VDS on 300

Missed this review at the time, but it is pretty interesting in its defense of the film. ("Last Night at the 300" - at *shudder* National Review) Of course, he was involved in its making, but still he makes some good points about stylization. Matches my own sense that, despite the historical inaccuracies, it actually matches pretty well the mythic significance of the battle for Greek and later western culture. Of course, he has to take his shots at political rivals, and keep up his anti-gay biases. Also loved this part:

Oliver Stone's mega-production Alexander spent tens of millions in an effort to recapture the actual career of Alexander the Great, with top actors like Collin Farrel, Anthony Hopkins, and Angelina Joilie. But because this was a realist endeavor, we immediately were bothered by the Transylvanian accent of Olympias, Stone's predictable brushing aside of facts, along with the distortions, and the inordinate attention given to Alexander's supposed proclivities. But the "300" dispenses with realism at the very beginning, and thus shoulders no such burdens.

Thank you, George Sorel... myths don't have to be true so long as they are useful.

300 links

Showing portions in class today. Some links to include in a packet:

Ephraim Lytle. "Sparta? No. This is madness", Toronto Star, 2007-03-11

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.

Touraj Daryaee. "Go tell the Spartans". iranian.com. He hates the history and politics of the film. Sees it in light of US sabre-rattling against Iran. But also criticizes uncritical acceptance of 'western freedom' motif:

In the “freedom”-loving and “democratic” Sparta, slaves called helots were owned communally and there was an annual festival during which young Spartan men were allowed to terrorize the slave population and even kill a few of them to remind the rest of their place. And Sparta was not a democracy. It was a militaristic monarchy with a council of elders which decided political matters, but it was not a democracy. It was constantly on the warpath and constantly attempting to control and enslave its neighboring Greek city-states. Likewise, “democratic” Athens did not behave any better after it became the Hegemon in the fifth century BCE and began enslaving its neighbors, taking their lands, and destroying their way of life. Democracy (literally, rule by the people, Greek demos) was but a brief experiment in Greek history. Some estimates suggest that even when Greek democracy was at its height in 431 BC, less than 14% of the members of this society were allowed to participate in this “government by the people.” Not only was the vast majority of the population, including women, excluded from policy making, but nearly 37% lived in actual slavery [See: " Decolonizing Persian history"]. In contrast those who joined the Persian army, which included many non-hunchbacked Greeks, were paid for their service!

Take that, fascists! (Post itself is minimal, but interesting comments discussion.)