300 Trailer is up!

[Arethusa]

I haven't read 300, but everything I've heard form Miller fans tends to indicate that all the crazy, stupid *********** movie is the result of unrelenting faithfulness to the comic. Naked Spartans, Lord of the Rings war rhinos, flaming arrows, arrowheads designed by four year olds, bizarre lesbian Persians, bad dialogue, the whole thing.

"This is madness."
"Madness? This is Sparta!"

That's some Michael Bay writing right there. I don't think it requires familiarity with history to hate this stuff.

skal, I'll definitely check it out.

 

[faustian bargain]

Originally Posted by Arethusa

...bizarre lesbian Persians...

worth the price of admission alone.

 

[Edward Appleby]

By these criteria of historical accuracy, I guess the Illiad gets relegated to schlock, along with most of Shakespeare's histories. It's nigh impossible to provide a complete and accurate picture of any historical episode in a narrative, just because history is so multi-dimensional. I think that the main criterion should be whether or not a given film captures to spirit/beliefs/state of mind/motivations of the group/person it focuses on. Narrative film is a dramatic medium, so it's really not suited to conveying factual information.

Also, I think that 300 might actually be able to capture the Spartan mindset pretty well.

 

[Arethusa]

Way to ignore absolutely everything I said about historical fiction. And if you want to talk about capturing absolutely anything about Sparta, this is not it.

 

[faustian bargain]

who goes to the movies to learn about history?

that's why we have the history channel.

 

[Arethusa]

Originally Posted by faustian bargain

who goes to the movies to learn about history?

that's why we have the history channel.
You might as well ask, "who goes to movies to think?" Still a ****** question.

 

[skalogre]

Problem is, that this wil become the de facto idea of what happenned for people who see it that don't know anything else about it. Historic revisionism via Hollywood; its what's for dinner! Of course history is coloured by the people who are inscribing it, I know that. However there are some serious differences between these things and historical narratives. Anyhow, as I said, generally I'd rather Hollywood stay away from my neck of the woods. Even more considering that while a few thousand years may appear to be a long time, in the Hellenic world people still know of the battle, the monument to the Spartans and Thespians who fought the Persians still stands, and many people (myself included) even know the monument's inscription by heart

. But that ties in to many other things including national consciousness, identity and old grudges that are difficult to explain (and are not really understood anyway). P.s. it is interesting how the Thespians are often forgotten in modern narratives. P.s.2 Wow we are getting sidetracked. P.s.3 The Iliad IS schlock, I agree there. It was passed down orally for centuries before it was writen down for the first time in I think 6th century BC (don't remember exactly). To put it in to perspective, for the Hellenes of that age, the war at Troy was as far away and ancient as the Middle Ages are to us today. Herodotus is acknowledged to be the first to try doing something genuinely like historical writing, even though he still had too much of the mystical and godly in his writings to qualify as such today. And that was much much later than the original Homer lived.

 

[LabelKing]

I'm not particularly fond of the Spartans. Pericles via Thucydides positively reduces Sparta to a group of rubish, bellicose, unfit parents.

However, the graphic nature of that film does look compelling in that grandiose way.

 

[skalogre]

Originally Posted by LabelKing

I'm not particularly fond of the Spartans. Pericles via Thucydides, of course, positively reduces Sparta to a group of rubish, bellicose, unfit parents.

However, the graphic nature of that film does look compelling in that grandiose way.

Well, the time you describe though was during the time of the Peloponnesian wars. Essentially the original cold war. Reducing your opponent to sheer barbarosity is a requisite for any good war.

 

[LabelKing]

The Spartans were, well, too Spartan for my liking.

Johann Winkelmann of course, praised the Spartans but he was in it like von Gloeden was in it for the Italian country--the boys.

 

[Rome]

Yelling, overacting, painted on abs a la Mariah Carey... nope not for me. I will be content waiting for the Sin City sequel.

 

[Gericaux]

Historical fiction stylized. What do you mean go to movies to not think? Aren't we thinking about the aesthetic/ politics/ ethics of movies that are based on a comic book which was based on a historical event, which in turn is re- interpreting that historical event with a filter such as style, which in turn makes it fictionalized history but hella fun to watch?

The saturation of the colors was one of the things that struck me at first. I must see.

Pearl Harbour sucked bum. World Trade Center looks like something out of the Hallmark Channel. Alexander meandered into nowhere land.

 

[Ramses]

The Chinese Film "The Promise" is better than this will be.

 

[skalogre]

Originally Posted by Ramses

The Chinese Film "The Promise" is better than this will be.

The Promise?

 

[Arethusa]

The Promise. I heard about it, but I never got around to seeing it. Seven Swords put me off wuxia for a long time. Hell, it ******* nearly put me off movies for good.