If there is one thing 300 gets right, it’s the awesome spectacle of blood spattering. Matching with uncanny accuracy the images provided by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, director Zack Snyder provides fanboys with the ultimate comic book adaptation.
If only a complete story had accompanied the crimson-soaked celluloid…
Personal Opinion
Having recently bemoaned my absence from the recent Comic Book Convention in San Diego, it should be apparent that I’m a fan of comics. I don’t read them as much as I used to, but when I was, Frank Miller was the man. Whether it was the Daredevil series he did with David Mazuchelli, or the manga-inspired Ronin, or the penultimate classic The Dark Knight Returns, Frank Miller always delivered the goods.
So it was with great anticipation that I eagerly awaited my chance to see 300. From the moment I saw the original trailer I knew I was in for something quite special:
Unfortunately for me, I rarely get out to see movies anymore. I’ve got a million kids and an all-consuming job; any spare time left over is spent trying to write halfway helpful articles on story. So whatever I see I usually see on DVD - thus, why this review of 300 is only happening now.
Digital Nirvana
I took the release of 300 on DVD as an opportunity to take the plunge into HD-DVD and I have to say, it was quite possibly one of the greatest purchases I’ve made in years. If you love film as much as I do, you really cannot afford not to start making the steps towards High-Definition. The increase in resolution makes a considerable difference in the enjoyment of a film. You can see everything the filmmakers worked so hard to create.
I know what you’re thinking, why waste all that money when your DVDs already look fantastic.
Mine did too.
Now, I can’t find the will to turn my HD-DVD player off. All this week, when I should’ve been working on articles for this site, I found myself impulsively hitting Chapter Repeat into the late night hours.
The film itself is visually stunning and viscerally entertaining, especially if you’ve ever indulged in a graphic novel or two. I don’t think I’ve ever come across a better adaptation of static graphic art. Even the way they would speed up and then slow down into virtual comic book “poses” was a wonderful interpretation of what goes on inside your head when reading a well-drawn comic book.
But I still felt slightly empty at the end of it all.
High-Definition increases the enjoyment of a film exponentially, but it’s no replacement for the high you get from an emotionally compelling story.
In some respects, my analysis of the story of 300 closely resembles my analysis of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. As with Daniel Radcliffe, I found the performance by Gerard Butler to be the most compelling aspect of this film. Without Butler’s Leonidas there would be no human connection to bold film technique and stylish art direction.
However, unlike The Order of the Phoenix, that connection was not as well-defined; 300 offered little in terms of a Main Character throughline. We knew Leonidas felt passionately about Sparta, but there was little development or exploration into why he felt that way or how it would eventually cross over into the much larger picture.
An Unfortunate Trend Continues
Once again we have a missed dramatic opportunity in Ephialtes (Andrew Tiernan), the deformed Spartan outcast. His character provides a wonderful opportunity to show Leonidas an alternate point-of-view of life in Sparta. Here, in the malformed body of a hunchback is a different look at what it means to be Spartan. Whereas Leonidas seems wholly focused on the external physicality of Spartan men, Ephilates represents the point-of-view that Spartan strength comes more from within than without.
It’s unfortunate because Leonidas and Ephialtes share a wonderful Subjective Story moment on the rocks, just before the battle is to begin. Ephialtes, eager to show Leonidas that he can fight, demonstrates his thrusting ability with a spear. Leonidas, always thinking of his men, wastes no time in letting Ephialtes know that his presence on the battlefield would be catastrophic. A Spartan soldier must be able to raise his shield high enough to protect the men around him; Ephialtes, hampered by his gimped left arm, can barely get the heavy metal disc off the ground.
But their relationship goes nowhere. How much greater would it have been to see their two personal points of view on Sparta bounce off each other and develop over the course of the story? Better yet, cement their relationship by making Ephilates the long lost brother of Leonidas. Cast off by the same father years ago, Ephilates could return as the prodigal son to shake up Leonidas and his idea of what it means to be a soldier, and more importantly, a father, in Sparta.
By inserting more scenes of them together, 300 could have provided an audience with some sort of meaning to go with all the gore. There is some effort made towards supplying meaning during the last set piece, but it comes as a matter of exposition rather than as a synthesis of natural character development. Non-soldier Daxos (Andrew Pleavin), having abandoned Leonidas after the betrayal of Ephialtes, now stands ready to fight one year after the Battle of Thermopylae. It represents a paradigm shift, but isn’t significant enough to fulfill the emotional needs of an audience.
The Significance of a Paradigm Shift
What if Leonidas had come to realize that he was wrong all the time about Spartan men, that there was more to fighting than just brute physical strength?1 It would not have been historically accurate but it would’ve given meaning to the events on-screen. Or what if Ephilates had come to realize that Leonidas represented all that was right with Sparta, and that his treacherous dealings with Xerxes would prove the undoing of his beloved country. After all, it should be Ephilaties there at the end ready to charge instead of Daxos, right?
This sort of a structure, where a Main Character inspires another to significantly change their point-of-view, is similar, in some respects, to Mel Gibson’s Braveheart. In that film, William Wallace’s steadfastness results in Robert the Bruce tossing aside his political manipulations in favor of fighting on the battlefield. Sounds an awful lot like what 300 was headed for.
Unfortunately though, there was no significant change in Ephialtes, or for that matter, Leonidas. There is the start of some growth in his shame-filled reaction to Leonidas’ curse that he “live forever,” but it never really completes itself. 2
Fulfilling the Promise of a Complete Story
300 continues in the great tradition of films that setup dramatic potentials, yet never bring them to a satisfying and emotionally fulfilling end. If only they had spent more time on Ephilates and his relationship with Leonidas, I think many more people would’ve left the theater cherishing 300 as a spectacular film.
The problem with 300, or the disconnect that exists between the film and the audience is that it yearns to be much more than it is. In the audio commentary of the DVD, director Zack Snyder states that there were philosophical reasons for why a scene was lit in a certain way, e.g. the rising sun behind Leonidas as he gave his final speech is meant to symbolize the “dawning” of a new day.
But beyond these clever use of visuals, what does 300 mean?
A tale is a series of sequential events that lead to either success or failure
Is it that glory lies in fulfilling one’s duty with honor? Or is it that it is better to die than to live under tyranny? Or was it that Leonidas was wrong to take an army into battle against the wishes of the bureaucrats back at home?
It could be all of these…and none of these. Because there is no consistency in the thematics it is hard to come up with a consensus regarding the film’s meaning.
The problem is that 300 is trying desperately to be a story, when all that it is giving us is a tale. The Dramatica theory of story differentiates a tale from a story by declaring that a tale is a series of sequential events that lead to either success or failure. There is no attempt at any greater meaning beyond whether an approach was a good one or a bad one.
A story, on the other hand, seeks to provide meaning by stating that there is only one right way of approaching a problem. By providing an audience different points of view on the same central problem, an argument is made; one that is much more powerful than simply telling a series of events.
Perhaps there were more shots of Ephilates that simply did not make the final cut. Although I haven’t had time to check it out yet, the DVD has some deleted scenes of the “traitorious hunchback.” It would be interesting to see if this had more of what I thought was missing.
Story or not, 300 is a fun film to watch. Growing up I never could’ve imagined that I’d be witness to such a perfect interpretation of a Frank Miller graphic novel. 300 is stunning in that way. In fact, I felt the same way I did after seeing The Matrix for the first time — that the Earthly bounds of previous film production were no longer relevant. The future of moviemaking truly is wide open.
Now if we could only master storytelling with the same amount of resolution that High-Definition provides us…
Footnotes for this article
- Cliched, yes, I know, but its cliche for a reason - it works.↩
- And apparently Ephialtes kills himself in the graphic novel, so there is no solution to be found there either!↩
2 responses so far ↓
1 SD Movie Watcher // Oct 20, 2007 at 7:14 am
300 isn’t - and should’nt be - a story about Leonidas and Ephialtes or even about whether Leonidas’ vision should have serious alternatives. The story takes a situation, a mood, a philosophy of living in a certain time and place and shows how it “works” to combat a problem that is already very well defined. There is enough lack of vision and traitors elsewhere that amply show that Sparta was not unified in her world view. However, that merely serves to strengthen Leonidas and his vision. The movie very carefully prepares us for why Leonidas will be king and, as such, the most complete embodiement of the Spartan zeitgeist. 300 is appropriately a tale for events are already in full motion with options exhausted: submit or die is the simple binary choice offered. The relationship between Leonidas and Ephialtes goes nowhere for there is nowhere for it to go. If anything, the mountaintop scene shows the pride and selfishness of Ephialtes who, in his passion to fight, cannot even begin to think of the consequences of his presence vis a vis the greater good of the rest of the army and, consequently, the outcomes of battles. Could Leonidas have handled Ephialtes differently? Been, perhaps, more of a “people person”? Not in Sparta! And certainly not Leonidas. Leonidas does have a blind spot in that he assumes everyone is a true Spartan but that “simplicity” is also what drives his vision.
In sum, the points you make are theoretically valid meaning not applicable to 300. It is a tale because it is suited to be a tale and the less it flirts with trying to be a story, the better tale it is.
2 Chris Huntley // Oct 22, 2007 at 4:47 pm
While the film “300,” story-wise, is a tale in the Dramatica sense (a series of linking events whose meaning comes from comparing the beginning to the end–change either and the meaning changes), there is nothing in the historical event that precludes it from being the basis of a grand argument story.
“Tales” are useful in relating historical events because they appear more “objective” due to the limited perspectives used to explore them. Grand argument stories, on the other hand, require authors to “dramatize” events by including personal perspectives that may not be on record, while adding and removing material appropriate to the argument made to the audience. “Stories” REQUIRE subjective perspectives that are often not available.
The filmmaker(s) appear to have chosen to emphasize the fantastical elements in “300″ in the storytelling, while letting the more real, historical “facts” inform the story structure.
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