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...Frank Miller's retelling of the battle of Thermopylae, has been mentioned here in passing a few times—mainly with sneers as to its historical accuracy or lack thereof. But I've just picked up the gorgeous hardcover this week, so indulge me in a little in-depth dissection...
It's seems to me that "historical accuracy" is almost beside the point: 300 is, to large degree, about the power of story, of myth. Legend turns a bloody defeat into a victory in a larger sense. That the whole thing comes off as a phantasmagoria (I kept getting weird echoes of Aubrey Beardsley and Harry Clarke from the art) seems entirely appropriate to me.
Also liked the way that Miller, without belaboring his point, set it up as a conflict between ancient and modern, with the Spartans an army of free men devoted to the abstract idea of the State, while the Persians are slaves attached to the person of the monarch Xerxes—literally a cult of personality: Xerxes presents himself as a god-king, and apparently believes in his own divinity.
And I liked how Xerxes looked like King Mob as imagined by Peter Greenaway.
No big surprises in the story—every schoolboy knows the tale, after all—and I was alternately amused and irritated by Miller's seeming determination to rehash every last cliché about the Spartans (wot? no little boy getting his vitals gnawed by a fox?): but aside from the over-written captions (and some odd ping-ponging in the auctorial POV), there was a solid, cinematic narrative flow. Miller's art, which is hit-or-miss for me, was dynamic and effective here. I have a quibble or two with the book design (that typeface—urgh!), but the quality of the paper and the binding, the widescreen oversized format, Lynn Varley's moody colors—a class package, all around, IMHO.
Will The Haus Of The Classics step up to tell me why 300 is so bad, bad, bad? |
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