300

[maineman]

I really need to see this. Maybe tonight.

I saw it at Hoyt's Augusta on Friday night..it was really awesome!

 

[tnfzpaul]

I saw it at Hoyt's Augusta on Friday night..it was really awesome!

I should have some time this next Sunday I think to see it. Can't wait!

 

[Annie]

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODRmNmY0NTlkYmQyNGFmNzU3MTAyOTlkMzc2ODBjNGI=

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

300 Fumes [Victor Davis Hanson]

Why the liberal furor over 300? Aside from criticism leveled against the plot, cinematography, dialogue, etc. there seems to be an almost elemental anger that such a 'simplistic' take on good and evil—West good, East bad—reduced to comic book simplicity has hoodwinked the Neanderthal class in the way they were led by the nose to Iraq by the Bush/Cheney nexus.

But what they fail to grasp is why 300 took off, and, say for example, Oliver Stone's Alexander bombed, a take that had all the hot-button Hollywood issue from easy homosexuality to the inner crisis over 'what it all means.' But critics forget that there were 4 key differences between those two films:

1) Thermopylae really was an unambiguous and heroic last stand to preserve freedom against tyranny, while Alexander's invasion of Asia was morally ambiguous even to the Greeks, who died in droves as mercenaries in service to the Persians to stop him. So the rub was not just the attitude of the filmmaker toward his material, but his material itself. Leonidas and his Spartan and Thespian hoplites did not murder pages, kill prisoners, or murder most of their associates.

One of the most vehement attacks I 've earned (mostly from the Greek-American community) was an article I wrote a few years ago "Alexander the Killer" for the Military History Quarterly, that sort of counted the corpses of both Alexander's friends and enemies.

2) Once you jettison the conventions of realism you don't suffer from historical inaccuracy. So Stone's accents, his dialogue, his recreations were all inexact and campy—and he had no excuse since he wished to make the past come alive as he thought it actually happened. And even the uniformed sensed rightly that "It couldn't have really been like that".

Snyder et al. had no such aims, but like ancient vase-painters or tragedians were always radical impressionists, exempt from such demands.

In this regard, note the success of the British - produced "Rome" which, while taking detours from history, and adding a few too many Anglicisms in the dialogue, was nevertheless a brilliant take on both the Roman ruling class and the nature of ancient life in general, so much so that most believed rightly that the modern movie and the ancient reality were nearly one and the same.

3) There is a great yearning among the public for just a small, rare chance to see some issue presented in terms other than moral ambiguity. 300 provided that in a way other costume dramas like Alexander or Troy either could not or did not. The 300 and those beside them were better than the alternative, had the moral high ground, and were willing to match deed with word. That proved more receptive than Oliver Stone's fantasizing for a public weary of sorta, kinda judgements (the latest being the Iranian hostage taking where the West is engaged in moral anguish over GPS data, possible provocations, a prior lapse in "engaging" the Iranians, conspiracy theorizing over the Bush role in all this, etc. rather than just a simple: "The Brits appeared vulnerable and would not act, and so for the Iranian thugocracy it was too good a chance to pass up—given its prior success with the serial kidnapping of Westerners.

4) Luck. A movie comes out with a stereotypical view of the Persians as aggressive, imperious, arrogant, and autocratic; it is criticized for such simplicity; but then an aggressive, imperious, arrogant, and autocratic Iranian ruling caste 2500 years later at almost the moment of its release continues to defy the world over nukes and is reduced to sordid piracy and hostage-taking.

03/28 01:00 PM

 

[roomy]

http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ODRmNmY0NTlkYmQyNGFmNzU3MTAyOTlkMzc2ODBjNGI=

Nice find and I agree with the sentiments.

 

[maineman]

I may be "out of the loop" on this, but I found the references to "liberal furor over 300" to be strange at best. I am a liberal. I work with plenty of liberals. I go to church with a boatload of liberals. My kids are more liberal than I am (if that's even possible) and every single liberal I know who has seen the movie - myself included - absolutely loved it.

 

[T-Bor]

I just finished downloading an outstanding copy of this DVD last night off of Demonoid.com. Why pay for movies when you can get them for free now ?

 

[Igor Peters]

Just saw it.
Skillfully made.
I hope it's not up for any historical accuracy awards.
I admit I had to when in the film those great poofters of the ancient world the Spartans expressed disdain for the culturally much more likely to be heterosexual men of Athens.