Newsgroup: it.cultura.storia.militare
Titolo: VDH parla di 300 (il film)

Per chi non lo sapesse e' in uscita negli USA "300", un film basato
sul fumetto omonimo di Frank Miller.
A chi non lo conoscesse consiglio sicuramente la lettura perche' si
tratta di un "kolossal" fumettistico (a partire dal formato) di grande
impatto visivo ed emozionale. Questo fumetto e' un capolavoro nel suo
genere (pur non avendo nessuna pretesa di veridicita'), vedremo il
film.
http://www.apple.com/trailers/wb/300/trailer1/large.html
Qui qualche immagine del fumetto:
http://images.google.it/images?q=frank+miller+300
Ecco l'articolo di Hanson:
October 11, 2006
History and the Movie "300"
by Victor Davis Hanson
Private Papers
(Adapted from the introduction to the forthcoming book trailer
published by Black Horse Comics, Inc. to accompany Director Zack
Snyder's new film "300")
The phrase "300 Spartans" evokes not only the ancient battle of
Thermopylae, but also the larger idea of fighting for freedom against
all odds - a notion subsequently to be enshrined through some 2500
years of Western civilization.
Even today we remember the power of the Spartans' defiance. "Come
and
take them," they tell the Persian emissaries who demand their arms.
"Then we will fight in the shade," the Spartans boast when warned
that
the horde of Persian arrows will soon blot out the very sunlight. "Go
tell the Spartans that here we lie obedient to their commands" the
tombstone of their dead reads.
In 480, an enormous force of more than a quarter-million Persians
under their King Xerxes invaded Greece, both to enslave the free
city-states, and to avenge the Persian defeat a decade earlier at
Marathon. The huge force of ships and soldiers proved unstoppable on
its way west and southward until it reached the narrow pass at
Thermopylae ("The Warm Gates") in northern Greece. There a
collection
of 7,000 Greeks had blocked the way. They hoped to stop Xerxes' horde
outright - or at least allow enough time for their fellow countrymen
to their rear to mobilize a sufficient defense of the homeland.
Among the many Greek contingents was a special elite force of 300
Spartans under their King Leonidas - a spearhead that offered the
other Greeks at Thermopylae some promise that they could still bar the
advance of the vastly superior invader. And that hope proved real for
two days of hard fighting. The vastly outnumbered, but heavily-armed
Greek infantrymen in their phalanx - taking advantage of the narrow
terrain and their massed tactics - savagely beat back wave after wave
of advancing Persian foot soldiers and cavalry.
But on the third day of battle, Leonidas's Greeks were betrayed by a
local shepherd Ephialtes, who showed the Persians an alternate route
over the mountains that led to the rear of the Greek position. When he
realized that he was nearly surrounded, Leonidas nevertheless made a
critical decision to stay and fight, while ordering most of the other
various allies to flee the encirclement to organize the growing Greek
resistance to the south.
Meanwhile the King and his doomed 300 Spartans, together with other
small groups of surrounded Thespians and Thebans, would indeed battle
to buy the Greeks time. They ranged further out from the pass on this
third and last day of battle - at first with spears and swords,
finally with teeth and nails -killing scores more of Persians. The
last few Spartan survivors were buried under a sea of Persian arrows.
The body of Leonidas was found among the corpses, his head soon
impaled on a stick as a macabre reminder of the wages of resistance to
the Great King of Persia.
The Greeks took encouragement from the unprecedented sacrifice of a
Spartan King and his royal guard on their behalf. And so a few weeks
later at the sea battle of Salamis near Athens - and then again the
next year at the great infantry collision on the plains of Plataea -
the Greeks defeated, and eventually destroyed, the Persian invaders.
The rallying cry of the victors was Thermopylae, the noble sacrifice
of the final stand of the outnumbered Greeks, and especially the
courage of the fallen Three Hundred Spartans under King Leonidas.
So almost immediately, contemporary Greeks saw Thermopylae as a
critical moral and culture lesson. In universal terms, a small, free
people had willingly outfought huge numbers of imperial subjects who
advanced under the lash. More specifically, the Western idea that
soldiers themselves decide where, how, and against whom they will
fight was contrasted against the Eastern notion of despotism and
monarchy - freedom proving the stronger idea as the more courageous
fighting of the Greeks at Thermopylae, and their later victories at
Salamis and Plataea attested.
Greek writers and poets such as Simonides and Herodotus were
fascinated by the Greek sacrifice against Xerxes, and especially the
heroism of Leonidas and his men. And subsequently throughout Western
literature poets as diverse as Lord Byron and A.E. Houseman have
likewise paid homage to the Spartan last stand - and this universal
idea of Western soldiers willing to die as free men rather than to
submit to tyranny. Steven Pressfield's novel Gates of Fire and the
earlier Hollywood movie The 300 Spartans both were based on the Greek
defense of the pass at Thermopylae.
Recently, a variety of Hollywood films - from Troy to Alexander the
Great - has treated a variety of themes from classical Greek
literature and theater. But 300 is unique, a sui generis in both
spirit and methodology. The script is not an attempt in typical
Hollywood fashion to recreate the past as a costume drama. Instead it
is based on Frank Miller's (of Sin City fame) comic book graphics and
captions. Miller's illustrated novelette of the battle adapts themes
loosely from the well-known story of the Greek defense, but with
deference made to the tastes of contemporary popular culture.
So the film is indeed inspired by the comic book; and in some sense
its muscular warriors, virtual reality sets, and computer-generated
landscapes recall the look and feel of Robert Rodriquez's screen
version of Sin City. Yet the collaboration of Director Zack Snyder and
screenwriters Kurt Johnstad and Michael Gordon is much more of a
hybrid, since the script, dialogue, cinematography, and acting all
recall scenes of the battle right from Herodotus's account.
300, of course, makes plenty of allowance for popular tastes, changing
and expanding the story to meet the protocols of the comic book genre.
The film was not shot on location outdoors, but in a studio using the
so-called "digital backlot" technique of sometimes placing the
actors
against blue screens. The resulting realism is not that of the
sun-soaked cliffs above the blue Aegean - Thermopylae remains
spectacularly beautiful today - but of the eerie etchings of the
comic
book.
The Spartans fight bare-chested without armor, in the "heroic nude"
manner that ancient Greek vase-painters portrayed Greek hoplites,
their muscles bulging as if they were contemporary comic book action
heroes. Again, following the Miller comic, artistic license is made
with the original story - the traitor Ephialtes is as deformed in
body
as he is in character; King Xerxes is not bearded and perched on a
distant throne, but bald, huge, perhaps sexually ambiguous, and often
right on the battlefield. The Persians bring with them exotic beasts
like a rhinoceros and elephant, and the leader of the Immortals fights
Leonidas in a duel (which the Greeks knew as monomachia). Shields are
metal rather than wood with bronze veneers, and swords sometimes look
futuristic rather than ancient.
Again, purists must remember that 300 seeks to bring a comic book, not
Herodotus, to the screen. Yet, despite the need to adhere to the
conventions of Frank Miller's graphics and plot - every bit as
formalized as the protocols of classical Athenian drama or Japanese
Kabuki theater - the main story from our ancient Greek historians is
still there: Leonidas, against domestic opposition, insists on sending
an immediate advance party northward on a suicide mission to rouse the
Greeks and allow them time to unite a defense. Once at Thermopylae, he
adopts the defenses to the narrow pass between high cliffs and the sea
far below. The Greeks fight both en masse in the phalanx and at times
range beyond as solo warriors. They are finally betrayed by Ephialtes,
forcing Leonidas to dismiss his allies - and leaving his own 300 to
the fate of dying under a sea of arrows.
But most importantly, 300 preserves the spirit of the Thermopylae
story. The Spartans, quoting lines known from Herodotus and themes
from the lyric poets, profess unswerving loyalty to a free Greece.
They will never kow-tow to the Persians, preferring to die on their
feet than live on their knees.
If critics think that 300 reduces and simplifies the meaning of
Thermopylae into freedom versus tyranny, they should reread carefully
ancient accounts and then blame Herodotus, Plutarch, and Diodorus -
who long ago boasted that Greek freedom was on trial against Persian
autocracy, free men in superior fashion dying for their liberty, their
enslaved enemies being whipped to enslave others.
(C)2006 Victor Davis Hanson
http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson101106.html
 
-- 
Skalda

 
http://images.google.it/images?q=frank+miller+300
qui lo dico e qui lo nego, ma se siete interessati e avete eMule, fossi in 
voi farei una ricerchina ;-)