…that we are wearing really tiny leather panties.
Have you seen this? I’m slightly mesmerised. It’s the movie adaptation of Frank Millers 300, about the battle of Thermopylea. I had kind of dismissed this movie. To be honest I was worried it might be another Alexander. I’m beginning to suspect I was wrong. Very wrong indeed, as this looks too gorgeous and surreal to be missed.
They have kept some of the strange feel of the comic, and in many ways enhanced it. The result is that apart from making the movie beautiful, it also makes it seem other worldly. It appears less like history, and more like a myth.
The more I think about it, the more I like that approach. Turning history into fiction is always difficult. Turning it into visual history even more so. But by giving the movie the feel of myth the demand to be historically correct disappears. And presenting the story with such heavy visual focus also dispels the idea that this is historical re-enactment, and instead states plainly that this is indeed fiction.
Somehow this approach strikes me as more honest than for instance Troy – which claimed historical authenticity by basing the fighting on vase paintings. Or King Arthur which started with “in light of recent archaeological excavations..”
Yes, the script might still seriously suck, but I’m a sucker for all things visual – and right now I’m in love with the visual pretty. *Sigh* If only they could have done this with Troy. (And kept the gods, and stopped presenting Achilles as Mr. Joe Straight. It’s Achilles for crying out loud.)
On a more shallow note: Dominic West is playing on of the spartans. *Looks at the Spartan costume - tries to imagine McNultey in such a costume* I find this thought both fascinating and disturbing.
Have you seen this? I’m slightly mesmerised. It’s the movie adaptation of Frank Millers 300, about the battle of Thermopylea. I had kind of dismissed this movie. To be honest I was worried it might be another Alexander. I’m beginning to suspect I was wrong. Very wrong indeed, as this looks too gorgeous and surreal to be missed.
They have kept some of the strange feel of the comic, and in many ways enhanced it. The result is that apart from making the movie beautiful, it also makes it seem other worldly. It appears less like history, and more like a myth.
The more I think about it, the more I like that approach. Turning history into fiction is always difficult. Turning it into visual history even more so. But by giving the movie the feel of myth the demand to be historically correct disappears. And presenting the story with such heavy visual focus also dispels the idea that this is historical re-enactment, and instead states plainly that this is indeed fiction.
Somehow this approach strikes me as more honest than for instance Troy – which claimed historical authenticity by basing the fighting on vase paintings. Or King Arthur which started with “in light of recent archaeological excavations..”
Yes, the script might still seriously suck, but I’m a sucker for all things visual – and right now I’m in love with the visual pretty. *Sigh* If only they could have done this with Troy. (And kept the gods, and stopped presenting Achilles as Mr. Joe Straight. It’s Achilles for crying out loud.)
On a more shallow note: Dominic West is playing on of the spartans. *Looks at the Spartan costume - tries to imagine McNultey in such a costume* I find this thought both fascinating and disturbing.
no subject
Date: 2006-10-10 06:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-10-10 08:56 pm (UTC)