"300" - Merged Thread

[Feraud]

There will be no attacking around here or everyone gets a time-out!

 

[Hemingway Jones]

...Before you all attack me, I also really like the first film, and I understand that it's arguably a much better movie, has a better cast, better music, better production values, etc...

Anyway, I think Conan the Barbarian is a little bit weaker than its reputation, and Conan the Destroyer is a little bit better. Both are good sword-and-sorcery fun...

Personally, I appreciate your point of view. You always have an unique perspective offered in a compelling way. Though, if you bring up Red Sonja we may have a problem.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

I am not sure how serious a treatment 300 will be given until we see it.

I've seen enough commercials of it to know that it's a video game whose protagonists grin, grimace and growl like pro wrestlers.


Coming up (probably): a movie about the Battle of Tours (732 A.D.), with protagonists that -- surprise! -- grin, grimace and growl like pro wrestlers. Oh, and the bad guys are Muslims from Syria. Perfect!

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[Hemingway Jones]

I am not sure how serious a treatment 300 will be given until we see it.
What is relevant is how historical events apparently need to be givent the Hollywood treatment. This is not my opinion but an observation. Will audiences see and appreciate "just the facts"?
We talk gripe about "audiences today" but bear in mind audiences of yesterday. They were just as average as we are today.
DeMille gave 'em plenty of schmaltz and beefcake with Victor Mature as Sampson. What the heck was EG Robinson doing in The Ten Commandments?

Well, when I spoke of my longing for a serious treatment, I was not making a comparison with anything in the past, but merely observing that too often good stories are diminished not so much by a Hollywood treatment, but by a comic book treatment.

Take Troy for example; here is a story that is the basis for The Western Canon and look at how that film came out. :eusa_doh: -Except for the fight scene between Achilles and Hector, which was inspired.

Alexander was meant to be a serious treatment, I suppose, but the director went off track somewhere; and that direct was Oliver Stone, which brings us back full circle.

This film may very well succeed. Stylistically, it looks amazing, but so was Sin City and Sky Captain, both films, to me, that were so much style over such little substance.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Take Troy for example; here is a story that is the basis for The Western Canon and look at how that film came out. :eusa_doh:

See, I'm not surprised. Hollywood (and Italy!) have always depicted Greek and Roman history/myths as cartoonish.


And why is it that in Hollywood films, ancient Romans must always have British accents?

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[Doctor Strange]

Can I suggest that De Mille and company also treated Judeo/Christian mythology as cartoonish (hence, Edward G. Robinson croaking, "Where's your deliverer NOW?") - or is the very use of "Judeo/Christian" and "mythology" in the same sentence just asking for trouble?!?

IMHO, the line between history and myth - and religion - is always subject to interpretation... But it does look like 300 has chosen myth over history - as opposed to Troy which (wrongly) chose history over myth.

Necessary quote from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: "When the legend becomes the truth, print the legend."

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Can I suggest that De Mille and company also treated Judeo/Christian mythology as cartoonish?

You sure can. Heck, Hollywood treats as cartoonish anything that occurred before the American Revolution, and much of what came after.

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[Feraud]

See, I'm not surprised. Hollywood (and Italy!) have always depicted Greek and Roman history/myths as cartoonish.


And why is it that in Hollywood films, ancient Romans must always have British accents?

.

The accents killed the series Rome for me. :eusa_doh:

We inevitably come down to this: movies rarely do history the justice it deserves. The more you know about a subject the less you will like the film treatment.
I enjoyed Gettysburg and Matewan but despise the recent crop of Ancient History films. The recent films struck me as flat and uninspired modern day DeMille wannabe's without the Technicolor.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

... or is the very use of "Judeo/Christian" and "mythology" in the same sentence just asking for trouble?!?

Upon advice of my counsel, I respectfully decline to answer the question.

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[Marc Chevalier]

The recent films struck me as flat and uninspired modern day DeMille wannabe's without the Technicolor.

And that's another thing: what's up with these new action films being washed out into a pasty, blotchy mess? Life imitates art: just as CG (computer graphics) becomes more 'real', reality is made to look more like CG. Feh!!

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[Hemingway Jones]

The accents killed the series Rome for me. :eusa_doh:

That's a shame because Rome is an excellent example of history done right; much of it is spot on, yet it never fails to entertain. It is some of the best television I have ever seen.

And the accents were the product of it being produced in the UK.

 

[Feraud]

And that's another thing: what's up with these new action films being washed out into a pasty, blotchy mess? Life imitates art: just as CGI becomes more 'real', reality is made to look more like CGI. Feh!!

.

Tell me about it. When exactly did movies start overuse that grainy washed out look? Was it with Seven?

That's a shame because Rome is an excellent example of history done right; much of it is spot on, yet it never fails to entertain. It is some of the best television I have ever seen.

And the accents were the product of it being produced in the UK.

I agree! I was really enjoying the series but the accents were distracting and my interest faded.
I might have enjoyed it more with the sound off and reading subtitles.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

And the accents were the product of it being produced in the UK.

Which may have *something* to do with its spot on-ness.

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[Feraud]

Which may have *something* to do with its spot on-ness.

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Yet they blew it with the accents.

 

[Hemingway Jones]

I might have enjoyed it more with the sound off and reading subtitles.

So, then, are you a fan of the Mel Gibson school of historical film as it relates to filming in the source language? Imagine the series in Latin! Now, that would be spot on-ness, Eh, Marc?

 

[Feraud]

So, then, are you a fan of the Mel Gibson school of historical film as it relates to filming in the source language? Imagine the series in Latin! Now, that would be spot on-ness, Eh, Marc?

I am although it may not be an economically sound choice. I am not the film viewer who needs to see a "star" in the lead role or have history changed to suit my sensibilities.
The facts are entertaining and enlightening enough to not need tampering by a screenwriter with his own "creative ideas".

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Imagine the series in Latin! Now, that would be spot on-ness, Eh, Marc?

Only if they didn't mess things up like Mel Gibson did: in "The Passion," he had his ancient Romans speaking Medieval 'French' Latin.

Give me the Latin of Cicero. Give me Vulgar Latin, too. But don't give me Aquinas's Latin. Wrong era entirely.

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[Hondo]

Japanese Samurai code, Bushido

I was disapointed that this version was the one to become the movie. I read Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield, and it was an amazing book.

This story stirs my soul, and I wept while reading it. These men gave their lives in the most heroic way because they believed in living free. Had not these men sacraficed everything, it is highly possible that Greece would have been over-run and democracy may not have survived. When wounded the men crammed on armor over their wounds to help stop the bleeding and kept on fighting. I have so much respect and admiration for their heroism because I may not live as a free woman if not for them.

And yes, that is a bit dramatic and perhaps a bit of an overstatement. And yes, I don't know that they crammed on armor and kept fighting. But for some reason, this story really has embedded itself in my soul, and I can't shake it loose. So I was really hoping for a movie version that highlighed how I feel. While the 300 may be an amazing visual movie, I am worried that viewers might not understand the enormity of the battle, and how its ripples effect us all today.

I don't know if I want to see the movie in the theater or not. The visuals make me want to see it on the screen, but I am afraid of being disapointed.

Anyway, just my 2 cents. If you ever want to read a beautiful telling of the story, the book I linked above is wonderful and a fast read.

Like the Japanese Samurai code, "Bushido" stressed loyalty, and honor to the death, its the story, intriguing, fascinating, something I’m into, honor above all, I know it sounds (maybe) corny but it sticks out in my mind, for me any ways. Doesn't really matter with me, B-films, low budget or high tech, you stress the true meaning of honor, wonderful but also sad.

 

[Marc Chevalier]

Wilfred Owen, the British poet who was killed in World War I (and received the Military Cross for his courage and leadership), had this to say:


Dulce Et Decorum Est

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of disappointed shells that dropped behind.

GAS! Gas! Quick, boys!-- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And floundering like a man in fire or lime.--
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,--
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.*


* "It is sweet and fitting [to die for one's country]." - Horace

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[carebear]

The horror in Owen's poem is based on the assumption that not fighting would have resulted in a non-horrific outcome. In WWI? In retrospect? Probably a correct one.

But in WWII, or the obliteration of Western Civ in its cradle in the 2nd Persian war? Perhaps not so much.

In those kind of wars the horror of some folks fighting and dying is justified, or at least outweighed, by the horror that would almost certainly occur to those they defend if they did not fight and die. There are things worth killing (and dying) for.

Even when the fate of civilization is not at stake - "there are things that gnaw at a man worse than dying".