…opens tonight, and we have tickets at the Bridge theater near the airport.
Based on the comic, I got one for Littlest Guy as well, but on reading the reviews, I’m getting kinda doubtful that it’s appropriate for a 10 year old – even a mature one. The family will be discussing that today…
But one interesting thing popped up as I read the available reviews (many linked at www.rottentomatoes.com); the astounding historical and cultural ignorance of most film critics.
Kenneth Turan of the LA Times was the only one who ‘got’ the historical context of Thermopylae (even though he didn’t like the movie). Sheesh. You’d think that people who write about culture for a living would know something about it, wouldn’t you?
And the layering of modern politics and political correctness (see the Slate review by Dana Stevens for a pluperfect example) is kind of funny. The war was, after all, factually between the Greeks (pretty much the founders of the West) and the Persians, so yes, more-or-less white people fought more-or-less brown ones. Is that racist? How do we deal with history, then?
I believe the movie was based on a comic book.
Most of the fans are young geeks, like this guy.
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/31520
“It’s about these 300 Greek dudes who stomp the sugar-coated shit out of like a million other dudes. I have a feeling that a lot of high school sports coaches are going to show this film to their teams before they play. Also, gay dudes and divorced women are going to use screen captures for computer wallpaper.
The movie takes place about a million years ago, and it’s sort of like a prequel to SIN CITY. Except way less guns and cars but twice as much skull splitting. If you watch this movie and go into a Taco Bell, and say to the cashier, “I need some extra sauce packets” guess what? You’re getting twenty sauce packets because your face will punch him in the brain.”
Might be too bloody for a ten year old and too homoerotic too.
“Overall it was magnificent, graceful and bloody as
hell. I have to say, some of the best flesh
penetrating effects I’ve seen, and I’ve seen my share
of films like Gladiator, Alexander, LOTR, King Arthur,
Troy, etc. The puncturing of the flesh, the spearing
of bodies, just very realistic.”
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/31821
You’d think that people who write about culture for a living would know something about it, wouldn’t you?
No, why would you? Ask BG how many classes in classical history, or just history itself, were required to graduate. How many people, most especially in the media, take history seriously enough to even care? What’s the payoff–seeming like an out-of-it codger to your hip newsroom colleagues?
I didn’t see the LA times review, but part of me is wondering if he learned about Thermopylae from Tom Cruise in “The Last Samurai”
I think the real question should be, If most of the reviewers got the history wrong AFTER seeing the movie, what does that say about the historical accuracy of the MOVIE, and not about the ignorance of the reviewer.
I was very disappointed that this film was even made. Evidently there had been a script floating around based on the novel “Gates of Fire” by Steven Pressfield. I have to imagine that is dead now. I just cant imagine hollywood doing two pictures about Thermopylae.
So instead of Pressfield’s more historically based novel, we get Thermopylae as a gory video game.
Oh goody.
Rich, you haven’t been around Hollywood enough. If ‘300’ does well, it’s a sure thing that ‘Gates’ will be made…the best way to make a movie today is (sadly) to have it be a lot like another movie…
A.L.
I read the comic several years ago and thought it was pretty good, a little thin on the narrative side, but with a lot of pretty pictures. I don’t know if I would catapault it into the ranks of high history since I think it was as much about the idea of the Spartans and the battle as it was the events. And it did seem to me that the skin tones were exagerated for artistic effect. Some interesting “background”: which might explain some of the discomfort:
bq. “The Spartans remain a mystery to everybody,” says Frank Miller, who wrote the graphic novel 300 which inspired the film. “They are arguably unique in that they are completely a battle culture, absolutely dedicated to warfare. They have a code of honor on what it means to be Spartan, and out of that arises a heroic class like the world has never seen before.”_
. . .
bq. _Frank Miller first encountered the Spartans when he saw the film “The 300 Spartans” as a kid. He remembers, “I was quite shaken and inspired by it because it taught me that heroes aren’t the people who necessarily get a medal at the end of the story, that heroes are people who do what is right because it is right, even making the ultimate sacrifice to do it. All my life I wanted to tell this story because it’s the best story I’ve ever encountered. And, eventually, I gained the skills as a cartoonist, such that I thought I could finally handle it.”_
bq. _To illustrate 300, Miller synthesized his substantial research–which took him to the cliffs of Thermopylae itself–with the trademark style he brought to such legendary graphic works as Sin City and The Dark Knight Returns. He pared down the Spartans’ uniform (roughly half his body weight in uniform and weapons) down to its most essential and symbolic features and peppered the story of the historic 480 B.C. battle of Thermopylae with elements of prior and subsequent clashes between Xerxes and the Greeks._
bq. _”Frank took an actual event and turned it into mythology, as opposed to taking a mythological event and turning it into reality,” says Snyder, who blended Miller’s bold vision with his own to make the feature film. . . ._
bq. _Walking through the underbrush of Thermopylae had a profound effect on Miller. “It’s a place where great and glorious things happened,” he describes. “We are talking about the crucible, the epicenter of the battle for everything that we have, for everything that is Western civilization. There’s a reason why we are as free as we are, and a lot of it begins with the story of 300 young men holding a very narrow pass long enough to inspire the rest of Greece.”_
Sorry dropped the link.
Space. Space. Space.
Space. Space. Space.
Space. Space. Space.
Space. Space. Space.
“background”:http://www.filmfetish.com/forum/showthread.php?t=8859
Oh, I don’t know. If, as the Slate reviewer says, its the only recent war movie that makes no nod in an anti-war direction, I think that’s certainly to the good. It’s about damned time. And bad as it may be (I haven’t seen it yet. I’m going tomorrow) any film that actually contrasts Western values favorably with Eastern tyranny can’t be all bad. At least you can’t accuse it of political correctness.
Probably should add this bit from the background as well:
bq. _”The costumes of the Greek warriors accentuate their highly refined physiques – as though their bodies are their armor – while, contrary to that, the Persian army is covered in exotic cloths, and the silhouettes are exaggerated to give the impression, to Greek eyes, of a mysterious, unknown monster approaching.”_
bq. _The costumes for the Persian army drew inspiration from a variety of sources. “We figured that by the time Xerxes marched from his home to Greece, he would have come in contact with lots of different races,” says Wilkinson. “So, for each of the different Persian tribes, we had different influences, ranging from Africa to Egypt to Russia to Armenia to Japan to China, and everything in between.”_
Hmm, who are the “brown” people in this conflict?
Oh, as for the background material:
_”We figured that by the time Xerxes marched from his home to Greece, he would have come in contact with lots of different races,” says Wilkinson. “So, for each of the different Persian tribes, we had different influences, ranging from Africa to Egypt to Russia to Armenia to Japan to China, and everything in between.”_
What gives? The Xerxes I and II of Persia long predated Japan (as a nation – it was still being landed upon by bronze age Koreans escaping the main land and mingling/interbreeding with the earlier Malay or Ainu inhabitants, during the time of the famous Xerxes reigns). Russia was truly the back water country at that time too.
Victor Davis Hanson, in the book “300 The Art of the Film” addresses those, such as the reporters who asked after a Berlin showing of the film “Is Bush Leonidas or Xerxes?”, who think the film is a thinly veiled allegory for the War in Iraq or the War on Terror or [insert your particular political ax to grind here]:
“If critics think that 300 reduces and simplifies the meaning of Thermopylae into freedom versus tyranny, they should carefully reread ancient accounts and then blame Herodotus, Plutarch, and Diodorus-who long ago boasted that Greek freedom was on trial against Persian autocracy; free men in superior fasion dying for their liberty, their enslaved enemies being whipped to inslave others.”
So it seems this point of view stems from the ancients themselves.
As for the racism “issue”, I had the pleasure of seeing the movie at a screening on the 6th, and was cognizant that the only “people of color” we see during the course of the film are on the Persian side of things, and it did seem kind of odd to me, if only because you never see that sort of thing in a modern day movie.
As a result, I was giggling throughout the movie about an alternate storyline I invented wherein there was an adopted Spartan of African descent in the ranks of the 300, who had what NWA referred to as “the strength of street knowledge”, and who periodically, in the movie in my head, would utter such clichés as “oh HELL no!” when the Persians made a particularly vicious charge or “oh no he DIDN’T!” when a comrade was run through.
And on the matter of bringing your ten year old to the movie, AL, I don’t know that I’d do it. The violence, while cartoonesque, is pretty graphic, and there’s a couple of sexually themed scenes you may not want him exposed to at that age.
I’d go see it once yourself, then make that judgment call. I’ll be taking my fifteen year old to see it, but haven’t decided on my twelve year old just yet.
I’ve been geeked about this movie since the first trailer was released 6 months or so ago. I love the nod towards using special effects for mutating reality (as opposed to just making a cool dinasaur)… a la Sin City, Pan’s Labyrinth, Scanner Darkly (which I haven’t seen yet) etc. However, early reviews make it sound a little cartoony, but that’s fine, i’m going for the visuals. Zack Snyder’s “Dawn of the Dead” was definately more typical 2D hollywood than the original, so that wouldn’t surprise me.
I think the point of the slate article was that this plot is too cartoony, the characitures of west/east are very 2D and could be severely overinterpreted in parts of the world. It doesn’t help that one side is handsome good and the other side is pure evil, and mutated/distorted etc.
AL, I’m not sure what you mean by historical & cultural ignorance? Can you expand. My understanding is that anything by Frank Miller is based very loosely on fact (my understanding is that he heavily based his comic book on evokations of 60’s movie “The 300 spartans”, which was probably also loosely based on reality).
I would not bring your kid to this movie. Based on Zack Snyder’s past, and Miller’s, there will be alot of gore. (I was caught unawares in Sin City even though reviews used ‘decapitations’ (plural), I’m a little more wise this time…)
You think in 20 years (heck 10) it will be possible to make a movie like Letters from Iwo Jima or Flags of Our Fathers that depict a historical war between destinct ethnicities? Just because history says Japanese ethnics were fighting all caucasion American forces, does that mean the movie has to be made that way?
Its always instructive when fact interferes with multiculturalism. Never seems to slow them down for a second though.
Victor Davis Hanson has an interesting review. He discusses why the less realistic approach (compared with Stone’s Alexander) more effectively conveys the meaning of the Greeks and the battle. “Here”:http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YzJmOTNmYmNlYjNmMDIyZjNmMWRjOGExOGNjYzBjMzU=
“Rich, you haven’t been around Hollywood enough. If ‘300’ does well, it’s a sure thing that ‘Gates’ will be made…the best way to make a movie today is (sadly) to have it be a lot like another movie…”
Maybe….but the lack of updates on the “Gates of Fire”:http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/preview/1808404115 page at Greg’s Previews isn’t encouraging.
Ummmm. . . Bruce Willis as a potential King Leonides?
I have to admit that I’m not sure I’ve ever wanted a book I like to be made into a movie. It’s hard not to be disappointed no matter how good it is.
Fred: Oh, I don’t know. If, as the Slate reviewer says, its the only recent war movie that makes no nod in an anti-war direction, I think that’s certainly to the good.
A film doesn’t have to be anti-war for me to enjoy it, but it’s generally better if it acknowledges that war isn’t an overly pleasant affair. But this is generally more accurate with modern warfare.
In the greeks days, it was alot harder to kill large numbers people. And since medicine was preety bad, most of those seriously wounded never lived. So it was a preety good bet that a number of heroes would return from every battle (on both sides), and that warfare often wasn’t such a bad thing.
This really changed in the Civil war, when suddenly you have hundreds to thousands dying in a day. Those who are wounded are maimed forever, and at night the fields are filled with screaming. Suddenly you’re in a different kind of war, with a strong physical and psychological toll on many who survive.
Of course these images are not very representative of that era, or of the spartan psychology. Still, a good director knows how to show a broader scope than the vision of his hero, and that maybe what this film is lacking. If people are still posting, I’ll write more once I get around to seeing it.
I would never take a 10 year old to see this movie based on the 20 minutes of previews and leaked footage I’ve seen. Get a sitter AL.
Well, looking at the reviews, one ironic bit of cultural ignorance from the movie-makers: the macho masculine Spartans deriding the “philosophers and boy-lovers” of Athens.
Actually, the Spartans were the boy-lovers of Greece. Spartan elder statesmen would “apprentice” younger leader men (paidikoi, I believe they were called), and part of the apprenticeship was, well, having sex with the adolescent male to make him be exactly like you. Not much different from American prisons if you think about it.
And the Spartans, although they were obviously much slower to react to outside information than the Athenians (all the way up through the Peloponnesian war), always maintained an organizational integrity that the Athenians couldn’t match. So Alcibiades would lead the Athenians off to Sicily while Hyperbolus would destroy Alcibiades’ political career at home, and Athenian brilliance became a plaything at the hands of the much more primitive, but homosexual and mutually trusting Spartans.
Even more ironically, the Spartans stayed on top of the Greek world until they got out-gayed by the Thebans’ Sacred Band.
So in that sense, some of 300’s historical broad brushes don’t exactly stand up well to the history.
It still looks like a good pro-war flick, though. Anything that stands up to the 1968 Cult of Peace (as opposed to the “religion of peace”) deserves a small measure of support from me. 🙂
“You’d think that people who write about culture for a living would know something about it, wouldn’t you?”
Tough question, AL.
Is it Yes, granting that they write about the Entertainment Tonight culture, the culture of Hollywood and the Oscars, and the culture cultivated by their own little minds having thoroughly embraced the society which “reflects our society”?
Or is it Yes, realizing that, for the most part, our culture can’t comprehend the past without comparing things to the “Fight Club”; understanding the depiction of war as “violence” like the other movie ‘I saw’ (Apocalypto); and seeing bare-chested Spartan warriors as ‘speedo-wearing lifeguards in Santa Monica’.
Or is it, No, knowing that most of these people really just schlepps partly glorifying their own little existence and partly their livelihood based on that celebrity culture so don’t really have any desire for understanding or portraying the world, historical or otherwise, outside the framework of their own income-generating existence. (I doubt they do opera, either.)
That these reviews fit the comic book section as it pertains to cultural review, I’ll take two Yes’s and one No, for these all fit very well.
The movie got 100% approval from young woman test audiences, confounding the marketers. Wife’s reaction: “They need to get out more. The movie photo has tons of muscled-up young guys in skimpy clothes and oil – and they’re surprised by this reaction?”
She had a point.
As for the culture critics being expected to know something about culture, that would only be rational if (a) they had actually been taught any in school, or (b) they existed within a culture that explained why real stuff like history and cultural roots were good to know, or (c ) the class wasn’t heavily populated by people who think of Western culture only as the enemy they’re at war with, rather than the reason they can go through a pleasant life despite having few productive skills.
In point of fact, however, it was a few thousand Greeks, plus 300 Spartans, against a core of Persians leading an army composed of various ethnic groups of subject-slaves from their empire. Not really fair to lump them all in as “Persians.”
Pressfield’s book “Gates of Fire”:http://www.amazon.com/Gates-Fire-Novel-Battle-Thermopylae/dp/0553580531 remains the best treatment of the subject I’ve ever seen. Anyone who hasn’t read that book yet… weck up to thees!
_the macho masculine Spartans_
I think within the context of Spartan culture, there was nothing contradictory about being macho and engaging in homosexual acts.
Perhaps the movie is propoganda for accepting gays in the military?
…we got a sitter. He’s not gonna be happy, that’s for sure!! But it’s definitely the right decision.
A.L.
Alchemist, I didn’t mean war is a good thing. I do, however, believe war is often a necessary thing. And I believe the values Leonidas talks about, at least in the trailers and previews I’ve seen, are worth going to war over when they are threatened. I’m frankly glad to see an unabashed and unambiguous endorsement of those values and the honorableness(?) of going to war for them (if, in fact it is; as I said, I haven’t seen it yet). I’m also somewhat of the opinion that anything that people like Dana Stevens hate can’t be all bad.
OK, that’s just funny…“until they got out-gayed by the Thebans’ Sacred Band.”
A.L.
Joe,
“As for the culture critics being expected to know something about culture, that would only be rational if (a) they had actually been taught any in school, or (b) they existed within a culture that explained why real stuff like history and cultural roots were good to know, or (c ) the class wasn’t heavily populated by people who think of Western culture only as the enemy they’re at war with, ”
Why the heck would any modern curricula waste time on the battle of Thermopylae. And why would any student bother remembering it if it had been covered.
I remember it as a kid, but I was “into” war and armor, and that’s where I learned about “greaves”. That was back in the day when battles made up more of the history books. But why would anyone else bother. Sparta left no enduring mark.
As to celebrating war. I grew up loving John Wayne war movies where the Marines and Seabees mowed down 100’s of Japs with narry a death in return. Hasn’t our side always been super warriors? The reason that the “300” can be “pro war” is that it isn’t about a real war. It’s more likely another “heroic warrior” against all odds movie.
um, chew…
1) Thermopalye was almost certainly a ‘real’ battle in a very real war;
2) the result of that war was the survival of the Greek nation of city-states, which laid the base for Western philosophy and governance…
…so yeah, I’d say knowing about this stuff matters to more than war-struck little kids.
A.L.
Dana Stevens hates everything about Western Culture and particularly straight white males. So no surprise there.
What the movie gets wrong is the lack of heavy armor on the hoplites; the Western way of war was heavy armor, lots of training, generally free or nearly free men fighting, straight on smash-em-up confrontation designed to slaughter the enemy completely. Emphasis on better trained and equipped soldiers and heavy infantry versus cavalry. Firepower and strength versus mobility.
Versus the Eastern way of warfare, lots of slaves or manifestly unfree fighters, lightly armed, swarming attacks with appalling losses, lots of mobility, trading lots of fighters for skill, armor, strength, and weapons.
The real Spartans were heavily armored and used Pikes to fend off the Persians. They were joined by about a thousand Thespia soldiers (and exchanged cloaks with them); but the real signficance was that Leonidas and those with him (including the Thespia men and some from Thebes) bought enough time for the military genius Themistocles to destroy the Persian fleet and send Xerxes home.
As far as Gates of Fire, George Clooney wanted to make it as a movie that portrayed Leonidas as “conflicted” and the Persians as good guys.
Hollywood is incapable of saying Western Civilization is worth defending. Largely because half their profits come from pandering to anti-Western sentiment in global sales. Hence Dana Stevens being more the Hollywood sentiment than anything else. There was a reason Superman in his latest movie fought for “Truth, Justice, and all that.”
It’s astonishing this movie that believes Western Civilization was worth fighting for got made at all.
AL
“1) Thermopalye was almost certainly a ‘real’ battle in a very real war;”
But the movie isn’t a real war movie, it sounds like a good macho super warrior movie with some bitchin killing. Not that there’s anything wrong with that! But maybe we’re quarreling over terms? Do you think Braveheart, Alexander the Great, and the great samurai movies are war movies?
“2) the result of that war was the survival of the Greek nation of city-states, which laid the base for Western philosophy and governance…”
So some US students study Western Civ. Nobody bothers about that little battle. The road from Sparta to Athens is too far for this to be an important battle of survival for the American civilization or way of life. Especially since it is notion of Athens we value, not Sparta.
The only reason to study that battle is if we want to celebrate manly heroism and the Spartan martial virtues. That’s why I read about it. But I’ve long since forgotten the details of the battle.
chew, no war movie is a real war movie. Period, full stop. Different movies are about different aspects of war, or wars. This one – like movies back in the day – celebrates heroism, martial prowess, and sacrifice. So?
And explain to me how Athens would have developed if the Persians had one any of the wars?
A.L.
_”Sparta left no enduring mark.”_
The Iranians would disagree.
_ΜOΛΩΝ ΛΑΒΕ_
“Versus the Eastern way of warfare, lots of slaves or manifestly unfree fighters, lightly armed, swarming attacks with appalling losses, lots of mobility, trading lots of fighters for skill, armor, strength, and weapons.”
Then there were the mongols and that great military genius, Genghis Khan.
“The Mongol army actually used highly trained regiments led by brilliant tacticians, such as Subutai, that carried out planned and practiced maneuvers. It was the strength, quality, and versatility of the Mongol military organization, not unchecked ferocity, that made them the pre-eminent warriors of their time.”
Al
I’m not disagreeing with you about it’s influence. I’m trying to explain to you why no one cares about it, and frankly why it would be a footnote in any history book.
AL
“This one – like movies back in the day – celebrates heroism, martial prowess, and sacrifice. So?”
So? My comments were directed at those who claimed this was some unique “pro war” movie.
To me Platoon and Pork Chop Hill were great war movies. They celebrated heroism and sacrifice, but also more. But those soldiers weren’t super warriors as in some of the Samurai movies or the John Wayne movies. They couldn’t kill hundreds by themselves. That’s the distinction I’m drawing. I haven’t seen 300 but I’m pretty damn sure its in the super warrior, super-hero, mode (probably amplified by super specicial effects), not the realism mode. That’s why I said the movie probably doesn’t really depict a “real” battle.
I seem to remember Elias wiping out about 50 VC single handedly.
mark,
If you’re right, then I guess you can’t keep the “super hero” out of any modern war movie. But I bet there are some out there. It’s all a matter of degree then.
“If critics think that 300 reduces and simplifies the meaning of Thermopylae into freedom versus tyranny, they should reread carefully ancient accounts and then blame Herodotus, Plutarch, and Diodorus — who long ago boasted that Greek freedom was on trial against Persian autocracy, free men in superior fashion dying for their liberty, their enslaved enemies being whipped to enslave others.”
Victor Davis Hanson
chew2:
Emphasis added.
Assuming any fidelity to the history (and with VDH endorsing it, I expect it has more than a little) those 300 were, yes, heroic, but were also very, very dead in the end.
Leonidas’ head ended up on a Persian pole.
I expect the movie has some really gory death scenes for the good guys.
Maybe this movie is more about courage and ultimate sacrifice for the sake of higher ideals, instead of just about getting off on killing brown people. But then, I’m trying to go into it with an open mind, unlike most of the negative reviewers and ain’t-gonna-see-it-but-I’ll-review-it-anyway reviewers I’ve read.
And chewie, your point about the Mongols would be a lot more compelling if (a) the Mongol Empire hadn’t come about 1500 years after the Battle of Thermopalye and (b) if the Mongol military had been built on the same “cannon fodder” model as the Medean versions.
But you probably don’t get that because, of course, history has nothing to teach you.
I’m with JK. Gates of Fire is one of my favorite historical novels, and is (AFAIK) painstaking in reflected the society and style of combat that led to Thermopylae.
It would be likely be very hard to set that aside and buy into a treatment that has ‘comic booked’ the violence and shows more bronzed skin than bronze armor. So I’m likely going to pass, and hope that GOF eventually gets made, without the Clooney travesty. Weck up to thees, indeed!
That’s the trouble with debating someone like chew2. The story of the 300 Spartans is unimportant, nay, never even occurred, because he thinks it doesn’t exemplify the standards that he himself see as important … in a movie. He’s willing to recognize and applaud the common man – average joe traits if they are portrayed as such, just don’t build it up to the courageous, abstract live or die principled superhero like, say, Leonidas, or, maybe, Audie Murphy, Sgt. York or the Elias. Why? Because it doesn’t happen. Well, except, the 300 were willing to fight and die against a force about 50 times its size, as chew2, himself, acknowledges.
And Heaven forbid an event of 2,500 years ago, sufficiently notable and meaningful for adults that reference was made of it to school children up to the mid 1900’s, is today made into a movie for entertainment and, maybe, some educational benefit. After all, we’ve now got Platoon, so no one cares!
If you he catches a point that might in some way undermine his point or a naysaying reviewer, say, Jim Rockford comparing the differences in the fighting styles of Greece (West) and Persia (East) of the period, chew2 rebuts it with fighting styles of 1,000 years later — what about the Mongols? That will certainly teach anyone to debate a product of the superior educational system of the last 50 years.
But thank God we dropped Thermopylae from school curriculum for chew2 has a point about the reality of the movie based on a novel that was based on history books that were based on a real event which the makers also infused with the attitudes and culture of the Greeks of the time … that he will get around to explaining, eventually. Oh yeah, he did. One these folks involved made a comic book based on the event, too, therefore, the movie is no better than a comic book which we all know don’t tell real stories.
Chew2, you’ve convinced me.
I’ve got a “review up at Outside the Beltway”:http://hollywood.outsidethebeltway.com/2007/03/film-review-300/.
The film is generally historically accurate. The great quotes were the ones I learned in school–taught by nuns, of all things!
I howled at the Slate reviewer’s hissy fit at the violation of the Vienna Conventions, along with all the other PC-ness brought to bear. The WaPo reviewer somehow seemed to confuse “300” with a documentary.
Good film, very gory, a modicum of sex with one scene of lots of variations upon the theme–though quickly cut.
Definitely enjoyed it and will probably get it on DVD.
Was Thermopolylae ever in the modern US curricula? I kinda doubt it. When did you learn about it. I frankly can’t remember how I came to learn about it as a kid, but I don’t think it was in school.
I have to say you guys take your red meat war movies seriously. Just because I think this movie may a super hero flick doesn’t mean I’m on the side of the dark hordes and terrorists.
I like killing movies. I’m just not so hot on the super warrior depictions. It’s usually too unrealistic for my tastes.
Hey and I love Sergeant York. Gary Cooper was everyman’s hero, and he was a pacifist to boot.
You know when I was growing up the Spartans were sort of a authoritarian like ruthless warrior caste. Has their image changed? The Athenians were always the good guys.
And you’ll note Chew that the Mongol expansion STOPPED in the heavily forested, riverine, mountainous or hill and valley terrain of Europe.
As VDH points out, Mounted warriors are expensive, and work best in open plains. In the mud and muck of Western Europe they did not work out so well where their mobility advantage stopped and they had to come to grips directly with adversaries like the Teutonic Knights. The Mongols also had no concept of naval operations or combined naval and ground operations which going back to Thermopylae and Salamis, the West certainly did.
The Mongols as a non-literate society depended on their ability to outride and outflank enemies on horseback, shooting arrows into them but not closing on them. When that failed they had nothing (and were largely absorbed into the people they conquered in the end). Like the Huns or the Arab raiders in France against Charles Martel, the mounted warrior against heavy infantry in rough terrain generally failed. [Alexander conquered the Persians through using his core of heavy infantry with screening cavalry to prevent outflanking] And of course the compound bows of the Mongols and Huns delaminate in the rain. Did I mention it rains a lot in Western Europe?
At any rate the Mongols depended on masses of auxiliaries for a great deal of the fighting, usually among the enemies of those they fought.
Thermopylae and accounts of battles like it are important because they form the Western Military tradition which generally beats the pants off other traditions. The Mongols never wrote down the accounts of their battles and WHY and what principles and concrete practices allowed them to win the day. The West largely did and that’s why we won. Even a bastardized or popularized version of the battle as in the 300 is important therefore in that regard. To point out that sheer numbers can be deterred, if only for a few critical days. That naval power is important. That large massive armies require massive amounts of food and money to keep intact. That better weapons and skill with same can multiply one’s numbers in combat. That treachery must be guarded against. These are all useful lessons for the public to know, if even in superficial form.
“Was Thermopolylae ever in the modern US curricula?”
Yup. At least in 1970’s public school in Brooklyn. PS233. And I recall covering Troy in junior high. You probably forgot.
“You know when I was growing up the Spartans were…”
Aha, your memories are returning! See, the internet is therepeutic!
Ben
Thought someone would have noted by now that Persians are not Arabs, but Aryans, as are Indians, despite skin tones.
Guess the point about “more or less white vs more or less brown” is relevant only to the point that the Persian army had conscripts/slaves of non-Persian origins (as did the Roman army).
Well, Ben, I’m glad to see it was in the scope of your lessons in public school as late as 1970’s.
But the point, chew2, which you seemed to miss, is that I indicated it was important up until the modern curricula, or until the last 50 years, give or take a decade or two.
For the life of me, I don’t see why you are trying to prove my point. I guess I have to make by other than implication.
Free city-states (which are usually squabbling or fighting amongst themselves) unite under the threat of tyrannical empire. The warrior city, Sparta, led the Greeks, some thousands, at Thermopylae, were betrayed by some, yet stayed and fought for not only for themselves but the rest of Greece. They lost and Athens was burned to the ground.
Around the same time the naval battle took place, also, by the way, led by the Spartans, even though they were much a smaller component of the armada. There was still squabbling but Athens, the largest contingent, threw it’s weight around to keep the team in line following the Spartan, Themistocles, and they kicked Xerxes butt near Salamis.
Xerxes had to withdraw and the result was Greece became the dominant power in Europe and the Mediterranean. (Oh, and the Greeks got to squabble and fight amongst themselves again.)
That story line was important, and Thermopylae was important, not just for “who won the war, daddy” line but for all the underlying reasons, because winning wars often have long term consequences.
It’s sometimes called “having perspective”. That was my point — having that perspective was recognized as important at least as a footnote for some 2,400 years. For good reason. Now it isn’t. You say it isn’t. You suggest Platoon is. That’s your your perspective. It’s not a very good one, IMHO.
But you are right. Growing up, the Spartans were the not the good guys, the Athenians were, at least until such time as everyone needed the Spartans to save their asses. Just another little perspective that isn’t taught or appreciated much anymore.
But seriously, I don’t take the red meat, war movie seriously, per se. I took you to task for favoring the average joe ones, but only because you suggest the superhero have no place, or aren’t real, not because I think you are on the dark side or with the terrorists. Both average joes and superheros exist. Both Capt. Miller (Saving Private Ryan) and Gen. Patton exist (in history anyway). And I like them both. I just don’t understand why you want us to forget Patton?
#45
Thought someone would have noted by now that Persians are not Arabs, but Aryans, as are Indians, despite skin tones.
Guess the point about “more or less white vs more or less brown” is relevant only to the point that the Persian army had conscripts/slaves of non-Persian origins (as did the Roman army).
It was a war between Caucasians drawn from far flung quarters of their range, from the Mediterranean area to Scythia to India to North Africa.
Alex #18 smart comment there.
PD Shaw #22 points out that the movie would make good propaganda for the repeal of “don’t ask don’t tell” and the incorporation of gays into the US military. After all, if 300 homosexual Spartans held off a force 50 times their number at Thermopylae, then I guess anyone who says that gays can’t fight is confusing teutonic tradition for reality. Let’s leave the NAMBLA-style indoctrination techniques to ancient history though.
And responding to AL’s article:
“You’d think that people who write about culture for a living would know something about it, wouldn’t you?”
I wouldn’t think that. Modern culture is a man-bites-dog story, neither enlightening nor hopeful nor universal. Its meaning is separation, nihilism and despair. That’s why cultural icons such as Britney Spears and Anna Nicole Smith crash, drunken and unsteady and crippled by depression, into rehab. What will rescue them? Not modern culture. On the other hand, Thermopylae tells a story of the human will to fight on against impossible odds in defense of something worth defending.
Something worth defending, worth defending to the death. Does not compute for modern intelligentsia.
300 the movie will not be on the list of crappy movies I want to waste my money on and I encourage others not to spend their hard-earned money on that too. 300
The truth is that Spartan society left nothing behind but stories of its vicious battles. No art, no knowledge, no invention, nothing to enlighten the future men came from Sparta- only the clash of arms and violence. Sparta was overwhelmed in the end by an outside world Spartans couldn’t even begin to understand because of their culture’s innate xenophobia and hatred.
That so-called Spartan courage had no impact on the Persian army. The Persians took losses, but kept right on down the Greek coast to Athens and burned it in one piece. What stopped the Persians was the subterfuge of Themistocles and the Athenian navy at the naval battle of Salamis which was quite a small loss for Persia.
As for “the whole of Spartan society,” what else is there to say? Sparta was a totalitarian and aristocrat community well over 20 centuries before the term was even invented, suppressing a vast helotry. (It also systematized homosexuality to a degree unknown in any other society) And, again, it created nothing to enlighten men who would come after- which is exactly what is meant by culture, no?
Wintson,
“Sparta was overwhelmed in the end by an outside world Spartans couldn’t even begin to understand because of their culture’s innate xenophobia and hatred.”
…After a mere *1200 years* of potent life during which they often held sway over the whole of Greece to the extent that they chose to do so. ^_^
I wonder if the Communists will ever be able to say as much? ^O^
Chew2,
“I like killing movies. I’m just not so hot on the super warrior depictions. It’s usually too unrealistic for my tastes.”
Are they? Are they really? o_O
How do you think the Spartans became the dominant state within Greece even before the Persian invasion at a time when everyone used the same equipment and tactics? Here’s a hint. The Spartans really were better fighters in part by the virtue of fact that they took their training more seriously than anyone else and in part because they spent more time in putting such training into practical effect. That’s one of the reasons why Thermopylae really was a close run thing until Xerxes found a local who were willing to show him some passes he could use to surround and defeat the Spartans with. It’s also the reason 300 Spartans with 700 Thespian allies were able to take down 20,000 Persian soldiers before they died. It’s best to keep in mind that the “realistic” is not always the real. Those who work seriously at what they do tend to be super in comparison to those who do not. 🙂
#50
Towering….
It has nothing to do with politics of left and right. I was and am against the movie because it is an offensive one towards my ancestors. Thats all.
The more I read about the Spartans from the many historically enlightened commenters above, the more I am starting to think that the modern day Neocons are taking their cues from a cartoon verson of the Spartans. The homosexuality link really sealed the connection for me after just reading about male porn star Sanchez being celebrated by Coulter and Hannity and CPAC. Another link is the nature of the empty war rhetoric. Either they’re Spartans at heart or think that the rest of us are. I don’t know which is more offensive or scary.
TCG
Hmmm.
As a result, I was giggling throughout the movie about an alternate storyline I invented wherein there was an adopted Spartan of African descent in the ranks of the 300, who had what NWA referred to as “the strength of street knowledge”, and who periodically, in the movie in my head, would utter such clichés as “oh HELL no!” when the Persians made a particularly vicious charge or “oh no he DIDN’T!” when a comrade was run through.
Yeah. That sort of nonsense pretty much ruins movies for me quite a bit.
The ruin that is political correctness pretty much destroys everything it touches.
It’s bad enough that Chew2 could say studying the Battle of Thermopylae would be a waste of time, given its significance in Western history. It is, in my view, much worse that he gets his John Wayne facts all wrong, too. Referring to Wayne’s movie “The Fighting Seabees”, he wrote (#26):
“I grew up loving John Wayne war movies where the Marines and Seabees mowed down 100’s of Japs with narry a death in return.”
If you loved John Wayne war movies, you would know that lots of Seabees and US Navy guys get killed in that movie, including Wayne’s character Wedge Donovan. In fact, the deaths of Donovan’s unarmed men at the hands of Japanese soldiers at the beginning of the film is the motivation for most of his actions (and the consequence of some of his actions) throughout the movie. This year is the 100th anniversary of John Wayne’s birth, so let’s have a little respect.
Hmmmm.
The more I read about the Spartans from the many historically enlightened commenters above, the more I am starting to think that the modern day Neocons are taking their cues from a cartoon verson of the Spartans. The homosexuality link really sealed the connection for me after just reading about male porn star Sanchez being celebrated by Coulter and Hannity and CPAC. Another link is the nature of the empty war rhetoric. Either they’re Spartans at heart or think that the rest of us are. I don’t know which is more offensive or scary.
Frankly the only thing offensive or scary is the idiotic nonsense you just wrote.
Nobody thinks that they’re modern day Spartans. If they did then you’d probably be dead as the Spartans were incredibly ruthless.
As for the implied homosexuality nonsense is just your stupidity in not understanding who you’re talking about. Relatively few people on the Right have anything against homosexuals except concerning marriage. There are few enough traditions holding this country together and the concept of marriage is one of the few remaining ones that have any strength left at all. IMHO if the gay activists hadn’t made the mistake of trying to impose gay marriage through machinations in the courts we’d have a universal form of legal unions today. But that’s very unlikely now because each attempt at using the courts to impose that causes a reflex action that will eventually bring about a Constitutional Amendment that will permanently establish heterosexual marriage as the legal standard.
As for Sanchez. I’ll point out that everyone on the Right is supporting the guy while everyone on the left is gone stark raving foaming-at-the-mouth mad over the guy. It’s like “Gannon-Gate”, as if anything so ridiculously irrelevant deserves the appellation, the only people exuding vicious anti-homosexual slurs were those on the Left.
The rest of your comment deserves only to be ignored.
Both Chew2 and Winston (#49) suggested that Sparta left no mark on Western civilization, at least no positive mark. That they are wrong is shown by the story Plutarch told in his life of the King of Sparta. The story is that an ambassador visiting the king was amazed at how little fortification Sparta had. He expressed his surprise to the king, who took him to where the Spartan army was arrayed. Pointing to the army, the king said, “There are the walls of Sparta. Ten thousand men and everyone a brick.”
This sentiment is the basis of the open society we cherish. We hear a great deal about the struggle between our desire to live in an open society and the danger such openness may expose us to. Our alternatives, as the Spartans showed, are to build walls around our country, or for our young soldiers to be bricks. It takes courage to have an open society. We don’t all have to be brave, but some of us have to. Bill Whittle called them sheepdogs. The King of Sparta called them bricks. Bill and the king were talking about the same people.
actually, tcg, I hope that we have some Spartan – as well as some Athenian – in us. There were a number of noble things about those societies (as well as many repregensible ones) but in a fairly profound way they are our ancestors, and what we have today is in no small part a gift from them.
We owe them for it.
A.L.
The movie was frustrating – could have been great, was somewhat better than good. I’ll post something longer later. Glad Littlest Guy didn’t go (altho not as gory/awful as I anticipated), but he’ll see it in a few years.
A.L.
Too much drivel, TCG, to bother responding to all of that. But to allay your fears, I tell you now that I will never think of you as a Spartan.
Go write a letter to Hollywood asking that they only make Hotel Rwanda’s. IIRC, there were no Spartans in that one.
I was talking about the super hero sort of movie treatment, not the real “disciplined” spartans.
Sure is a whole lot of Spartan love around here. The tone seems to be, in my view, an overly romantic celebration of the warrior ethos – the stone cold macho killing machine. Sorry if I don’t celebrate the fully militarized male chauvinist/nativist culture that Sparta represents. I prefer the citizen soldier model.
And for those of you who think those early John Wayne movies were realistic, because a few of our guys died, then I can see why you might think “300” could be a realistic war movie. Not that there is anything wrong with that. It’s a matter of taste.
Btw revenge as a motivator is another of my movie peeves. Before the stone cold killing machine can be unleashed, his wife or comrades or whatever have to be brutally raped or murdered by the evil ones.
Gotta agree with AL on the movie. Was worth the price of admission, but it felt to me that it was trying to be TOO epic at times. Didn’t help that my seat had bubblegum on it and I spent half the movie adhered in one spot. ;p
Personally, I wondered why I was watching all those scenes of “one man kills twenty-five in whirling madness of melee combat” when the entire point of the Spartans fighting where they were was so they could use their formation-fighting prowess without getting mobbed. They seemed awfully eager to not fight in the gap itself! (Mentioning this to a buddy in the Marines, he responded with, “But then we’d have had a movie with a phalanx spearing guys for two hours, and that gets old!” He’s got a point.)
If you know your Greek history, there’s something faintly ridiculous about listening to Spartans go on about the price of freedom versus the evil of slavery – we know where the word “helot” came from, after all. Kind of like reading Soviet propaganda about the evil German government. Yes, they were very bad, but the issuing organization wasn’t much better! On the other hand, we can be glad that the side that won, won, even though they weren’t lily-white themselves.
Read Thucydides last semester in a political philosophy class. There’s a lot there about the limitations of a democratic government in opposition to an autocratic one. Was well worth brushing up on…
On the issue of homosexuality, it wasn’t just a Spartan thing. Plato actually has a speech about how true love can only exist between a man and a boy; was in the Phaedrus, if my memory serves.
Chew2 – hmm. You may have grown up loving John Wayne movies, but it sounds like you didn’t grow up getting them at all. Like so many war movies put out during WWII, Wayne’s movies asked a question: Is it worth it? They did this by showing us the _cost_ of fighting, particularly in soldiers being killed or wounded. It wasn’t just “a few of our guys”, as you put it. Lots of our guys got killed in Wayne’s movies and other war movies of the period. That cost was critical to the story and had to be paid. Sometimes, as in _Seabees_ and _Sands of Iwo Jima_, Wayne’s character paid it, showing how central it was to the story.
In order to answer the question, is it worth it? these movies did what Hollywood movies don’t do today – they showed the good in our society. They balanced the loss by showing decent people back home living in freedom, loving their country. Or by showing a soldier’s love for comrades or the service. To show minor losses, the way you are suggesting – a boastful, macho romp in which our guys kill the enemy without cost to themselves – would have entirely defeated the purpose. The sacrifices were being made each day at the front. The film-makers engaged with the deep question of the day: is it worth it?
As I see it, this changed during the Cold War, because the equation changed. With every citizen likely to be killed in a nuclear war, soldiers’ sacrifice would no longer save what was of value at home. The response of a new generation of film makers can be seen in films such as _Dirty Harry_. In that film, Clint Eastwood famously asks a punk who is thinking about reaching for a gun, “Do you feel lucky today?” What’s in the balance is not the cost of sacrifice vs. the value at home of what is sustained by that sacrifice, because there is no value at home in Dirty Harry’s world. The balance is now between living death and nonliving death and the outcome is a toss of the dice (not a function of courage or skill).
Today, in Hollywood’s vision, there is nothing of value in American society to be sustained by costly sacrifice, so it presents its heroes as cartoons who can walk through a haze of bullets and kill many bad guys without cost to “our guys”. There’s nothing to be balanced anymore, on that view, which is why they are not interested in any of the dramatic stories of heroism coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan. Ironically, old Hollywood, in the form of Ronald Reagan, rescued America, but he couldn’t help new Hollywood.
By the way, my all time favorite war movie is _They Were Expendable_ with Wayne and a very good Robert Montgomery, who actually saw action in the Navy, commanding PT boats in the Pacific and a destroyer on convoy patrol in the North Atlantic. Directed by John Ford, also a navy vet. Made in 1945 and very much worth watching.
Pat
“The film-makers engaged with the deep question of the day: is it worth it?”
I haven’t watched those movies for a long time, but my recollection is that they assumed of course that it’s worth it, and they were right. Did it form a large part of the narrative as you claim? I don’t really recall, I was there to watch the fighting. As to whether or not Wayne and his comrades mowed down an unrealistic load of Japs, that’s my memory. But I gather that’s not your point.
I agree that They Were Expendable was one of his best and most poignant movies. And significantly I don’t recollect a lot of killing in it. The feeling in that movie for some reason resonated with all the Victory at Sea episodes I watched.
My favorite John Wayne movies were the Horse Soldiers and She Wore a Yellow Ribbon though.
“There’s nothing to be balanced anymore, on that view, which is why they are not interested in any of the dramatic stories of heroism coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan.”
I think that’s a function of several things: a small all volunteer army that is less a part of our national ethos; a disagreement about whether our cause is noble or for our national survival; the fact that a counter-insurgency against a weaker foe doesn’t lend itself to many tales of heroic struggle; and the fact that we are a more materialistic self-interested culture.
I saw the film yesterday afternoon and loved it. A more lengthy review is “here.”:http://posseincitatus.typepad.com/posse_incitatus/2007/03/movie_review_30.html
Regarding the Spartans, they had a profound influence on Western culture, not the least of which being that we are still talking about them, recalling their legends, tales of their valor, etc.
What more could one want?
Athens fell, and though it revived, it became little more than a tourist destination before dropping off of most maps.
As for the whole “totalitarianism vs individualism” thing, that merely betrays a complete lack of understanding, not only of Sparta and Athens, but of ancient cultures altogether.
For all its forward-thinking, Athens was “free” only for the ruling class. Both societies relied to a fair degree on slaves. The difference was that within the societal constructs, Sparta was far more egalitarian than Athens, which is why it had so many admirers.
I’ve sat through a lot of awful historical epics and I really enjoyed this one. Sure, it was outrageously unrealistic, but so is Herodotus. I was just reading him last night and he has the story of a Greek diver (the greatest one, of course) who claimed to have swam from the Persian Fleet to the Greek one entirely underwater – a distance of 10 miles. Herodotus says he doesn’t believe it, but notes that most people do.
This is the world 300 brings to life.
Everything about Greek myth and drama is outsized. The Greek gods themselves were outrageous, driving by insane passions. 300 captures that world perfectly. Were the Three Hundred supermen?
No, they couldn’t leap tall buildings and such, but to the ancient Greeks they were. Just as they seriously thought that someone could swim all that way underwater (maybe Poseidon or a nymph helped him), they could also believe that these guys were able to leap over enemy ranks, kill strange beasts with a single spear thrust, and so forth.
Let us recall that the kings of Sparta were supposed to be the direct descendants of Heracles. These guys had the blood of Zeus in them. There was nothing they couldn’t do.
I have to say that the complaints about it are pretty pathetic. It’s like going to a football game and criticizing it for the lack of poetic language.
If there is a complaint to be made, it is that movies that SHOULD have this level of myth (like that hideous “Troy”) don’t. The Greek world was marvellous and one cannot tell its story without at least a nod to the strange and amazing supernatural powers they were convinced were all around them.
“I hope that we have some Spartan – as well as some Athenian – in us”
“Earth! render back from out thy breast
A remnant of our Spartan dead!
Of the three hundred grant but three,
To make a new Thermopylae!”
–Don Juan, Canto iii, Stanza 86, 7, by Lord Byron
“Most lunch-table liberals say that they do not love America, and would not defend it…As I was writing this article, I chatted online with one of my best friends, a liberal who spent part of his summer working in Washington as a page in the House of Representatives. He asked what my article was about. To put it briefly, I said, ‘It’s about kids who don’t love their country.’ He answered: ‘Do they have to love their country? Is that a requirement?'”
–An Army of One: What it’s like to be the only Republican in your high school, by Dan Gelernter, from the October 25, 2004 issue of the Weekly Standard
Brilliant movie. Not for a ten year old. The nudity and sex are relatively innocuous (if you don’t mind that stuff in the first place), but the violence is over-the-top. I won’t take my wife, much less _my_ ten year old son. It is graphic, almost celebrated, gore. The special effects are, as I’ve noted to my wife on other occasions for other movies, so good that they aren’t special anymore. They’re just there, a part of the movie.
A father brought his two children to the movie that I went to. The _older_ was probably eight, while the younger couldn’t have been even four. Fortunately, the little one fell asleep early on and missed the worst of the gore. I was appalled.
Let your 10 year old stay shielded from this stuff. Once innocence is lost, it can never be regained. Let him stay innocent for a little bit longer.
Ah. Back-tracked to some of your comments. See you saw it without LG. Good for you.
“If there is a complaint to be made, it is that movies that SHOULD have this level of myth (like that hideous “Troy”) don’t. The Greek world was marvellous and one cannot tell its story without at least a nod to the strange and amazing supernatural powers they were convinced were all around them.”
For anyone who finds resonance in that, I highly recommend Gene Wolfe’s Latro in the Mist. Written from a first-person perspective of a mercenary who had fought in the Great King’s army before being wounded and enslaved, the narrator visits many of the famous scenes of that period in an effort to recover his lost memory.
Wolfe does an amazing job of presenting the clashing and meshing cultures of Greece from a fresh perspective. Wolfe is maybe the ultimate “show, don’t tell” writer in Fantasy and Science Fiction to day, and it was an amazing pleasure to rediscover Ancient Greece with him.
Oh, and there’s lots of really cool fighting and mythology come to life, too. (Please note that it is violent in places, and has some pretty terrifying scenes if your imagination is good. Fair warning.)
Actually, AL, this book (really a compilation of two books) might not be a bad thing to give to Littlest Guy; it really is special.
Indeed, viewing Sparta as authoritarian vs Athens Democracy is entirely simplistic. First off, Sparta was one of the forerunners of checks and balances in government with their duel kings. Secondly their ideas of the obligations of citizens to the city-state rather than the other way around outstripped the rest of Greece (much less the world) by far. The rich and powerful in Sparta were the front line defenders of the state quite literally, and who can name another society that can claim as much?
Finally, after Xerxes, the Spartan monarchs became mainly figureheads and field generals. Ephors held the true power and were elected by an assembly who were elected by the citizens- each of the 5 could only serve for one, one year term. Ephors were enormously powerful, each with the authority to arrest even the kings for misconduct. Whether or not this was a wise system of government the idea of term limits and republican rule was certainly not the autocratic system some are claiming Sparta embraced.
“I highly recommend Gene Wolfe’s Latro in the Mist.”
Ah, you’ve read it too? Wonderful series. (And the third book, Soldier of Sidon was released just a few months ago.)
One fascinating aspect is that Latro can see the Gods, and has various encounters and conversations with them.
“If ‘300’ does well, it’s a sure thing that ‘Gates’ will be made…the best way to make a movie today is (sadly) to have it be a lot like another movie…”
“Today??” Uh, when, exactly, was this NOT the case?
Hmmmm.
Let your 10 year old stay shielded from this stuff. Once innocence is lost, it can never be regained. Let him stay innocent for a little bit longer.
It’s an interesting comparison. The modern American parent is unwilling to allow a 10 year old boy watch a movie depicting the Spartan way. While the Spartan way would have 7 year old boys beating each other into pulp as part of their training.
Not a commentary btw, just an interesting comparison between cultures.
A.L.
You are a good Dad. He will be ready for those images when he is older. My three sons are separated by a four year age gap. There were a number of films I took the oldest to (Alien Resurection and Starship Troopers) and left the young ones home with mom. Now the youngest is 20 and we saw “300” togther with 20 of our friends and family. Family takes effort but it’s worth it. In our crowd there were 2 military veterans, two cops and 4 dads, all of whom understood the film and it’s context. We had a great time, so I don’t care if the film is “great”, that is for others to decide.
Mark B.,
“The rich and powerful in Sparta were the front line defenders of the state quite literally, and who can name another society that can claim as much?”
The European “barbarian” kingdoms come to mind, as well as their descendants, the feudal european nobles. Of course, in defending “the state,” they were defending their own interests–rather like warlords throughout the world today–and not the interests of “people.”
Fair point Mark, although i would argue European kniggets were still an elite force to their peasant footmen- while the Spartan Similars simply _were_ the army for much of Sparta’s history. Even in later years when mercenaries and Helots became the majority of the army, the Spartans themselves still marched in the Phalanx as ‘ordinary’ footmen. This had its disadvantages- much of the disaster at Leuctra can be blamed on the Thebans intentionally overwhelming the Spartans Similars early in the battle and managing to kill the king and his best captains.
Avatar:
Have to agree with you on this one. I haven’t seen the movie, but I’ve read the comic book series that the movie is based upon, and I found it a little silly that Miller kept lionizing the Spartans and the fact that they were “free men”. The reason the Spartans were able to train to such a high level is because they enslaved other Greeks. This allowed them to focus solely on their military skills, whereas other cities in Greece had to rely on part-time citizen-soldiers. I think it’s important to keep in perspective how they gained their military skills.
Of course, the other historical irony here is that both the Spartans and Athenians vied for Persian aid to defeat each other during Peloponnesian War. I would love to see Hollywood make a movie of that!
I would say part of the problem of drawing hard lines between the Athenians (good Greeks) and the Spartans (bad Greeks) is that many of the Athenian political philosophers that we admire today had at least some admiration for the Spartan constitution. In particular, Plato’s Republic argues that the Spartan political system is the best model of all models (ahem) not created by Plato.
The American founders saw the Greek city-state alliance as quite analogous to the kind of confederacy they were trying to create. “(Federalist 18)”:http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=762 And since they were trying to create a republic, not a democracy, Sparta was discussed with more systemic interest than Athens. “(Federalist 63)”:http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/index.asp?document=15 None of this was uncritical. The Founders wanted to improve on the history.
I’ve read in other places that the racial characteristics are significantly exaggerated. “This for example”:http://www.backintyme.com/ODR/about2967.html:
bq. The truth is this. Persian is an Indo-European language, just as Greek, and most of the languages spoken in Europe, Afghanistan, and Northern India. At some point all these people were the same people, or at least some of those folks conquered others and forced their language. Since this was before any Mongol Invasion from the East, any Arab invasion from Arabia, and a lot of contact with people from the Levant Asia Minor, Caucasus’s, and the Med, I would think that at the time period, at least the Persian upper-class did not look significantly different in “racial characteristics” than the Greeks. Even today you can go to Iran and find many people who look no different from people in Greece or even lighter. I also do not think that the Persians had a lot of African slaves working for them at this time period although there could have been a few. There were also blacks in Greece at the time from Punt, Egypt, and Nubian. No one is sure how many, I would guess they were few and far between, but they were documented by Greek historians as slaves and merchants. They were usually referred to as Egyptians or Ethiopians, but Greeks called all people from Africa who were not Egyptians Ethiopians if they had dark skin and “wholly hair”.
That link is by no means authoritative, but is just meant to broach the topic to see if anyone else has any more information about this.
My 10-year-old is not seeing the movie, although his claim that 300 is just like Lord of the Rings, which he was allowed to see, is worth examining. I respond “here”:http://crosswordbebop.blogspot.com/2007/03/300-movie-review-warning-spoilers.html
BTW, the movie did $70 million this weekend, so I’d be really excited if I was Pressman’s literary agent this week…
A.L.
Andy R,
I tried to google some of those issues of racial characteristics when I first read A.L.’s piece, cause it seemed counter-intuitive to me that the Greeks and Persians would look all that different. But google can lead to some scary places for the simply curious about issues of racial identity. Interestingly, the issue has current resonance for those seeking to claim a non-Greek Macedonian national identity.
In any case, this “comment”:http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_05/003921.php#171639 from Kevin Drum’s site seemed to be pretty knowledgeable and impartial. In short, the Greek writer says that the Dorians, the northerners that the Spartans descended from, probably did have relatively light skin and hair. The same would not be true of the Athenians or other Greeks that were not Dorian.
As to the Persians, I haven’t a clue. The comment you cite seems to conflate modern Persians with ancient times. Too many people moving back and forth, empires rising and falling for my poor little head. I would say though that the Persians at the outset of the Achaemenid Empire were a small tribe in the corner of the world and that their genius was to systematically incorporate a broad range of cultures and identities. There were no doubt Egyptians and Greeks and a whole bunch of different people fighting in their armies.
The Iranians have just noticed the 300 is not kind to their ancestors…..Grin!!!!
Nobody could have less right than fanatical Muslims do to object that pre-Islamic civilizations are not being treated respectfully.
Also in Miller’s Sin city there is a mithological, epic atmosphere. The story is populated by archetypes, not carachters. In the same way, the 300 Spartans are the archetype of warriors.
I don’t think the mullahs see the Achaemenid Empire as their ancestors. The Shahs did. One distinction: the Achamenids allowed the Jews to return from exile to Jerusalem and rebuild their temple. The mullahs? Not so much into that.
Marine Gen. Peter Pace:
“homosexual acts ..are immoral”
Tell that to the Spartans.
*Both Chew2 and Winston (#49) suggested that Sparta left no mark on Western civilization, at least no positive mark. That they are wrong is shown by the story Plutarch told in his life of the King of Sparta. The story is that an ambassador visiting the king was amazed at how little fortification Sparta had. He expressed his surprise to the king, who took him to where the Spartan army was arrayed. Pointing to the army, the king said, “There are the walls of Sparta. Ten thousand men and everyone a brick.”*
*This sentiment is the basis of the open society we cherish. We hear a great deal about the struggle between our desire to live in an open society and the danger such openness may expose us to. Our alternatives, as the Spartans showed, are to build walls around our country, or for our young soldiers to be bricks. It takes courage to have an open society. We don’t all have to be brave, but some of us have to. Bill Whittle called them sheepdogs. The King of Sparta called them bricks. Bill and the king were talking about the same people.*
Best comment in the thread. Easily.
Apologist
“Best comment in the thread. Easily.”
Or an overly simplistic and romantic celebration of the lean mean killing machine warrior ethic.
The Japanese were also willing to die to the last man in a skilled defense of Okinawa. The Spartans were courageous in defending and attempting to spread their way of life. But that way of life involved a military caste who exploited a vast class of slaves, a socialization that apparently encouraged the murder of those slaves to teach courage and manhood, and a closed and authoritarian culture.
Fortunately it is primarily the open values of Athens which we remember and not those of Sparta.
Is it a false call to valor to point to the Spartans as a model, when their valor came from a brutal and self regarding culture?
I haven’t seen the movie yet – I will though, and I’m pretty sure I’ll love it – love the action movie, the latest Bond movie was the best one I’ve ever seen.
“However, an experts view on the realism of the story”:http://www.thestar.com/article/190493
_And had Leonidas undergone the agoge, he would have come of age not by slaying a wolf, but by murdering unarmed helots in a rite known as the Crypteia. These helots were the Greeks indigenous to Lakonia and Messenia, reduced to slavery by the tiny fraction of the population enjoying Spartan “freedom.” By living off estates worked by helots, the Spartans could afford to be professional soldiers, although really they had no choice: securing a brutal apartheid state is a full-time job, to which end the Ephors were required to ritually declare war on the helots_
_There is no evidence they opposed Leonidas’ campaign, despite 300’s subplot of Leonidas pursuing an illegal war to serve a higher good_
_Ephialtes, who betrays the Greeks, is likewise changed from a local Malian of sound body into a Spartan outcast, a grotesquely disfigured troll who by Spartan custom should have been left exposed as an infant to die._
_00’s Persians are ahistorical monsters and freaks. Xerxes is eight feet tall, clad chiefly in body piercings and garishly made up, but not disfigured. No need – it is strongly implied Xerxes is homosexual which, in the moral universe of 300, qualifies him for special freakhood. This is ironic given that pederasty was an obligatory part of a Spartan’s education. This was a frequent target of Athenian comedy, wherein the verb “to Spartanize” meant “to bugger.” In 300, Greek pederasty is, naturally, Athenian._
_No mention is made in 300 of the fact that at the same time a vastly outnumbered fleet led by Athenians was holding off the Persians in the straits adjacent to Thermopylae, or that Athenians would soon save all of Greece by destroying the Persian fleet at Salamis. This would wreck 300’s vision, in which Greek ideals are selectively embodied in their only worthy champions, the Spartans._
_This moral universe would have appeared as bizarre to ancient Greeks as it does to modern historians. Most Greeks would have traded their homes in Athens for hovels in Sparta about as willingly as I would trade my apartment in Toronto for a condo in Pyongyang._
So, if this article is accurate – great movie, bad history.
Of course, not the fault of Zack Snyder, the director – he faithfully interprets Frank Miller’s book, which shares all of the same lack of attention to the historical details.
hypocrisyrules, I suggest you read Victor Davis Hanson’s review for some observations about what the movie got right.
_”or that Athenians would soon save all of Greece by destroying the Persian fleet at Salamis.”_
There are a lot of thing wrong with this sentiment, starting with the fact that had not the Spartans (and allies) stood off the Persians for better than a week, Athens very likely wouldnt have been evacuated and would have been besieged and massacred never to rise again.
Even had Themistocles fought an won at Salamis (which he wouldnt likely have geographically had the Persian infantry which their navy was mirroring been far advanced by the time the Greek navy was again prepared to offer battle) he would have been avenging a torched and ravaged city state had not the Spartans made their sacrifice.
Oh, and it wont due to forget the Spartan led Battle of Plataea which actually broke the Persians and chased their remnent out of Greece.
Saw somebody saying that Sparta was an open society because it didn’t have walls, quoting the Spartan king who said his city didn’t need them, because every Spartan was a brick.
Stone walls do not a prison make. (And their absence doesn’t necessarily make an open society, either.)
Sparta practiced eugenics, sought autarky rather than trade with other countries, allowed only a minimal family life and didn’t permit foreigners to travel freely on their soil. Furthermore, art, philosphy and democratic ideology were shut out, because they were thought to contribute to dangerous individualism.
Nothing open about that. It sounds much more like proto-totalitarianism.
While I appreciate the point that a country needs to invest in the quality of its soldiers and not put all its faith in military hardware, I think the king was feeding the credulous ambassador a bit of spin. If he’d been more honest, he would have confided that the reason Sparta had no walls was because the big, bad*ss Spartans were scared sh*tless of the helots.
The Spartans depended on helots (slaves) who outnumbered them 7 to 1, and who sometimes rebelled in vain attempts to gain their freedom. The entire militaristic way of life of Sparta originated from the need to keep all of those unhappy helots down. Sparta even had its own KKK-like organization to terrorize the helots and kill helot males who showed leadership ability.
As a result, the helots HATED the Spartan’s guts.
Now it may seem paradoxical, but the warlike Spartans were actually militarily conservative. They were always hesitant to send their troops far afield, because they knew the helots might once more rebel in their absence.
In such an eventuality, the Spartan army would be forced to return to put down the uprising. *And THAT endeavor would have been MUCH more difficult if the helots could have hunkered down behind walls provided by the Spartans themselves!*
(Siege warfare not being well-developed at the time, the only way most walled cities fell was by internal treachery or if the population was starved out.)
No, better for Sparta to be unwalled, so that helot rebels would be defenseless against returning Spartan hoplites.
As it turned out, the Spartan nightmare was eventually made real. Sparta was beaten by Thebes, and the Thebans put an end to Spartan power once and for all by helping the Messenian helots build a walled city of their own.
And Sparta never re-enslaved them again.
I think some of the historical trivia in hypocricyrules’ link misses the mark. The movie is not about the history of the battle, it is about the meaning of the battle. If the movie is titled 300, instead of 300, plus 700 Thespians, one should know what kind of story is being told — the story that has been handed down and inspired for 2500 years.
Within the context of the historical criticism, it might be nice if someone recognized that much of what we know about the Spartans was written by its enemies, and often inconsistent.
I read the graphic novel, and I think its important to comment on this:
bq. _Ephialtes, who betrays the Greeks, is likewise changed from a local Malian of sound body into a Spartan outcast, a grotesquely disfigured troll who by Spartan custom should have been left exposed as an infant to die._
In other words, the Spartans were undone by a tragic flaw in their society. How Greek! I understood this characterization of the betrayal as a specific indictment of Spartan society. The book doesn’t pretend that the Spartans are Jeffersonian democrats, it merely assumes that they were on the right side in standing up against the divine right of Kings.
Thats what’s missing in the whole good/bad dynamic. By our standards they were all criminal, tyranical societies including Athens. You have to take each culture in context.
There is a great scene in Gates of Fire where an Egyptian exlains to a Spartan the size and wealth of the Persian empire, and how rich and powerful he has become under the emperor (and how the Spartans could as well by submitting). The Spartan agrees that the subjects of the Persians are richer, materially better off, even more peaceful than the Greeks. But his answer is that they will never know the freedom of looking their rulers in the face as equals, and that makes all the difference. _That_ is what set the Greeks apart, and that is what founded Western Society as different than all others. And that is why Thermopylae, legend and fact, is so seminal.
_I think some of the historical trivia in hypocricyrules’ link misses the mark. The movie is not about the history of the battle, it is about the meaning of the battle._
That’s fine with me. I certainly don’t have a problem with it.
The thing is, though, that I think Athens is much more located as the central point for Western development – not Spartans. The Western heritage traces from Athens, much more so than from Greece.
Spartans share somewhat in “the Greek heritage”, but this film raises up the Spartans, over the Athenians.
And, as Mark Buehner says, in context, even given all the differences in societies, we trace Western society (as much as anything traces back) to Athens.
correction – “Much more so than from Sparta”.
I”m greek of pure blood dorian spartan decent, the fact of the matter is that the asian persian niggers got there ass kicked, not just once but many times, and a hundred years later the persian army was completly anhilated, these are the facts, if it wasn’t for my ancesters all you would be submitting to a asian nigger god.
I thought Alexander was the biggest load of rubbish released until 300 came out. If there was an award for the worst movie ever made this has to be down there with the lowest of the low. At this rate, over time, we will be replacing actual history with a load of non-sense of this kind. God help the next generation.
To my friend Dorian. You are not just misinformed, you seem to suffer from Racism with it. If you read at least one decent history book, you will realise that the Greek civilisation came long after their persian teachers, from whom they learnt almost everything they knew. Where do I begin? Lookup the terms “Caucasus” or Caucasian and you will see that it comes from the northern regions of the Persian empire. Then perhaps we can move on to the second lesson.