March 10, 2007
THERMOPYLAE IN THEATERS
I found this surprising, although maybe I shouldn't have. The Greek battle pic 300 is set for a huge opening weekend.
Imax, the giant-screen movie chain, reported that all 57 of its 12:01 a.m. Friday screenings of the Warner Bros. film had sold out as its advance ticket sales for the weekend hit a new record for the month of March.
"We had the most amazing night," said Greg Foster, chairman and president of Imax Filmed Entertainment, adding that many Imax theaters arranged 2:30 a.m. shows at the last minute to accommodate fans who failed to get into the midnight showings.
Many of the rest of the nation's 600 theaters with early morning shows also played to capacity crowds, said Dan Fellman, domestic distribution president for the Time Warner Inc.-owned studio.
"They were flocking everywhere, not just to Imax," he told Reuters.
300 is based on graphic novelist Frank Miller's (Batman) take on the Battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartan warriors stood at a wall on a narrow pass between a mountain and the sea in 480 B.C. With the rest of Greece's city states unwilling or unable to offer timely or effective assistance, it fell to the Spartans under King Leonidas to stand against an advancing Persian army of one million under the command of King Xerxes. Leonidas recognized that the most defensible position was the narrow pass at Thermopylae, where his highly trained citizen warriors could match up equally gainst overwhelming numbers.
Neither Leonidas nor his men were under the illusion that they would survive the battle victorious. They knew they were fighting a rearguard action whose purpose was to both deplete Xerxes' forces while giving the other Greek states time to evacuate so they could fight another day. For their role in the battle that eventually served to stem the tide of the advancing Persian Empire westward and into Europe, the Spartans at Thermopylae are generally credited with sacrificing themselves in order to preserve the birthplace of democracy in the Western world.
Hardly humanitarians, Sparta was the epitome of a warrior culture in the ancient world. Mothers would give up their sons at the age of seven so that they could begin their training to eventually become part of Sparta's highly disciplined and effective army, admonishing them to either come home carrying their shields or borne upon them. While other Greeks were writing plays, figuring mathematical principles, and dabbling with political democracy, the Spartans were the tip of the Hellenist spear.
Like Sky Captain And The World of Tomorrow, 300's live actors were filmed entirely in front of green screens and their mise en scene is completly computer generated. I'd like to see it on an IMAX screen.
I can highly recommend Steven Pressfield's novelization of the Battle of Thermopylae, Gates of Fire. Not only is it an exciting story, but Pressfield does an excellent job describing the training of Spartan warriors and the city state's ethos of honor in war before all else.
Tagged: 300, film, greeks, persians, spartans, thermopylae, warriorsPosted by Lexiphane at March 10, 2007 1:14 PM
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