BOYS IN BATTLES: Marathon

 

 

            III know this is a movie review blog, but I am going to violate my own rule in this post. I have just published my second book. (My first is the nonfiction military history The Scipios in Spain) It was a labor of love that took years to complete. Once I got that project out of the way and could call myself a historian, it was time for something different that would not take years. I have decided to write a series of young adult novels about boys in famous battles. The series is called Boys in Battles. The main purpose of the series is to teach about the boy’s culture and then put him in the battle to describe what happened in the battle and what the combatants experienced. This first book in the series is about the Battle of Marathon. The main character is a teenage boy who lives in Athens. His best friend is a Persian boy the same age as him. This allowed me to insert Persian culture into the story. I have packed the book with interesting facts about the lives of boys in Athens and in Persia. I firmly believe that although the books are aimed at boys from 8 to 18, they will be entertaining for adults as well. Especially if you like stories of battles.

            The Battle of Marathon was the logical place to start. It is one of the most famous battles in history and many historians believe it is one of the most important. It is possible that if the Persians had won, the future brilliance of Greek civilization would have been stunted. I did a lot of research on the battle and I feel I have accurately portrayed it. One of the great things about historical fiction is it can replace the nonexistent primary sources dealing with average people. We have Herodotus to tell us what happened in the battle, but we have no diaries, memoirs, or any other first-hand accounts of what it was like to fight in the battle. I have used my extensive knowledge of soldiers in battles to imagine what my characters would have gone through.

            I can guarantee you that you will learn more about the Battle of Marathon than you will from watching a movie. Take for example “300: Rise of an Empire”, the sequel to “300”. I am a big fan of “300” and although it was based on a graphic novel, it is surprising good in giving the audience an idea of what happened in the Battle of Thermopylae. For those who were upset with the fantasy elements (e.g. the rhinos), I pointed out that the movie was actually a story being told by a survivor around a campfire. His adding to the story was understandable. The sequel is narrated by Leonidas’ wife Gorgo. Her not being at the Battle of Marathon might explain why the movie is laughably wrong on virtually every aspect of the battle. Where “300” may be only 50% accurate on the Battle of Thermopylae, the sequel is about 5% on Marathon. It is truly a farce. Here is a list of things the movie got wrong.

1.       The Persians were not attacking to end Greek freedom and democracy. It was a raid to punish Athens for intervening in a rebellion by Greek colonists in Asia Minor.

2.       It was not raining.

3.       The Persians were not caught disembarking. They had been on the beach for at least a week.

4.       The Greeks did run to take the Persians by surprise (this is the 5%), but they maintained their phalanx formation as best they could. The Greeks should have been in a ragged shield wall which slammed into the Persians.

5.      Many of the Greeks in the movie had no shields and all had no armor (which is excusable because “300” is famous for that). All of the Greeks had shields and breastplates in the battle.

6.       The Greeks used swords, spears, and axes. In reality, the Greeks’ primary weapon was the spear and they used the sword only if the spear broke. None had axes.

7.       Themistocles was not the leader of the Greeks. Miltiades was. The movie is mainly about the Battle of Salamis, where Themistocles was in command, so Themistocles is promoted for Marathon.

8.       The Persians would have had shields. They had archers and spearmen. The movie is pretty good at portraying the weapons, but the battle included an arrow barrage as the Greeks charged.

9.       There would have been a melee, but first the Greek phalanx shoved the Persians. The movie goes straight to the melee.

10.   No Greek was able to board a Persian ship.

11.    Darius was not even at the battle. The Persian leader was a general named Datis. Themistocles did not hit either with an arrow. It is highly unlikely that Themistocles would have been proficient with a bow. Greek hoplites despised the weapon.

 

If you want to know what actually happened in the Battle of Marathon, read my book .

THE 100 BEST WAR MOVIES: #45. 300 (2006)

                “300” was based on the graphic novel by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley that was published in 1998.  It was directed by Zac Snyder in Montreal with almost all the shots taking place in front of a blue screen. The film took 60 days to shoot, but spent over one year in post-production.  The movie cost $60 million and was considered a big risk by Warner Brothers.  The film was shockingly successful and made $210 million in the U.S. alone.  The critics were not as kind as the public, however.  The public was right, the critics were wrong.  SPOILER ALERT:  This movie is too easy to snark, so I am going to go through the whole plot. Skip to the critique if you haven’t seen it and want to.

            “300” is a fantastical retelling of the Battle of Thermopylae.  The main character is King Leonidas (Gerard Butler).  The film is narrated by one of his men, Delios (David Wenham).  He flashes back to Leonidas’ upbringing which is implied to be typical of a Spartan boy.  The baby is deemed fit by the state (avoiding being thrown off a cliff) and at age seven is taken from his mother to be raised in the state-run agoge.  There he is forced to fight and steal to survive.  This culminates in his “time in the wild” where he achieves manhood via a lupine encounter that is the first taste of how faithful the film is to the plot and visuals of the comic.

            Persian emissaries arrive in the only shot filmed outdoors.  They demand “earth and water” symbolic of Sparta’s submission to Persian rule.  They get both in the form of a well.  “This is Sparta”, says Leonidas.  “This means war” says Xerxes, off camera.  Knowing he has acted a bit provocatively, Leonidas visits the Ephors (“priests of the old gods”) in their mountaintop temple.  They consult their oracle babe who, in a scene filmed under water, prophesizes that the Spartan army must “respect the Carneia” (a religious festival coming up).  Persian gold encourages their red light. Leonidas decides to go for a hike with his 300 man body guard.  Their destination is a narrow mountain pass that the Persian army must pass through.  They are joined by amateurs from Arcadia.  Along the way they get an idea of what they are facing when they encounter a devastated village with a tree of death.  The gods seem fickle because this atrocity is followed by the destruction of the Persian fleet by a storm

            A deformed Spartan exposure escapee named Ephialtes wants to be #301.  Leonidas turns him down because he can’t hold a position in the phalanx.  Boy is Ephialtes going to be pissed when he sees how the Spartans actually fight!  It turns out that when the Persians send their horde, the Spartans start in a phalanx, but quickly decide it is too confining (like clothing).  Plus one-on-one melee action is way cooler.  A blizzard of arrows allows the Spartans to “fight in the shade”.  After the first day’s battle, Leonidas celebrates by munching on an apple while his men kill the Persian wounded.  (See Iranians, they are not depicted as perfect angels.  On the other hand, maybe your soldier ancestors shouldn’t have been so killable.)

            Xerxes (Rodrigo Santoro), one-upping the Spartan beefcakeness by adding some bondage accessories, visits Leonidas and offers him the overlordship of Greece.  Leonidas would never stoop (or kneel) to ruling other people (other than the slave-like helots of Sparta, of course).   It’s game on so Xerxes sends in his elite Immortals.  They are Ninja monsters and so good that they actually kill some of the Spartans!  Unfortunately, for the three or so they kill, they lose thousands.  The CGI puts a  hideous, drooling goliath in the mix. He has a memorable duel with Leonidas.

            It’s kitchen sink time on day 2.  War rhino.  Black powder urns.  War elephants.  (How did an actual animal weapon make it into this movie?)  Now that Xerxes has emptied his sink, it’s beginning to look like 300 men in skirts can actually defeat a million pants-wearers.  If only Xerxes could discover a way to get around that pesky pass.

            Meanwhile back in Sparta, Queen Gorgo (Lena Headey) is forced to negotiate with the loathsome Theron (Dominic West).  This corrupt politician is a Persian lackey who is constantly trying to undermine Leonidas’ efforts.  Gorgo allows Theron to do to her what Leonidas is doing to the Persians in order to win his support at the Council meeting.  Theron proves to be an untrustworthy rapist, but Gorgo is a woman not to be trifled with.

            Ephialtes visits Xerxes tent of temptation which looks like it inspired Caligula.  Ephialtes tells Xerxes about a path behind the Spartans.  When Leonidas learns of this treachery he realizes that “we just might win this thing” vibe was premature.  He sends off the only verbose Spartan in history, Delios, to carry the story back to Sparta.  It’s Delios flowery and fantastical retelling that we have been watching.  Blame him for the rhino, etc.  He doesn’t let the truth get in the way of a good story.

ACTING:                    B

ACTION:                     A  (10/10)

ACCURACY:                C

PLOT:                            A

REALISM:                      N/A

CINEMATOGRAPHY:   A+

SCORE:                          B

SCENE:  the giant

QUOTE:  Leonidas:  Our arrows will blot out the sun?

            Stelios: Then we till fight in the sun.

            Love it or loathe it, “300” is an eye-popping spectacle.  It’s definitely a generational thing, but I am from the John Wayne generation and I love the movie.  As my readers know, I am strict about accuracy, but the complaints about the film’s fidelity to history are ridiculous. Actually, the movie is surprisingly accurate on the basics of the battle. It gets the Spartan mentality right. Honor over death. Glory is more important than winning or surviving  The young generation that made the movie a huge hit certainly learned something they did not have a clue about.  If they now also believe that there were monsters at Thermopylae, at least they know the basics of the Battle of Thermopylae.  As a Western Civ teacher, I call that a fair payoff.

            Snyder deserves a great deal of credit for bringing the novel to the screen.  He replicates the feel of the novel in his cinematography which used the new super-imposition chroma key technique.  Almost the entire film was shot on a sound stage using blue screens.  The CGI effects are amazingly seamless.  The plot may appear cheesy to some, but the visuals are not.

            The Spartan warriors look so buff that the movie was popular in the gay community.  That was not CGI.  Those abs were real.  The actors were put through a very rigorous regime by a personal trainer.  They bought in to this and although I would not argue that acting is a tough profession, those guys sacrificed for their art.  Being fit also helped with the fight choreography which looks like it was strenuous.  It’s not usual to talk of choreography in a war movie, but it is crucial to most of the fight scenes here. 

            The acting is over the top, but appropriate for the nature of the film. Butler earned his career boost.  West is gleefully hissable.  Headey perfectly channels a strong Spartan female.  Gorgo is one of the strongest female characters in war movie history.  And, amazingly, the character is not fictional!  The supporting cast is game and does not have to wear names on their helmets like in “Black Hawk Down” to identify themselves.  They take off those confining helmets as much as possible.

            The music is of the epic variety.  Tyler Bates mixes techno, Middle Eastern, and hymnal.  It’s on the restrained side and not as pompous as would be expected.  Unfortunately, Bates got in trouble because he “borrowed” quite a bit from Elliot Goldenthal’s score for “Titus”. 

            The main thing people take from the movie is the extreme action.  The movie certainly has a higher percentage than most war movies, although it periodically mellows out with trips back to the home front.  The violence is graphic and there is plenty of CGI blood splattering.  When I saw the movie in the theater, the people in the first row were given raincoats.  (Don’t let truth get in the way of a good story.)  Someone counted 585 deaths.  That includes three beheadings.

            “300” conforms to my theory that a movie should be better than the book it’s based on.  It faithfully covers almost every scene in the novel, but more importantly Snyder adds to the plot mainly through the Theron – Gorgo subplot.  Gorgo only appears briefly in the novel and Theron not at all.  Once the 300 leave, you don’t see Sparta again.  Snyder also made the awesome decision to include the Goliath-like monster and the rhino (the elephants are in the book).  Kudos.  Most of the dialogue is straight from the novel via Herodotus.  Some of it is sappy – graphic novel sappy.  Was Snyder supposed to Shakespeare it up?  Some of the lines that critics complain about are actually direct quotes from historical sources.  For instance, “come back with your shield or on it” and “we will fight in the shade”.  You can certainly criticize Delios' narration.  The Spartans were not exactly known for storytelling, but a key concept of the movie is Delios is embellishing the story.  Like Snyder needed an excuse for including the rhino!

            Few movies have such a gulf between the critics and the viewers.  The film gets a 60% on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and an 88% from the audience.  Some of the critics were absolutely brutal, using words like boring, stupid, puerile, absurd, and ass-crack ugly.  I think a vast majority of viewers had to be informed by the “intelligentsia” that the movie was “gay”.  I certainly did not leave the theater thinking that.  After so many recent blockbuster bombs, are we seriously going to credit Warner Brothers with consciously creating Spartan warriors who would appeal to straight and gay males as well as straight females?

            In conclusion, feel free to dislike the movie because it’s not your cup of tea, but don’t fault it because it doesn’t fit your idea of what a war movie should be.  The best modern war films are those that put a new spin on the genre.  Films like “Patton”, “MASH”, “The Dirty Dozen”, “Platoon”, “Saving Private Ryan”,  and “Waltz With Bashir” to name a few.  Here’s another way of looking at it.  One year after “300” was released, “Valkyrie” came out.  It was a traditional type of war film with a huge star.  It was also admirably accurate.  It made $75 million.  “300” was a graphic novelization with no star.  It tweaked accuracy for entertainment purposes.  It made $210 million.