All about the visual, baby…

[baleanoptera]

First there is this. A part of me is squeeked, another part is deeply fascinated.


Then there are pictures from 300 . Including one of Dominic West as a Spartan.






Now what would Bunk say to this?








And Gerard Butler (Leonidas) and what is apparently the Persian king Xerxes. I keep thinking decadent. I wonder why...



This movie looks so beautiful and strange, I’m already halfway in love with it. It just looks so, well, mythological. But then again I can forgive so much if something is visually stunning. I know nothing of the director, but apparently the cinematographer did the pilot episode of Lost. Is this good news?

After this visual break I will return to my The Wire analysis.

Comments

[alexandral.livejournal.com]

WOW! Thank you very much! I love these pictures. And yep, VERY decadent - must be all that gold. :). And Dominic West looks very intense.

Pilot of Lost is decently filmed IMHO, but this is MUCH MUCH better. Can post a link to these pictures if it is fine??

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Please - link away. :)

I don't remember much of the pilot of Lost. I liked it well enough, but it was never one of those shows I needed to watch. Possibly because I didn't like the characters that much.

And yes - Dominic west looks very intense. ;9 It actually took me awhile to see that it was him.

[jorun.livejournal.com]

Omigod. it is Dominic West, porrmannen. Lots and lots of self tan/spray tan there, eh? But we love and adore, yesss..

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Yess precious...we do.. ;D And the tanning spray department has had good times - no doubt. But that's not a complaint or anything. *g*

[jorun.livejournal.com]

As when it comes to J.J. You know how I feel about dead animals. Beautiful.

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

You know how I feel about dead animals.

I think this should be made into a button. I think you should wear this button.This would make me all kinds of happy! ;D

[(Anonymous)]

But then I will be button girl.

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

And you'd be cute as a button too! ;)

[jorun.livejournal.com]

splutter... giggle. Reddens

[applegnat.livejournal.com]

Those are very lovely. The browns and golds are perfect. I do hope they release this film in India at sometime. Gah.

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

*g* They are truly beautiful yes? My attitude to this film is fast approaching that of "teh shallow". But I also adore the mythic, punkish feel. It's as if they said: "Historical realism? What is that?" Why bother? I kind of love that a little.

I do hope they release this film in India at sometime. Gah.

The same with Norway. *sigh* We are always almost half a year behind, sometimes more. And there is the chance that they will not release it at all.

I'm also slightly mesmerized by your icon.

[applegnat.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes. For me the 'futile last stand' thing is more of a bother, because I've only ever seen it being imbibed with liberal doses of pomposity masquerading as nobility/stoic-tragic-romanticism, but for "teh pretty" I am definitely going down "teh shallow" too.

I'm also slightly mesmerized by your icon.

Because all that is Maldini does glitter. :D

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

For me the 'futile last stand' thing is more of a bother, because I've only ever seen it being imbibed with liberal doses of pomposity masquerading as nobility/stoic-tragic-romanticism

Agreed, or at least that's how the episode has been used. I suspect Sparta, and the whole Thermopylae battle falls under the quote: "The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there." Different mindset, different rules - whole different ballgame.
But that's not to say it hasn't been used as a pomposity masquerading etc as you've pointed out. But very seldom do history:as it happened and history:as we choose to view it and present it match.

[applegnat.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree. And Thermopylae is actually my least-disliked story from the large pile of such incidents we do glorify in our cultures. I guess I'm thinking of the peculiarly Hollywood colouring of noble-feudal-warrior this trope gets, in films like Troy. Or The Last Samurai - another film that proved that one can lay down arms against philosophical problems for the sake of teh pretty (the landscape and the cast of supporting actors, I hurry to emphasise - I speak NOT of Tom Cruise). :)

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

I speak NOT of Tom Cruise

Which is a good thing, as the man scares me. *g* But I agree. The Last Samurai was so pretty and had such interesting supporting cast that I could ignore the whole moral thing (linked IIRC to Thermopylae).

It's interesting that you should mention Troy as coloured by noble-feudal warrior ness, for that made me realize part of my problems with the film. It takes our modern conceptions of war and the noble sacrifice of soldiers, and transports it back to a time when these ideas didn't necessarily exist. If I can hijack this a little bit. A historian called George Mosse wrote about "The Myth of the War Experience" - which is mainly centered around the noble sacrifice of the soldiers, and how it's noble to die in war. His point is that this Myth wasn't needed until the invention of the conscript soldier. It was made mainly to talk the conscript into going, and didn't really surface before the Napoleonic Wars.

But...um...back to Troy, for it was indeed very pretty. Despite it's flaws and that strange Joss Groban song at the end.

[applegnat.livejournal.com]

It takes our modern conceptions of war and the noble sacrifice of soldiers, and transports it back to a time when these ideas didn't necessarily exist.

True. It's not so feudal as it is fake-existential. Very distasteful, especially because Homer's Iliad manages to balance the glory and the bloody joy of violence out with the pathos of death and dishonour so very well. The sentiments may not be applicable to our world or our wars, but they're still incredibly familiar. There's poetry and pity for you, unlike the "oh-I-might-as-well" feel of Troy. And they mucked up by using a forty-year-old Achilles, big time. Among the other things they mucked up. Ohhh, pet peeves. I wrote a paper on the film as an adaptation once and I've never really gotten off my high horse about it, even though it's really like punching a straw man.

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

And they mucked up by using a forty-year-old Achilles, big time. Among the other things they mucked up.

Achilles was my biggest problem. From the Brad Pitt-ishness, to his whole "I do not care about the gods" attitude which made Thethys' appearance rather strange. To add too that was the whole look of Troy, which mixed Egyptian, Cretan and pseudo-greek style. Then the campaign before the movie that claimed that Troy was "OMG! So realistic - for we have based the fighting on vase-paintings!"

That just strikes me the wrong way - because a) Troy didn't need to be realistic. It's based on largely mythical story, so realism is not a demand. b) This quest for realistic historical portraits is something that seems to plague Hollywood films. It's visible in war movies like Saving Private Ryan and Band of Brothers (even if I love the last one) that have this pseudo-claim going that they are almost documentaries. They are not, they are fiction - and what is so wrong about being fiction? Great insights and truths can be found in fiction as well. I would have loved if Troy had tried to channel that - and what you so poetically call " to balance the glory and the bloody joy of violence out with the pathos of death and dishonour".

But no - they had to be "OMG! So realistic!" (see - here is obviously one of my pet peeves... ;D )

But I shouldn't complain to much. I once sat through "Beowulf" with Christopher Lambert, and that was pain on a whole new level.

I wrote a paper on the film as an adaptation once

You wouldn't have that anywhere online and linkable would you?
I have a great fascination for both adaptations that switch mediums (for instance from book to film) as well as interpretation of history to suit our modern needs. Troy in a way touches on both.

[applegnat.livejournal.com]

Wow, we could just go on and on agreeing with each other. Word upon word. :D

A draft of the paper's here (http://applegnat.livejournal.com/80695.html) - it's flocked, though, so you will have to be signed in. It's pretty lightweight, but I enjoyed doing it. :)

[baleanoptera.livejournal.com]

Wow, we could just go on and on agreeing with each other. Word upon word. :D

*g* I see nothing but good in this! ;)

And thank you for the link. I will run over and read.