Movie Review of 300: Guts, Gore, and Glory
By Leverkuhn Posted in Archived — Comments (25) / Email this page » / Leave a comment »
The word is out that Zack Snyder's new movie 300 is making some big bucks at the box-office (roughly 70 million its first weekend)[1], and that has some critics' noses bent seriously out of shape.[2][3] This review will attempt to explain why that is the case.
First, let's make one thing perfectly clear. This is not a great movie, at least not by any standard that I accept. Most of the technical criticisms that have been made about this movie are accurate. It does sacrifice plot in favor of highly stylized violence and gore. It does feature of a lot of fine actors (Gerard Butler, for one) turning in some surprisingly monotone performances. It does not even come close to the actual historical record (more on that in a bit). And, not surprisingly considering that it came from the maker's of Sin City, it is a gratuitously violent movie.
All of those things are true, and yet we could say the same things about a number of other movies that the critics have admired, or at least not hated. Think about the aforementioned Sin City, with its mindless display of decapitations, severed limbs, cannibalism, and constant gore. Or think about Kill Bill, which could only compensate for a farcical plot by throwing buckets and buckets of fake blood at the camera. Those movies received praise for their technical achievements in the use of CGI, innovative film-editing, and creative stunts. This movie is essentially in the same genre of Snyder/Tarantino gore-fest movie making, so why do the critics hate it so much?
The answer, I think, is that a couple of different factors have combined to make this movie distasteful to the average movie reviewer (i.e., a cosmopolitan, faux-intellectual left-winger who wishes people would spend more time watching art house movies than blockbusters at the local Cineplex 16). First, sometime during the buildup to the release of 300 a lot of people got the mistaken idea that this film has a political message about the Iraq. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. This movie is about bouncing heads and blood squirting out at interesting camera angles. It is not about the Iraq war, or any other contemporary political issue, and absolutely nothing about the film itself would yield that conclusion.
Nevertheless, a few weeks ago a couple of reporters who obviously had nothing better to do with their time, cornered Mr. Snyder at a press junket with a really stupid question:
“Is George Bush Leonidas or Xerxes?” one of them asked.
The questioner, by Mr. Snyder’s recollection, insisted that Mr. Bush was Xerxes, the Persian emperor who led his force against Greek’s city states in 480 B.C., unleashing an army on a small country guarded by fanatical guerilla fighters so he could finish a job his father had left undone. More likely, another reporter chimed in, Mr. Bush was Leonidas, the Spartan king who would defend freedom at any cost.[4]
And that, children, is how mountains are made out of molehills. Ever since that fateful interview our cultural elites have been arguing over what the political message of this film is, or more precisely, what they think it should be. And for some strange and unknowable reason a large number of them have determined that this film is either pro-Bush and pro-war, or at least neutral toward both, which is almost as serious a cinematic felony as being pro-Bush. Thus we have this wonderfully illogical (and revealing) gem from Dana Stevens over at slate:
In interviews, Snyder insists that he "really just wanted to make a movie that is a ride"—a perfectly fine ambition for any filmmaker, especially one inspired by the comics. And visually, 300 is thrilling, color-processed to a burnished, monochromatic copper, and packed with painterly, if static, tableaux vivants. But to cast 300 as a purely apolitical romp of an action film smacks of either disingenuousness or complete obliviousness. 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.[5]
Emphasis added
So according to Ms. Stevens, the movie is deficient, not because it is pro-war, but because it is not sufficiently anti-war to please her. Reviews like this honestly make me think that if the Leonidas character in this movie had just taken a 30 second break from killing Persians to lecture the audience about the importance of abiding by the Geneva Conventions then it would have gotten better reviews.
Another major issue that makes this particular movie unpopular with the chattering class is the story itself. Now granted, we know very few historical facts about the Battle of Thermopylae. The oldest source on the battle is Herodotus, who is unreliable at best, especially when it comes to troop figures. For example, he estimated that King Xerxes commanded an army of about 1.7 million men at Thermopylae, which is certainly bogus. He is also the one who came up with the famous "fight in the shade" remark, which is the sort of thing that a Spartan might say, but we have no idea if someone actually said that. On the other hand, we do know at least two indisputable facts about the Battle of Thermopylae:
1) Sometime around 480 BC a massive Persian Army (maybe as many as 200,000 according to contemporary estimates), attempted to invade Greece. They were met at the mountain pass of Thermopylae by a small force of Greeks spearheaded by a Spartan King and a few compatriots.
2) The Spartans all died trying to prevent the invasion.
Regardless of the contemporary political issues involved, and regardless of the precise numbers of soldiers at the battle, those facts alone make this story an object lesson about martial courage and the nobility of self-sacrifice on behalf one’s country. If anything, the critics should slam 300 for failing to do justice to these time-honored themes. Instead, they snarl at the filmmakers for including these ideas at all. The sad thing is that in our present, debased culture those themes alone can disqualify a film in the minds of our cultural elites. So, for example, we have this nugget of political wisdom from Scott Holeran:
But with a military philosophy—the Spartan king regrets that he has so few lives to sacrifice—resembling the Bush administration's foreign policy, the mighty Spartans lack the mind to match the muscle.
If sacrifice is noble, why bother to fight—why not hurry up and die? And why—oh, never mind, this latest message of Doomsday nihilism, which sidesteps history, serves one purpose: to validate chronic fear. [6]
Emphasis Added
It is probably pointless to tell such people that a great chasm exists between merely dying and dying for something greater than yourself. It is like trying to explain patriotism to the anarchist, or chastity to the hedonist. Somebody once asked me what I thought was the gut-level difference between conservatives and liberals. I think I know the answer. It’s the difference between Owen Seaman and Wilfred Owen. What does Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori mean to you?
[1] http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=300.htm
[2] http://www.boxofficemojo.com/reviews/?id=2267&p=.htm
[3] http://www.slate.com/id/2161450/fr/flyout
[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/05/movies/05spartans.html?_r=2&oref=slogi...
[5] http://www.slate.com/id/2161450/fr/flyout
[6] http://www.boxofficemojo.com/reviews/?id=2267&p=.htm
what you said there actually contradicts anything I've said. I don't know a lot about ancient history, and you do, so I bow to your experience on the subject. If you say the movie was accurate, then I accept that, BUT you also said that there were "hundreds" of small deviations from the historical record. That would mean that there were hundreds of "errors," no? How can I reconcile those two statements?
A precedent embalms a principle.
- Disraeli
...I was not trying to argue that the film was completely accurate. There were, as I said, literally hundreds of small deviations from the actual history; however, my disagreement is with the translation of these changes into the assertion that "it does not even come close to the actual historical record."
I think that it comes as close as could be expected, but, as I said in the previously linked comment, I think that the greater historical value of the film is the interest it will spark in people - like yourself - who will then be motivated to learn the actual history.
Learning about sacrifice for a cause is no bad thing, as well.
As I said above, I think your diary was outstanding; I simply disagree with the diagnosis of "death by a thousand cuts" with regard to many small inaccuracies rendering the whole of the film "not even...close to the actual historical record."
I think I understand what you were saying now. Perhaps I should have worded my diary differently. And I agree with you that this film would do a great service to the public if it encourages people to read more history. As an (American) historian, I truly wish more people would study our history, and I welcome any vehicle that leads toward that end.
A precedent embalms a principle.
- Disraeli
Most older accounts of the battle that I am familiar with place the Persians forces at about one million. I not sure that can be effectively challenge without primary sources (Persian records, etc.) that contradict the “Father of History’s” claim. I am also not aware of any primary sources that conflict with the traditional accounts of troop strength. If anyone is aware of any such primary sources please make me aware of them. Thank you.
...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...
---Thomas Paine---
is necessary in taking any ancient, and even not so ancient, reports as to the size of a force in a battle. Even if a figure like 1MM represents all of the force including the logistical train, think of the resources it would take just to procure and distribute the food and fodder, and even ancient armies had substantial ammunition trains and heavy weapon trains. Even much smaller armies about which we have more reliable records were like flocks of locusts moving accross the land; they could not stay in any place more than a few days without completely denuding it of food and firewood and completely fouling the ground upon which they sat. "A million" can be taken only to mean "a large number."
Even in relatively modern times, troop strength estimates have been dramatically wrong, e.g., McClellan and Pinkerton convinced themselves that Johnson/Lee had 200,000 trained and equipped men behind formidable works in Richmond. At most, Lee might have had 70-80,000, most poorly equipped and virtually untrained, and the works were rudimentary at best. In fact, a large percentage of Lee's Army and an army of contracted and impressed slaves spent the whole summer of '62 building the works around Richmond, long after McClellan lost his nerve before them and withdrew.
I think the only thing that can be said with confidence is that a very small number of Spartans and other Greeks faced a very large number of Persians and other forces, and I don't say that to minimize or denigrate the 300, just to point out the weakness of any historical account of ancient battles.
In Vino Veritas
I am not sure your Civil War example holds any water. Throughout the Civil War the Confederate forces in Virginia were very artful in and dedicated to creating the illusion of greater numbers. McPherson discusses specific examples (stage prop artillery, extra campfires, etc.) of this in the “Battle Cry of Freedom.” The Persians were a great multitude pitted against 300; they would have no need to use trickery to increase the appearance of their force.
...a long habit of not thinking a thing wrong, gives it a superficial appearance of being right...
---Thomas Paine---
even in modern times, are notoriously inaccurate. Of course the PACS was good at disguising and propagandizing its force size; armies have been practiceing making themselves look larger or smaller since time immemorial.
However, most of the "Quaker Guns" that McPherson discusses were not around Richmond, but rather earlier along the Potomac and later along the Rapidan and Rappahannock. The trick worked at least as late as WWII; the great Ranger raid on Pointe du Hoc was caused by well placed light poles, and the US convinced the Germans that it had a whole army on the Pas de Calais, when all it had was a lot of plywood and canvas backed by a good signals unit.
In Vino Veritas
and I will add the observation that Herodotus has been challenged by contemporary historians on a number of fronts, not just on this issue. For example, Herodotus wrote that in the 16th century BC the Egyptians invaded Greece. There is no archeological evidence that they did, and no Egyptian sources say so. But Herodotus does, and for that reason we have many black nationalists making extreme claims about how all fo the great Greek philosophers were black and so forth.[1] Even other ancient historians such as Thucydides challenged Herodotus's accuracy.[2]
The bottom line is this: Herodotus is known as the "father of history" because he was one of the first, not because he was best.
[1] http://academic.reed.edu/humanities/110tech/BlackAthena.html
[2] http://books.google.com/books?id=dFo7MPWe9V8C&pg=RA1-PR30&lpg=RA1-PR30&d...
A precedent embalms a principle.
- Disraeli
it didn't happen either. In 1600 BC, Egypt was already a highly developed civilization with significant seaborne commerce. Who's to say that some "Egyptian" didn't land somewhere in "Greece" with some armed men and start exacting tribute or engaging in trade? At that time, "Greece" was little more than a wildland, but there might have been good olives, wine, wool, perhaps metals. The modern view is that until the day of one's birth, everyone was born in a hovel in a village and never ventured more than a days walk away. In fact, there was a great deal of communication between the various Mediterranean cultures going very, very far back into antiquity.
In Vino Veritas
in the time before the first dark age in the Med. The notorious "time of troubles". In fact, some have speculated that nearly the entire economy of Crete seemed to derived from tourism.
Of course, by the time of the Persian invasions, the dark ages were over, and the classical time was just beginning.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
say that. Herodotus talks about a full scale invasion with major ramifications on Greek society and culture. Right now, we can be reasonably sure that didn't happen, because if it did happen we would have more evidence of it. As it is, there is no evidence than any part of Greece was ever occupied by Egypt, unless of course the experts who study this sort of thing are lying.
A precedent embalms a principle.
- Disraeli
Herodotus was a storyteller, what passed for an historian in the day. My point is that something could have happened that involved Egyptians and Greeks in some number and for some reason and it was a good story. So it was retold, but nothing about the telling is reliable. We can't say what happened, but we know enough now to reliably say that what Herodotus said happened didn't.
In Vino Veritas
In the book of Judith, Nebuchadnezzer's army is described repeatedly as "without number" and as "covering the face of the earth". I know that this cannot be taken to mean specifically one million, nor is the book of Judith a Persian source. On the other hand, Hebrew Scripture is not casual with numbers. Tens of thousands of men are numbered quite specifically in parts (see the first chapter of Numbers, for instance), soemtimes totaling well over a hundred thousand. So if a passage says that an army is "without number", we can expect that it would be in the hundreds of thousands, and perhaps a million or more.
Here's the link to one of the references in Judith:
http://etext.virginia.edu/etcbin/toccer-new2?id=KjvJudi.sgm&images=image...
19: Then he went forth and all his power to go before king Nabuchodonosor in the voyage, and to cover all the face of the earth westward with their chariots, and horsemen, and their chosen footmen.
20: A great number also sundry countries came with them like locusts, and like the sand of the earth: for the multitude was without number.
"During my lifetime, all our problems have come from mainland Europe, and all the solutions from the English-speaking nations across the world." - Thatcher
Hebrew, Persian, Greek, doesn't matter,the numbers are mere symbology. If you can't accept that, start working on the explanation for how armies of that size would subsist in the field.
In Vino Veritas
"During my lifetime, all our problems have come from mainland Europe, and all the solutions from the English-speaking nations across the world." - Thatcher
I was with my family, and made them buy it as a Christmas gift (I think it was 8-9 years ago). I've always been a Frank Miller fan (from Daredevil to Batman to Sin City and then this), and what better artist to illustrate the greatest clash between East & West.
The graphic novel is really what I expect the movie to be (unfortunately, I haven't had a chance to see it yet): a violent, pop-culture distillation of what Thermopylae has become.
The movie that I am still waiting eagerly for is an adaptation of Stephen Pressfield's "Gates of Fire". In that book, the story of Thermopylae is told from the vantage of a slave/helot/squire, and really provides gripping philosophy about what Sparta was, who the Spartan's were, and why they did what they did.
I mean, of course, the Greek "historian" and not the distinguised RedState blogger of the same name.
He did not regard it as being part of the role of an historian to be accurate. What a shame Thucydides wasn't there.
For my take on the "Father of History follow the link.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
International Editor of
and, unlike Thucydides, Herodotus actually gave his sources for things.
But he was no mere storyteller. He was conducting historical inquiry of the first order. He must be read very carefully.
An excellent introduction to Herodotus was written by the late Seth Benardete, "Herodotean Inquiries".
http://www.amazon.com/Herodotean-Inquiries-Seth-Benardete/dp/1890318329
(I also hold Thucydides in high esteem, I should say.)
"During my lifetime, all our problems have come from mainland Europe, and all the solutions from the English-speaking nations across the world." - Thatcher
It is a bit of modern hubris to assume that classical writers were not interested in being professional, and truthful as far as they could be.
"Nothing works like freedom, Nothing succeeds like liberty"
Kyle
He did not see it as part of his job to distinguish between stories which are true and stories which are not true. His job was to distinguish stories which are entertaining from stories which are not entertaining.
Thucydides, by contrast, invented the process of 'triangulation' which is still taught at journalism schools today, and even, sometimes, practised by journalists.
Herodotus consciously included stories which he did not believe - we know this because he sometimes says so*. Makes better reading than Thucydides, for obvious reasons, but it is nowhere near the guide to history.
*Intriguingly, Herodotus did not believe in Britain. He thought the 'tin islands' off the north west coast of Europe were mythical. Happily, he was wrong about this.
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
International Editor of
Take a look at Prof. Benardete's book sometime. Take it out from a university library and read just a chapter or two.
"During my lifetime, all our problems have come from mainland Europe, and all the solutions from the English-speaking nations across the world." - Thatcher
I enjoy Herodotus, but am under no illusions about his reliability.
Quentin Langley . . . writing from the mythical Tin Islands
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
International Editor of
at a chapter of the book.... :)
"During my lifetime, all our problems have come from mainland Europe, and all the solutions from the English-speaking nations across the world." - Thatcher
Quentin Langley
Editor of http://www.quentinlangley.net
International Editor of
Here's my take on the historical veracity of the film - and on how much that matters.