300 or The 300 Spartans?

Saturday, March 24th, 2007 at 11:23 pm

I’ve just been taken back to my childhood this afternoon. “The 300 Spartans” has been shown on ITV1. A friend and I saw this at one of the cinemas in Scunthorpe (my home town) when I was 11 during a wonderful and formative time in my life.

I guess this latest TV showing is tied into the upcoming release of “300″, a retelling of the classic graphical novel by Frank Miller as a dark comic book fantasy.

I saw “The 300 Spartans” as child as part of my induction into sword and sandal epics. Just another one of a large number of epics made about events in ancient Rome or Greece made as co-productions usually with Italians taking the lead. I remember “The Wooden Horse of Troy” (later retitled “The Trojan Wars”), “Romulus and Remus”, “The Colossus of Rhodes” and a few more.

“The 300 Spartans” was in that genre but had largely Hollywood values and the cream of British acting talent taking the supporting roles at the time. It is not the best film in the world but to an impressionable 11 year old in 1964 it was exciting and captivating. The scale, the action, the excitement, the heroism, the sacrifice.

As a more cynical 54 year old the scenes that invoked my attention this time round were the politics, the oratory, the history and the arguments between the city states of Greece before unification. Ralph Richardson was wonderful as Thermistocles. It’s not quite in the league of the darkly menacing and acidic sparring between Laurence Olivier and Charles Laughton in the Roman Senate in “Spartacus” but interesting nevertheless.

The action scenes were quite impressive as spectacle but a few close battlefield shots let them down ultimately. And the final rain of transparent arrows drawn on to the film that kill the remaining Spartans is a bit laughable. But it was 1963. No CGI then. At the end of the day it was a traditional Hollywood film about a worthy subject - self sacrifice to protect freedom and democracy against tyranny. Some have seen it having Cold War overtones. Looking back there are many parallels with “El Cid” which came out two years earlier in 1961.

Now back to the here and now. I confess to not having seen the film yet but “300″ looks very promising. The trailers are sensational. Clearly this is no remake. And the stamp of “Sin City” on the look of this film is undeniable. I hope the acting and the narrative are as good as the graphics. This time style is paramount. It appears as if bronze statues have come to life. Realism and historical accuracy are put to one side as the tale becomes a fantasy. And maybe a homoerotic one at that.

What it does share in common with its predecessor is the epic qualities in the battle scenes. Nowadays, we cannot expect to see live action epics that just happen to use half of the Greek army to act as the hoardes of Persian invaders. It would be just too costly. So CGI steps in and we can manufacture virtual warriors. Scores of them at much less cost and much more manageable.

Violence as we all now know has to be shown graphically today. Audiences of most ages have come to expect it. Tons of gore and hacked off limbs. Stop motion fight sequences. Blood splashes in slow motion. But there has to be “wow” factor, something that hasn’t been seen before to single it out from the crowd. Even in the trailers you can see that “300″ has it, the “wow” factor.

I just hope there is sufficient back story, character development, and narrative nuance to satisfy us old timers. Otherwise, it may just be a Pyrrhic victory for style over content. I have cheated and looked at the IMDB feedback which at the moment is terrific. I’ll have to see for myself!

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