300 Spartans

[susan]

It's not really Alexander-related, but there's a good 1960s film on BBC2 in England at present - "300 Spartans", about Thermopylae. The Persian Immortals are quite striking in battle with the Greeks, although rather than 10000 there seem to be a few hundred at most. Has anyone else seen it ?Susan

[beausefaless]

Yes, It appears to be even less Persians when they surround the Greeks at the end of the film with that aside the movie seemed to be accurate, I loved it!

[beausefaless]

Yes,
It showed the never ending Greek polotics involved with the city states when they went to war.

[jan]

One of the ironies of life! The Michigan State Spartans. I graduated from MSU in 1961. The picture of JFK is on page 18 in the Wolverine and the picture of Harry Truman is on page 380. My face can be found on page 420. It has always struck me funny that only the Spartans spurned Alexander. They would not pay him homage.

[beausefaless]

I apologize for the mistake, if you live in Japan
'Rise & Fall of The Spartans' on History Channel Oct. 12-13


If you have not viewed this special you must, it was very good. Most biographies (movies) are diluted with fiction if not they would place you into a slumber!

[marcus]

I had a most enjoyable couple of hours watching the film yesterday. It's one of those where you can spend ages finding fault with it - costumes, mainly(!) - but the whole is actually not bad.Of course, they play around with the story a little bit, to make Leonidas and Themistocles good friends who hatch the idea of defending Thermopylae, and only later is Leonidas "hamstrung" by the decisions of the Ephors... but it helps to build some characterisation.The Spartans, overall, were not quite laconic enough, but hey, it was the 60s, and it's not a bad film of the genre, all told.All the bestMarcus

[Nicator]

Hello Marcus,"The Spartans, overall, were not quite laconic enough, but hey, it was the 60s, and it's not a bad film of the genre, all told."You make a good point here with your usage of the word "laconic" (great word...I'm definitely going to use that one in a sentence sometime soon!). I assume here that you mean the film was not quite "laconic" enough, and not that the Spartans themselves were not quite "laconic" enough. Some of those films (of that genre) became sooo ridiculously long that the medium finally choked and died. I read once that the high point happened sometime in the early 60's with some movie which reached over 11 hours in length. I remember as a youngster trying to sit through some film on Peter or Paul (can't remember which) that was over 8 hours in length. Another prime source of irritance of this genre was that rarely was a film made that didn't have some allusion to the christian-judeo religion. If the film was about this, then fine...but these allusions had no place in a film about Cleopatra or Hercules...The recent film "Gladiator", by contrast, avoided the temptation. I think that in general, these genre films tended to avoid the ancient Greeks and Romans altogether (particularly in America, where the religiouis right was alive and well (and everyone else was dying of boredom)). An American public in need of sheltering and a good education in the ways of the early persecution of the jews in...well, everywhere, and of course, of Jesus Christ's untimely and horrible death at the hands of the "evil" Romans was duped for decades into paying their money and sitting through that wretched dogma. Though some of these films were quite good, they were also quite preachy...to the point of nauseum! I'd be surprised if "The Spartans" even made it into America. Today we find an American public more willing to view some of the darker and more interesting sides of humanity. But still a public, which is afraid to pry open a book and actually learn something of a past which is more colorful, interesting, enormous in scope, and fun than any film could ever relate. Yours Nick C.

[marcus]

Actually, Nick, I meant that the Spartans themselves, in the film, were not laconic enough. And they all were having just too much fun.All the bestMarcus

[beausefaless]

You have me at a disadvantage, been over thirty years since I've seen this movie but I think I remember marriage in military for posturing for position, alliance that would be broken by politics, political debates on how and where the war should be fought, raid on Persian camp, Greek mercenary on Persian side and I think the Greek side used swords, shields and spears, I'm trying to remember if their helmets look more like Roman than Greek. I would like to see it again to see how off I am.