09-25-2009, 05:58 PM
I take your points Aleksandar. The power of film to shape and influence ideas and beliefs never ceases to amaze me.
That said, I hope we do not throw the baby out with the bath water.
Indeed, the recent film has some real issues as history, as political polemic, as commentary on race and culture, but as a piece of cinematic art is does have some merits. The director and his production design team took the lead in Digital Cinema pioneered by George Lucas and pushed it even further.
300 is more a Kabuki Play than a Historic film. The Greeks and Persians are dancing, not fighting in any "realistic" manner.
The problem is really with the viewer and by that I mean to say the audiences are, generally speaking, not well educated in either history or in the art of the cinema.
When I watch a Kabuki play I know I'm not watching history, but rather a highly theatrical interpretation or comment on an event. The Japanese actually luxuriate in the frank theatricality of the kabuki -- there is no pretense at naturalism in either the acting or the staging let alone in the story itself. There is almost a childlike innocence to it all. And yet they manage to touch deeply and comment sharply on the human condition.
In 1968 the Grand Kabuki toured the United States performing several classic plays including Kumagai's Battlecamp which was written in 1751 and is set during the Gempie Wars of 1180-85. Even so reviewers here in the US saw the play as a commentary on our then current involvement in the Vietnam War, something the play's authors could not have intended. Other plays have had the same power, to reach across the ages and be relevant to the contemporary times. Shakespeare comes to mind, and of course the great plays of the ancient Geeks still speak to us.
With film however we have this problem of naturalism in both acting and staging -- there is this pretense that what we are watching is real, honest, authentic, and accurate when of course the very fact that it is projected larger than life undercuts that "realism" from the very start. Cinema is anything but real, and here we enter into the realm of Quantum Physics -- does they very act of observation change what is observed? Does the presence of the camera change the very nature of what it is filming?
Now, I am not advocating that we give all film a "free Pass," quite the opposite -- we should hold these artists to a high standard particularly when the film makers themselves pontificate about how their film will be the first honest portrayal of an event (as Steven Spielberg did with his film Saving Private Ryan).
To the best of my knowledge the director of 300 did not make any claims that his film was anything more than a full motion rendition of the Frank Miller comic book (itself based upon the 1962 film The 300 Spartans). Of course that did not stop others, like professor Victor Davis Hanson, from attaching all sorts of contemporary issues and interpretations onto the film, and it seems the film's director added some interpretations of his own.
As a piece of cinema I appreciate the technical skill with which it was made (Production Design, Art Direction, etc) even though I do not agree with all of the choices the production team made. (I think the Immortals look great and they would have been perfect in The Lord Of The Rings films.) On the other hand, the message of the film, the film as political polemic, I find not only childishly simplistic but actually reprehensible.
Many who saw this film will leave the theatre "jazzed" about the blood and action, pumped up by this extended music video and then promptly forget about it. However, far too many impressionable and undiscriminating consumers will think "This is how it was."
The story of Thermopylae is an amazing story and one that should be told, but on this point Aleksandar I quite agree with you -- the film 300 does a disservice to that story.
My apologies for waxing over long on this -- my passions run high when you bring together the volatile mix of history and cinema. :oops:
:wink:
Narukami
That said, I hope we do not throw the baby out with the bath water.
Indeed, the recent film has some real issues as history, as political polemic, as commentary on race and culture, but as a piece of cinematic art is does have some merits. The director and his production design team took the lead in Digital Cinema pioneered by George Lucas and pushed it even further.
300 is more a Kabuki Play than a Historic film. The Greeks and Persians are dancing, not fighting in any "realistic" manner.
The problem is really with the viewer and by that I mean to say the audiences are, generally speaking, not well educated in either history or in the art of the cinema.
When I watch a Kabuki play I know I'm not watching history, but rather a highly theatrical interpretation or comment on an event. The Japanese actually luxuriate in the frank theatricality of the kabuki -- there is no pretense at naturalism in either the acting or the staging let alone in the story itself. There is almost a childlike innocence to it all. And yet they manage to touch deeply and comment sharply on the human condition.
In 1968 the Grand Kabuki toured the United States performing several classic plays including Kumagai's Battlecamp which was written in 1751 and is set during the Gempie Wars of 1180-85. Even so reviewers here in the US saw the play as a commentary on our then current involvement in the Vietnam War, something the play's authors could not have intended. Other plays have had the same power, to reach across the ages and be relevant to the contemporary times. Shakespeare comes to mind, and of course the great plays of the ancient Geeks still speak to us.
With film however we have this problem of naturalism in both acting and staging -- there is this pretense that what we are watching is real, honest, authentic, and accurate when of course the very fact that it is projected larger than life undercuts that "realism" from the very start. Cinema is anything but real, and here we enter into the realm of Quantum Physics -- does they very act of observation change what is observed? Does the presence of the camera change the very nature of what it is filming?
Now, I am not advocating that we give all film a "free Pass," quite the opposite -- we should hold these artists to a high standard particularly when the film makers themselves pontificate about how their film will be the first honest portrayal of an event (as Steven Spielberg did with his film Saving Private Ryan).
To the best of my knowledge the director of 300 did not make any claims that his film was anything more than a full motion rendition of the Frank Miller comic book (itself based upon the 1962 film The 300 Spartans). Of course that did not stop others, like professor Victor Davis Hanson, from attaching all sorts of contemporary issues and interpretations onto the film, and it seems the film's director added some interpretations of his own.
As a piece of cinema I appreciate the technical skill with which it was made (Production Design, Art Direction, etc) even though I do not agree with all of the choices the production team made. (I think the Immortals look great and they would have been perfect in The Lord Of The Rings films.) On the other hand, the message of the film, the film as political polemic, I find not only childishly simplistic but actually reprehensible.
Many who saw this film will leave the theatre "jazzed" about the blood and action, pumped up by this extended music video and then promptly forget about it. However, far too many impressionable and undiscriminating consumers will think "This is how it was."
The story of Thermopylae is an amazing story and one that should be told, but on this point Aleksandar I quite agree with you -- the film 300 does a disservice to that story.
My apologies for waxing over long on this -- my passions run high when you bring together the volatile mix of history and cinema. :oops:
:wink:
Narukami
David Reinke
Burbank CA
Burbank CA
