300 is a 2007 film adaptation of the graphic novel 300 by Frank Miller, and is a fictionalized retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae. The film is directed by Zack Snyder with Frank Miller attached as an executive producer and consultant, and was shot mostly with bluescreen to duplicate the imagery of the original comic book.
Spartan King Leonidas (Gerard Butler) and 300 Spartans fight to the last man against Persian King Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro) and his army of over one million soldiers, while in Sparta, Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) attempts to rally support for her husband. The story is framed by a voice-over narrative by the Spartan soldier Dilios (David Wenham). Through this narrative technique, various fantastical creatures are introduced, placing 300 within the genre of historical fantasy.
300 was released in both conventional and IMAX theaters in America on March 9, 2007. The film broke box office records, although critics were divided over its look and style. Some acclaimed it as an original achievement, while others criticised it for favoring visuals over characterization and its controversial depiction of the ancient Persians.
Historical accuracy
300's director Zack Snyder stated in an MTV interview that "The events are 90 percent accurate. It's just in the visualization that it's crazy.... I've shown this movie to world-class historians who have said it's amazing. They can't believe it's as accurate as it is." He continues that the film is "an opera, not a documentary. That's what I say when people say it's historically inaccurate". Quoted in a BBC News story, Snyder stated that the film is, at its core "a fantasy film." He also describes the film's narrator, Dilios, as "a guy who knows how not to wreck a good story with truth."
Paul Cartledge, Professor of Greek History at Cambridge University, advised the filmmakers on the pronunciation of Greek names, and states that they "made good use" of his published work on Sparta. He praises the film for its portrayal of "the Spartans' heroic code," and of "the key role played by women in backing up, indeed reinforcing, the male martial code of heroic honor," while expressing reservations about its "'West' (goodies) vs 'East' (baddies) polarization." Cartledge writes that he enjoyed the film, although he found Leonidas' description of the Athenians as "boy lovers" ironic, given his views on the institutional pederasty of the Spartan educational system.
Ephraim Lytle, assistant professor of Hellenistic History at the University of Toronto, states that 300 selectively idealizes Spartan society in a "problematic and disturbing" fashion, as well as portraying the "hundred nations of the Persians" as monsters and non-Spartan Greeks as weak. He suggests that the film's moral universe would have seemed as "bizarre to ancient Greeks as it does to modern historians."
Victor Davis Hanson, formerly professor of Classical history at California State University, Fresno, who wrote the foreword to a 2007 re-issue of the graphic novel, states that the film demonstrates a specific affinity with the original material of Herodotus in that it captures the martial ethos of ancient Sparta and represents Thermopylae as a "clash of civilizations". He remarks that Simonides, Aeschylus and Herodotus viewed Thermopylae as a battle against "Eastern centralism and collective serfdom" which opposed "the idea of the free citizen of an autonomous polis".. He further states that the film portrays the battle in a "surreal" manner, and that the intent was to "entertain and shock first, and instruct second."
Touraj Daryaee, associate professor of Ancient History at California State University, Fullerton, criticizes the central theme of the movie, that of "free" and "democracy loving" Spartans against "slave" Persians. Daryaee states that the Achaemenid (Persian) empire hired and paid people regardless of their sex or ethnicity, whereas in fifth-century Athens "less than 14%" of the population participated in democratic government, and "nearly 37%" of the population were slaves. He further states that Sparta "was a militaristic monarchy with a council of elders which decided political matters, but it was not a democracy." Wikipedia
