a bit old.

That said, it was entertaining in a mind-candy, visual effects sort of way. It's a mile wide and an inch deep; a comic book on screen. If you can view it strictly as entertainment and not try to read anything deeper into it, it's worth the admission price to see it on the big screen. Would definitely be wasted on the small screen.

If we can ever combine those sorts of visuals and artistic sensibilities with a deeper plot though, you'd have an absolutely fantastic movie.
posted by Zinger at 1:58 PM on March 10, 2007


languagehat, you're quoting an A.O. Scott review at us? Are you joking?

As for the Helots, no one's arguing that being a second-class citizen in ancient Greece was a great life, but you're very selectively cutting that article:
...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"...

Perhaps more on-point, you conveniently omitted the section directly below the "Humiliation" portion you quoted, but I'm not really concerned about that. Probably the most telling point is that the Helots almost never revolted, despite the fact that they outnumbered the Spartans by about 7-1. Authorities seem agreed that the Helots in fact lived well, and moreover were assured of military protection by the best army in Greece. (No one's claiming that serfdom is wonderful, but it's better than slavery. More on that in a second.)

On the other hand, the sources quoted in that Wikipedia article about Helot "humilation" are hardly credible. Do you have any idea of the historical context there? If you do, you probably understand why Helots would refuse to recite Theban poetry. By that same token, Plutarch, as a Boeotian, isn't a credible source of information, either. Thucydides is an Athenian writer chronicling the Peleponnesian War. It's hard to find other Greek writers that don't have bones to pick with the Spartans, but looking to Thebans and Athenians would have to be the two worst you could possibly pick.

The fact that those sources quoted are all transparent propaganda notwithstanding (which is a common problem on the topic since the Spartans didn't exactly keep a lot of written records), it's plain fact that the serf status of the Helots was more than a few steps above the chattel-slavery present in the rest of Greece, which makes the original claim that Sparta "collapsed" because of its uniquely horrible treatment of the Helots is frankly laughable.
posted by spiderwire at 2:06 PM on March 10, 2007 [1 favorite]


Oh, sorry, according to Bradford's history (citing Grundy), the ration of 'Free' to 'Non-Free' in Sparta was more like 1:15. Which supports my point.

Bradford also points out that the Spartans were Dorian, not Ionian, and thus there's a certain element of racism in the passages quoted above. Additionally, "Very few Greeks from other states knew much about everyday life in Sparta, nor indeed much about Sparta at all. The little they heard seemed almost incomprehensible to them, and unattractive." So it's important to keep in mind that in addition to being biased, none of those sources are speaking from first-hand knowledge. Even amongst the other Greeks, there's consistent if grudging nods to Spartan honor and forthrightness.

Other things that aren't being mentioned here are that the Spartans had perhaps the most equitable gender-relations in all of Greece, and that the soldier's life (as mentioned before) wasn't exactly a bed of roses. The Spartans lived on black broth and bread (kings got double rations, but only if they showed up to their assigned messes), slept on reed beds, and weren't allowed personal possessions.

Again, not defending the institution of serfdom, but attributing the downfall of the Spartan state to the fact that they were "assholes" is just ignorant.
posted by spiderwire at 2:22 PM on March 10, 2007 [2 favorites]


but you're very selectively cutting that article

Huh? I quoted an entire section, without cuts. Yes, it's a section that supported my point. So? Are you really suggesting I should have pasted in the entire long Wikipedia article?

it's plain fact that the serf status of the Helots was more than a few steps above the chattel-slavery present in the rest of Greece


Excuse me, but that's your interpretation, not "plain fact." I realize that people taking their own interpretations as "plain fact" is as rampant a problem as propaganda masquerading as history, but do try and fight it. Nonetheless, I'm perfectly willing to postulate that the serf status of the helots was better than the chattel-slavery present in the rest of Greece if you're willing to agree that that didn't make it acceptable, and that a helot wouldn't have reacted any better to that information than a slave in the antebellum South would have reacted to being told he was better off than his relatives in Africa. And please,"the Helots almost never revolted"? Same goes for the masses trapped beneath the bootheel of the Kremlin; I guess they were happy too.

the original claim that Sparta "collapsed" because of its uniquely horrible treatment of the Helots is frankly laughable.

On that we agree.

languagehat, you're quoting an A.O. Scott review at us? Are you joking?


No, I like A.O. Scott. I gather you don't. That's fine, but it's pretty childish to act as if your opinion were "plain fact." Try to disagree in an adult fashion.
posted by languagehat at 2:41 PM on March 10, 2007 [1 favorite]


I saw it this afternoon. I think it's way too thin of a movie to support any sort of meaningful interpretation as a political or cultural allegory--it's like a Paul Verhoeven movie minus the satire. And yet, much like Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies, it borrows liberally from the language of propaganda films.

And, yeah, just the simple act of watching the movie will give you larger pectoral muscles and firmer abs.
posted by Prospero at 2:45 PM on March 10, 2007


It's hard to take Greek history lessons from someone who lionizes Sparta and misspelled Iliad.

That said, I do like the knee-jerk "It's just, like, a fuckin' movie, dude! There's no fuckin' subtext! Analysis is for lefties and queers!" bullshit that this thread has pulled out.
This film exists in a context and reflects what we as a people find entertaining and true. Otherwise, it wouldn't sell tickets. And what we find as entertaining and true is worth examining. If Miller and Zach whassisfuck never gave a thought to how the movie would be interpreted, it's their fault for being dumbasses. Intention isn't the end of meaning.
posted by klangklangston at 2:47 PM on March 10, 2007


Really? Where's the quote where I directly called you a sissy? Or even a nancy?
posted by srboisvert at 2:51 PM on March 10, 2007


Firefox button pressing error ...please delete...
posted by srboisvert at 2:52 PM on March 10, 2007 [1 favorite]


It's hard to take Greek history lessons from someone who lionizes Sparta and misspelled Iliad.

Likewise, it's hard to take prose lessons from someone who gets hung up on typos and switches tenses mid-sentence.

(Incidentally -- and take this for what you will -- I hail equally from the Laconian, Ionian, and Macedonian portions of Greece, so I take some umbrage at the notion that I'm "lionizing" any one at the expense of the others. The Athenians are just as much part of my cultural history as the Spartans -- I'm just trying to correct the mischaracterizations taking place here.)

Nonetheless, I'm perfectly willing to postulate that the serf status of the helots was better than the chattel-slavery present in the rest of Greece if you're willing to agree that that didn't make it acceptable, and that a helot wouldn't have reacted any better to that information than a slave in the antebellum South would have reacted to being told he was better off than his relatives in Africa.

Sorry, lh, but this just isn't a good analogy. The Helots simply weren't treated like slaves in America, nor citizens of Stalinist Russia.

Frankly, I'm not sure what the benchmark for "acceptable" is in this case. Look at it this way. If you have a choice of being a Helot or a Spartan, which do you choose?

If you choose 'Spartan,' you get to look forward to a life of military training beginning at age 7 until 20. Assuming you survive, you are active military until age 30, at which point you can live with your family, but remain in active reserve until age 60. You can vote in that time, but can't be part of government for more than a year until you reach 60. You subsist on black broth and bread, you can't own possessions, gold, or silver, and you sleep on a bed of reeds. Your main form of recreation is seeing who can take the most floggings.

If you choose 'Helot,' you are, certainly, a second-class citizen, and you can't go roaming around the countryside at night for fear of being attacked by a teenage Spartan on the rite of Crypteia (although, if he gets captured, he'll probably get beaten to death). On the other hand, you're protected by the best military in the world. You work a plot of fairly fertile land, from which you have to give a food tithe to the owner, but you're otherwise allowed to turn a profit, trade, contract, learn to be an artisan, marry whom you like, and perhaps buy your freedom.

Granted, neither of these options is wonderful, but I don't think it's a clear-cut choice -- certainly not to the extent that it would be if someone asked you to choose whether to be Kruschev or Solzhenitsyn, or plantation owner or slave. In other words, I think that analogizing here is inapt; the Spartans were, if nothing else, a really weird and unique culture, and it behooves us to be specific when discussing them rather than trying to apply 19th and 20th century platitudes to a culture that defied categorization even by contemporary standards.
posted by spiderwire at 3:21 PM on March 10, 2007 [1 favorite]


klangklangston: That said, I do like the knee-jerk "It's just, like, a fuckin' movie, dude! There's no fuckin' subtext! Analysis is for lefties and queers!" bullshit that this thread has pulled out.

I'm a lefty (a right-handed one, though) and a queer. And I still think over-analysis is silly. In this movie's case, as well as when people take Harry Potter's success (in both book and movie forms) as some indication of a surge in Satanism / Occultism. It's just a movie.

Sure, some people may be loving 300 because it "shows" that those dirty Iraqis (even though Iran is more Persian) have always been The Bad Guys.

As for why the movie was made now... I'd say it's more about the constant popularity of epic battles (even before movies and TV), the slew of historical-type movies that have also done well in the box-office, and Sin City's popularity.
posted by CKmtl at 3:32 PM on March 10, 2007


I am just shocked that this movie lacked plot or chracter development.... The louder and more eloquently you wax about its failings as elevated cinema, the more you reveal your naivety.

"i rented life of brian last night. I was disapointed that they didn't better explore the conflict between the jews and the romans providing a more comprehensive context for the life of jesus. They kept making crude jokes and I think I even saw a penis once. poo."
posted by Tryptophan-5ht at 3:47 PM on March 10, 2007


I don't really get how the "boy lovers" insult is all that objectionable. If your biggest problem with this psychotic, pro-infanticide mass murderer with a deathwish is that he's not a big fan of man-boy love then I'd say your moral compass needs a big fucking readjustment. I'd liken it to someone finding the most morally questionable action of Matt Damon's character in The Departed to be calling the firefighter rugby team "homos".

Put me down as enjoying the film. I went to see Frank Miller's 300 on film and I got exactly that.
posted by ODiV at 3:54 PM on March 10, 2007


That said, I do like the knee-jerk "It's just, like, a fuckin' movie, dude! There's no fuckin' subtext! Analysis is for lefties and queers!" bullshit that this thread has pulled out.

a long time ago, you had to give someone 500 mikes of acid to duplicate the kind of "insights" some people have had about this movie ... and their insights were a lot more fun

This film exists in a context and reflects what we as a people find entertaining and true.

and the kind of analysis that's been committed here and other places says more about people's obsessions than it really says about the movie
posted by pyramid termite at 4:00 PM on March 10, 2007


Now that I think about it, "Iliad" is transliterated anyway, so who really gives a crap?
posted by spiderwire at 4:04 PM on March 10, 2007


I just got off the phone with one of the producers. I asked what they thought about the mixed reviews...the answer was "not surprised", they anticipated that there would be a number of groups that just didn't get it...the "historians" who would be upset about the lack of historical accuracy and the fantasy that Miller incorporated, those that would take issue with the sexuality (in all the ways that it presents itself), and the politicians who want to read something into it, and those that just wouldn't get what the intent of the film was.

Was there any political intent? Nope. As I stated above, the project started way before the war in Iraq. Snyder has stated that , if it makes people think, so be it....

Bottom line.. looks like it is going to be the highest grossing movie released in March, and may come in the top 20 in terms of first weekend gross of all time...

The crew at Cruel and Unusual Films are very happy....

now... as for Watchmen....
posted by HuronBob at 4:30 PM on March 10, 2007


I just got off the phone with one of the producers.

Um.... your son? :) Has Hollywood really depersonalized him that much?

Not that I don't enjoy getting the word from the horse's mouth as it were... oh, and ask him if he needs a consultant for Watchmen
posted by spiderwire at 4:37 PM on March 10, 2007


"You just didnt get it" is too easy an excuse.

This thing could have been Reifenstahl-level right-wing crypto-miltaristic homo-propaganda and I still would have had a blast if they only would have had dudes beatin the shit out of each other in cool ways without all the goddamned slow motion.

Also, what the hell is the point of having giant rhinos and elepants attack if youre just going to have them easily killed (again in turgid slomo) inside of a minute or so?
posted by Senor Cardgage at 4:37 PM on March 10, 2007


"Has Hollywood really depersonalized him that much?"

I have to call him "Mr. Producer" now... :)

But at least he doesn't call home for money any more!
posted by HuronBob at 5:01 PM on March 10, 2007 [2 favorites]


those that just wouldn't get what the intent of the film was

What about those that got it and thought it was a failure. Or don't those people exist in Mr. Producer's world? :)

Also, what the hell is the point of having giant rhinos and elepants attack if youre just going to have them easily killed (again in turgid slomo) inside of a minute or so

Yeah, that was pretty funny. The clips of animals in the trailer pretty much constitute the entirety of their appearance.
posted by dobbs at 5:07 PM on March 10, 2007


Also, what the hell is the point of having giant rhinos and elepants attack if youre just going to have them easily killed (again in turgid slomo) inside of a minute or so?

Population control.
posted by pokermonk at 5:14 PM on March 10, 2007


Oh, shit, this is the thread where I wanted to point out how creepy it was that Richard Perle made the excuse that he wasn't able to predict the outcome of the Iraq war because he wasn't 'Delphic.' I still wonder if it was accidental.

It was hard to explain at the time, but now that people have at least a little bit of the background (The Ephors, Delphic Oracle bribed by Persian agents to interfere with the war -- hi, Chalabi!) maybe it'll make more sense.
posted by spiderwire at 5:14 PM on March 10, 2007


HuronBob : now... as for Watchmen....

Don't even joke about that. If ever there was a graphic novel that I wanted Hollywood to stay the hell away from, that's that one.

I can think of specific scenes that would translate really well to the big screen, but taken as a whole, I bet they would have to butcher it to make it even remotely 'work'.
posted by quin at 5:27 PM on March 10, 2007


"What about those that got it and thought it was a failure. Or don't those people exist in Mr. Producer's world? :)"

naw...they are cgi'ed out of it... :-)

Actually, it seems like the people th