I saw 300. Only about half a year late. This delay puts me in the strange position of having no need to enumerate the film’s many flaws and historical inaccuracies. Nor do I have to belabor its oddly homophobic (esp. considering the manboy love of Antient Sparta) portrayal of the Persians. Nor does one need to critique the bad acting. All of this has greased the gears a million times over. Thanks a bunch, blogosphere!
However, I do think a point in particular needs be made: Frank Miller is an idiot.
Most adaptations are too loose; this one is too faithful, and suffers for it. The film clocks in at about 2 hours, when it could have been about 1 1/2. The direct cause of the bloat is thus: Miller’s dialogue and narration have survived completely in tact. The viewer suffers through about one thousand and thirty definitions of what Spara is (everything but a Hellenic city-state) and about 1500 speeches about the birth of reason and Greek freedom.
The end of the film infers that Sparta defeated the second Persian campaign by leading the unified Hellenic forces into an enormous land battle. In fact, the Battle of Salamis, at which the Persians suffered their most significant defeat, was naval and lead by the Athenians. This directly contributed to the rise of Athenian preeminence amongst the Hellens, which in turn lead to chicanery with the Delian league, which in turn lead to the Peloponnesian War. This is the war in which, briefly summarized, the Spartans destroyed the Athenians and set the development of Western Civilization back hundreds of years.
300 casts the Spartans, whose society was structured atop a caste system utilizing slaves called Helots, as the defenders of freedom and noble warriors fighting for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This is akin to making a film about World War II that depicts the Nazis sitting shiva.
One could blame the nonsense on director Zak Penn, but Penn’s direction is the film’s saving grace. As a giant mindless spectacle of war & blood, 300 is great. This is the kind of goofy extravaganza Hollywood has been cranking out for almost 100 years– the only things that change throughout the decades are the faces and the technology. Some, like D.W. Griffith’s Intolerance, are less stupid, some more.
300 is really dumb. Again, we come back to my central point. Frank Miller is an idiot. I remember being in my friend Andrew’s bathroom, trying to read the original graphic novel, and giving up around the point where a Persian emissary is thrown down a well. The scene itself, based on an incident in Herodotus, was not objectionable– it was the tone and delivery. It was clear I could keep reading and (a) find the cutting edge of Superheroic Graphic Design (yawn), (b) be entreated to a lot of garbage about Men being Men and (c) somehow, somewhere find a woman being a whore.
For 20 years, Miller has written only one story. Much like the aforementioned cinematic spectacles, the only differences are place names (Gotham, Sparta, Sin City) and proper nouns (Batman, whatever the Sin City characters are called, Leonidas, Batman). So long as Miller kept amping up the art, no one really noticed– sure, someone could point out that the Yellow Bastard book is pretty much the same thing as the other 6, but c’mon, it’s got a dude that’s yellow! In a series that’s black and white! But times change and Miller stumbled– the sequel to Dark Knight Returns looked like crap, so people ended up reading the story. Big mistake. Some of the more brainy folks took DK2 as a parody, but then came All-Star Batman and Robin the Wonder Boy. The dawning realization: either Miller’s serious, or, if this is parody, it’s unfunny. Which ends up being the same thing as serious.
One wouldn’t even complain if it were a good story.
The sad thing about the graphic novel, and the film, is that Sparta was one of the most fascinating cities in the Ancient World. The structure of the society, its relative lack of achievement in any arena but war, its sexual progressiveness, and its destruction of the birthplace of philosophy all make it incredibly compelling. Even the heart of 300, the Battle of Thermopylae, is incredibly fascinating and nuanced.
But the film and book squander opportunity in favor of Freedom.
At least in 2007 that’s something to which we’re accustomed.
