Fri, 23 Mar 2007 13:10:00
DirecTV comes through, raining 300 men, 300 again
I’m almost disappointed. The DirecTV guy showed up early and replaced my dish in about ten minutes. It took longer to reboot the machine afterwards. So it looks like there will be no salting the earth for me. At least not yet.
Just so this post isn’t a total waste…
I laughed in spite of myself. I mean, 300 and gay jokes? That’s like dynamiting fish in a bucket, forget shooting them in a barrel. Still, you can’t help it. When the Persian infantry got pushed over the cliff to the first use of the line “It’s raining men” a chuckle escaped. Then they all grunted in time and I admitted it was funny.
By the by, if I keep watching my pirated DVD rip of 300, I’m pretty sure I will turn gay. At least that’s what this guy seems to be implying...that it fills the gap between gay porn and a recruitment film. Of course he doesn’t get anything about the film. Complaining about the “digital fiddling” demonstrates that he’s completely clueless as to what 300 is. Unlike this woman, who has my feelings about 300 nailed so accurately that I swear I wrote her article in my head on the way home from the theater.
But 300 uses CGI in a new way, to create a world that is figurative (even more so than Sin City a few years ago). It brings a new kind of visual metaphor to film that only CGI could achieve, to generate an environment that is felt as much as, if not more than, seen and heard. The impossibly huge moon rising behind the bluff Leonidas climbs to visit the lecherous old priests and their captive oracle early in the film, for instance, is not a “real” moon—it’s a representation of how concepts of changeability and mysterious power hovered over the ancients, especially through their mythology. It’s a representation of danger, of the night, of the unknown. We’re not meant to believe the moon ever actually appeared so large over Sparta—we’re meant to feel the influence of what it represents to the Spartan people.
We’re already seeing many film critics unable to get their heads about the impressionism of 300. There will be many actors who won’t be able to make that transition either. They’ll be okay—nonimpressionistic movies aren’t going away, and plenty of films will continue to be shot on location and with a grounded sense of the real. But as soon as other imaginative filmmakers come to grips with the sudden widening in the range of stories that can be told as 300’s is told, we’re going to see a whole new kind of film being made, ones that are more painterly than we’ve ever seen before.
Yes, yes and yes again. That’s the description I was reaching for...impressionistic. 300 is like a Monet. Ole Claude didn’t sit in Giverny saying to himself “I just have to paint this so the world can see the exact proper detail on that flower petal over there.” No, he sat there saying “I need to paint this and allow people to feel the emotional impression I got from this place.” 300 hits that same note. It’s an impression of an event. Everything is designed to give you an emotional reaction based on Frank Miller’s original work.
Barely enough detail to show you what is happening - plenty enough detail to leave you with an emotional impression.
I was glad to see MaryAnn Johanson’s review. Too many film critics aren’t getting this movie, or are trying to politicize it. It was refreshing to see someone who sees it for what it is instead of what they fear it to be.
Previously: Patrick Goldstein (and me) on 300 - Off to see 300
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Posted by JimK at 01:10 PM on March 23, 2007
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Comments:
#2 Posted by JimK 
on 03/23 at 03:21 PM -
No...I think you need multiple receivers or HD to get that one. That’s coming maybe summer or late fall to the JimK household. :) I just got an oval dual to catch that one satellite we were missing so I can get CT locals as well and NYC locals. All I had were the NYC ones.
#3 Posted by Christian on 03/23 at 05:39 PM -
This made blood almost come shooting out of my eyes: a female friend, who, admittedly is a hippy liberal, didn’t like the movie for several reasons, the biggest being that everyone died. She didn’t understand why the people making the movie had everyone die. I explained that that was what actually happened, but to her thinking since they were making the movie they could change that. I also explained the Spartans died doing what they felt they had to do. They knew they were going to die, but still went with their honor and dignity intact to their deaths.
Her response? “Then they should have bowed down and lived”.
If she hadn’t been so good to me when my Father passed away this year, I’m not sure I could still be her friend because of that kind of thinking. I’m still not out of the “HUH?!” mode my brain went in when she said it.
#4 Posted by Rann Aridorn on 03/23 at 06:33 PM -
Well, that’s one of the cores of hippy liberal thinking. (And, really, one of the cores of far-right thinking too.) That it doesn’t matter what it takes or what else you lose, just do whatever it takes to survive.
Your hippy liberal friend would surrender to Islam rather than die.
I have a warhawk dyed-in-the-wool Republican loyalist friend who thinks that if it was what we felt was necessary simply to survive, we should nuke everyone on the planet that wasn’t the US out of existence.
#5 Posted by Christian on 03/23 at 10:48 PM -
we should nuke everyone on the planet that wasn’t the US out of existence.
But then who would make my Ipod?
#6 Posted by JimK on 03/23 at 11:58 PM -
But then who would make my Ipod?
Simple. We annex Mexico and outsource. Not a whole lot would change except the sticker on the box.
(rolls saving throw to utilize Cloak of Racism protection spell...20! Yes!)
#7 Posted by Rann Aridorn on 03/24 at 05:23 AM -
What, is it your D&D;night too, Jim?
#8 Posted by Harley W Daugherty on 03/25 at 02:09 AM -
How teh hell you get teh Locals?
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#1 Posted by Capmeister
on 03/23 at 02:52 PM -
Did you get the new 5-LNB dish?