A live-action/CGI hybrid retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae, director Zack Snyder’s phantasmagoric 300 is a feast fit for a bloodthirsty Spartan, brimming with such gory, testosterone-fuelled excess that not even the pages of history can contain it.
History buffs versed in the famous last stand of Sparta’s 300 soldiers, who faced down the massive army of the invading King Xerxes of Persia, will recognize several key plot points based on historical fact. Among other things, Xerxes’ messengers’ demand for “earth and water,” threats of arrows that will “blot out the sun,” and, of course, references to the “hotgates” where the Spartans held back the advancing Persian army by siphoning them into a narrow pass between mountains, will all be familiar to anyone who knows their Herodotus.
But what might have history scholars scratching their heads-and film geeks bouncing in their seats-are the film’s unrestrained flights of fantasy. Judging by 300, Xerxes had not only colonized everything from Asia Minor to Egypt, but seems to have recruited forces from Middle Earth, too. His army has a disturbing resemblance to the Ringwraiths and Orcs of the Lord of the Rings trilogy, while the rest of his goons are a variety of trolls, sea-creatures, and quasi-human strippers.
300’s director, Zack Snyder (Dawn of the Dead, 2004), recently spoke to The Varsity during a press junket at the Beverly Hilton, where he said the film’s embellishments were justified based on their context. He explained that the film tries to depict the Spartan point of view, drawing on ancient oracular traditions that used heavy exaggeration to convey the spirit of the event, rather than the reality.
“If you’re going to get around a fire with a bunch of Spartans, they really know how not to ruin a good story with the truth,” said Snyder. “That was what we embraced completely. We wanted it to be a purely Spartan perspective.”
While Snyder could be accused of manipulating historical data, nobody could deny his almost religious devotion to the graphic novel 300, by Sin City author Frank Miller, of which the film is practically a frame-for-frame rendering. In fact, when Snyder was first proposing 300 to the different studios, he had enough faith in Miller’s text to forego writing any sort of treatment or screenplay for studio execs. He just marched around with Miller’s comic, which in itself could serve as a screenplay and storyboard for the film he produced.
“And they all looked at me like, ‘No, we don’t understand that,'” Snyder recalled. “‘We need a thing with words on it and no pictures, that’s the only way we understand.’ OK, I’ll go backwards then, take the pictures away, and show it to you later.”
After leaving the stalled project behind to work on the Dawn of the Dead remake, Snyder returned to 300 and produced a non-graphic screenplay. Warner Brothers took interest, and Snyder was finally ready to shoot.
Snyder settled on Scottish actor Gerard Butler (Lara Croft) for the role of Leonidas, the Spartan king who led Greece’s defenders against the Persian invasion force. Although Snyder had reservations about whether Butler would gain the physique for the role, the actor’s “do anything” mentality won him over. “He certainly expressed, ‘I don’t care, I’ll do whatever.’
“‘What about the crazy beard?’ He’s like, ‘The longer the better.'”
Tasked with becoming a Spartan, Butler had his work cut out for him. He reminisced about the hellbent physical regimen he was put on to whip him into shape.
“They brought on the film’s trainer, Mark Twight, who trains undercover operatives, caged fighters, and all that,” remembered Butler. “So he’s like, ‘Let’s get the kettle bells and run, and bang your head against the wall six times.’ You’re almost dead by the end of it.” Most of the actors withstood this sort of ordeal to prepare themselves for Snyder’s spectacle.
“It was in their character to be in shape. It was their costume. They had to actually be that,” Said Snyder. But Butler insists he took the lion’s share of the punishment.
“Nobody [else] in this film had to wear a six-foot beard that was like a lethal weapon in itself, and have a helmet with a chicken on it,” reasons Butler. “I knew that I had to have a body that would match my head. And I also wanted to feel like a fucking king.”
Trying to wear the boots (helmet, breastplate, et cetera) of a Spartan king who could supposedly take on a million foes took its toll on Butler. All the exertion made an old injury flare up, causing Butler’s right shin to give out on him. You can actually catch a glimpse of him limping in the film. “So I could fight a million men, as long as I don’t have to put any weight on my right foot,” he quipped.
Yet the actor admitted that the pain and injuries he endured translated to the screen to offer a more plausible depiction of a Spartan king.
“The fire and the intensity stayed with me because it was real.”
While the image of Spartans is of super-soldiers dedicated to honour and violent death above all else, nothing can prepare audiences for the hyper-driven, ballistic, and ballet-like ease with which they dish out the damage.
Minimal narrative development is around to temper the ultra-violence, but the character’s dimensions come out in their physicality itself. The Spartan arrogance, intensity, and ferociousness is apparent every time they march, crush skulls, send spears hurtling through the air, or match (and outmatch) blades with their enemies.
And that’s what 300 is all about: an eye-popping celebration of the über-male, who has no use for words and allows his actions to speak for him. And where else in this world can he be at home, other than in the pages of a graphic novel, or against a computer-animated backdrop?
