"300": An Historic Film With Some Archery

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segolden
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Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 3:48 pm Post subject: "300": An Historic Film With Some Archery

Went to the movies yesterday, first time since Blade Trinity (Jessica Biel is my choice for Sexiest Movie Archer ). Both Kathy and I love a rousing battle yarn, and we've been looking forward to "300" for some time. Surprisingly, the theater was jam-packed, thankfully without the younger brats so no infants screeching and their cursing mothers to interrupt. This film's not for the squeamish or very young, anyway, heads and extremities role in an almost dance-like ballet, and there's some minor sexual content, so be warned. None of this seems to distract from the story, though, since we didn't expect an old-fashioned chop-up to be gore-less. Archery plays a minor part, primarily as a "villainous" weapon used against the spear/sword-equipped Greeks, and the Persian arrow heads used are just plain ridiculous-looking, impractical and un-historic. Small complaints, mind you, and one has to either like or hate the style of filming, but the overall impact of the story keeps you involved in the movie. You know the film was good when you walk out the door looking to bash the enemy!. Interesting that they picked a Scottish actor for the lead (kept having to remind myself that it wasn't Sean Connery!), but Robin Hood's favorite avatar has a great part as both companion of Leonidas and narrator. All in all, "300" will be on my buy-list when the DVD comes out. If one wants a more detailed interpretation of the Greeks and Thermopylae, read some of Steven Pressfield's works, in particular "Gates Of Fire", which covers this battle. P.S.: "300" will be in British theaters in two weeks, I understand. _________________ "For I have drawn Judah taut and applied [My hand] to Ephraim as to a bow." Zech. 9:13 http://www.freenations.freeuk.com/ http://www.melaniephillips.com/

Club: none
Bow: Quinn Comet XL, Grozer Horsebow, KG ELB, Two Rivers R/D
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Arrows: Easton X7 Eclipse 1916's, GT XT Hunter 3555's
Accesories: Sims SRS stab, enhancer & Limbsavers; Dawgware side-quiver

Awaiting MBLLC Phoenix bow

JimN
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Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 4:17 pm Post subject:

I've been looking forward to this film for ages, didn't realise it's so close to release and haven't seen it advertised any where.

I wonder if I can get the wife to see it it? She's liked Gerard Butler in some of the other things he's done.

I'm probably being thick but I don't understand this bit:

Quote:

but Robin Hood's favorite avatar has a great part as both companion of Leonidas and narrator

Who do you mean?

Edit: Yep, I was being thick, you were referring to David Wenham who is featured as Robin Hood's avatar on this here site.

_________________
Jim

Bring me my Bow of burning gold;
Bring me my Arrows of Desire;

Last edited by JimN on Mon Mar 12, 2007 4:27 pm; edited 1 time in total

Club: Black Arrow Field Archery Club
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CaptainBeaky
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Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 4:18 pm Post subject:

Haven't seen the film yet (fairly obviously ) but I have to second the recommendation for Gates of Fire. It's a great read. _________________ I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered! My life is my own!

Club: Bridge Woods FAC
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segolden
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Posted: Mon Mar 12, 2007 4:57 pm Post subject:

Sorry, JimN, didn't realize I was being vague about Wenham. One thing I did notice was the almost even number of women-to-men in the audience, unusual for a war-film. Not surprising in one way, since the entire "Spartan" company could do adverts for your favorite health club, and there's not even a hint of the bisexuality of the actual Spartan lifestyle. Definitely a chick-flick for the ladies who appreciate truly masculine men! The acting is certainly better than average, nothing overthetop or unbelievable for the age, though the part of Leonidas' wife was expanded a bit over the reality of the time period. The wives and companions ate the whole thing up like candy. _________________ "For I have drawn Judah taut and applied [My hand] to Ephraim as to a bow." Zech. 9:13 http://www.freenations.freeuk.com/ http://www.melaniephillips.com/

segolden
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Posted: Tue Mar 13, 2007 5:21 pm Post subject:

There are always other views of history, and one has to take them into account when viewing events through the eyes of the movie magicians. When reading the following article from the Toronto Star, keep in mind that there is an underlying reason behind its publication besides correcting glitches in the film's storyline: The battle of Thermopylae was real, but how real is 300? Ephraim Lytle, assistant professor of hellenistic history at the University of Toronto, has seen the movie and offers his view. History is altered all the time. What matters is how and why. Thus I see no reason to quibble over the absence in 300 of breastplates or modest thigh-length tunics. I can see the graphic necessity of sculpted stomachs and three hundred Spartan-sized packages bulging in spandex thongs. On the other hand, the ways in which 300 selectively idealizes Spartan society are problematic, even disturbing. We know little of King Leonidas, so creating a fictitious backstory for him is understandable. Spartan children were, indeed, taken from their mothers and given a martial education called the agoge. They were indeed toughened by beatings and dispatched into the countryside, forced to walk shoeless in winter and sleep uncovered on the ground. But future kings were exempt. And had Leonidas undergone the agoge, he would have come of age not by slaying a wolf, but by murdering unarmed helots in a rite known as the Crypteia. These helots were the Greeks indigenous to Lakonia and Messenia, reduced to slavery by the tiny fraction of the population enjoying Spartan "freedom." By living off estates worked by helots, the Spartans could afford to be professional soldiers, although really they had no choice: securing a brutal apartheid state is a full-time job, to which end the Ephors were required to ritually declare war on the helots. Elected annually, the five Ephors were Sparta's highest officials, their powers checking those of the dual kings. There is no evidence they opposed Leonidas' campaign, despite 300's subplot of Leonidas pursuing an illegal war to serve a higher good. For adolescents ready to graduate from the graphic novel to Ayn Rand, or vice-versa, the historical Leonidas would never suffice. They require a superman. And in the interests of portentous contrasts between good and evil, 300's Ephors are not only lecherous and corrupt, but also geriatric lepers. Ephialtes, who betrays the Greeks, is likewise changed from a local Malian of sound body into a Spartan outcast, a grotesquely disfigured troll who by Spartan custom should have been left exposed as an infant to die. Leonidas points out that his hunched back means Ephialtes cannot lift his shield high enough to fight in the phalanx. This is a transparent defence of Spartan eugenics, and laughably convenient given that infanticide could as easily have been precipitated by an ill-omened birthmark. 300's Persians are ahistorical monsters and freaks. Xerxes is eight feet tall, clad chiefly in body piercings and garishly made up, but not disfigured. No need – it is strongly implied Xerxes is homosexual which, in the moral universe of 300, qualifies him for special freakhood. This is ironic given that pederasty was an obligatory part of a Spartan's education. This was a frequent target of Athenian comedy, wherein the verb "to Spartanize" meant "to bugger." In 300, Greek pederasty is, naturally, Athenian. This touches on 300's most noteworthy abuse of history: the Persians are turned into monsters, but the non-Spartan Greeks are simply all too human. According to Herodotus, Leonidas led an army of perhaps 7,000 Greeks. These Greeks took turns rotating to the front of the phalanx stationed at Thermoplyae where, fighting in disciplined hoplite fashion, they held the narrow pass for two days. All told, some 4,000 Greeks perished there. In 300 the fighting is not in the hoplite fashion, and the Spartans do all of it, except for a brief interlude in which Leonidas allows a handful of untrained Greeks to taste the action, and they make a hash of it. When it becomes apparent they are surrounded, this contingent flees. In Herodotus' time there were various accounts of what transpired, but we know 700 hoplites from Thespiae remained, fighting beside the Spartans, they, too, dying to the last man. No mention is made in 300 of the fact that at the same time a vastly outnumbered fleet led by Athenians was holding off the Persians in the straits adjacent to Thermopylae, or that Athenians would soon save all of Greece by destroying the Persian fleet at Salamis. This would wreck 300's vision, in which Greek ideals are selectively embodied in their only worthy champions, the Spartans. This moral universe would have appeared as bizarre to ancient Greeks as it does to modern historians. Most Greeks would have traded their homes in Athens for hovels in Sparta about as willingly as I would trade my apartment in Toronto for a condo in Pyongyang. _________________ "For I have drawn Judah taut and applied [My hand] to Ephraim as to a bow." Zech. 9:13 http://www.freenations.freeuk.com/ http://www.melaniephillips.com/

Robin Hood
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 11:34 am Post subject:

Wasnt it 300 greeks against 1million persians they only held it because of the ground position they held, persians lost all taste for battl and quite the field and were soon defeated afterward but how much is truth and lies? i have no doubt the greeks held the ground they had. its like other great leaders Ghengis Khan 25,000 agaist 1million persians and that burt shamarta to the ground (capitial city) or Atilla the Hun 30,000 agaist 600,000 well trained and equiped Romans? a lot of it is fibs to make it seen as "great leaders", but this movie is a must for me _________________ Steal from the Rich and Give to the Poor

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segolden
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Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 2:31 pm Post subject:

Heh, no society is perfect, but some are better than others at any time. The people who complain about things like this movie are doing so out of a spirit of guilt, RH. They hate themselves and the culture they live in, and will do anything to tear down what they see as the "real" enemy, even if it means their own destruction. Personally, anything that riles these people (and the Persians) must be good. _________________ "For I have drawn Judah taut and applied [My hand] to Ephraim as to a bow." Zech. 9:13 http://www.freenations.freeuk.com/ http://www.melaniephillips.com/