(Photo: Albert L. Ortega/WireImage)

Who knew that comic book creator Frank Miller would have such an impact on pop culture? It took a while--many folks have long credited Miller with reinventing Batman with his Dark Knight comics. But his brushes with Hollywood had left him feeling bitter--until he came roaring back after Robert Rodriguez talked him into co-directing a slavish adaptation of his Sin City, which became a rousing success in 2005. (A sequel is in the works.) And when Zack Snyder got an early gander at what Rodriguez was doing, he decided to adopt a similar approach for 300--with stunning results all round. (For two POVs on 300's disconnects with critics, see Variety's Peter Bart and Ben Fritz.) UPDATE: Here's one response to their respective 300 takes.

I talked to a giddily happy Miller for my first Variety column on the impact of the R-rated blockbuster on the future of filmmaking. I'm betting that it will wind up as one of the highest-grossing R-rated movies of all time. The Passion of the Christ tops the list of R-rated domestic grossers at $370.8 million, followed by The Matrix Reloaded at $281 million. 300 has already passed the $100-million mark and won't fall too much this weekend (it could do more than $40 million), so it's a cinch to head toward stratospheric numbers. It's now a must-see, and thanks to the subplot with the formidable Lena Headey, could also cross over to women, despite its macho violence. And repeat business will also be a factor. Here's New York Magazine's Q & A with Miller:

Is this really the right historical moment to be releasing a movie about an army of civilized Europeans taking on invading hordes of Middle Eastern barbarians? I can’t really think that way, because I wouldn’t get any work done. I think it’s the same story it was in 480 B.C., when heroes were tested for what they are. A hero wasn’t necessarily the best-looking guy in town, or the one who got the woman or got all of Harry Potter’s schoolmates to cheer him. It was the person who did the absolute right thing, even if it meant he would die, forgotten, in disgrace.

Technorati Tags: 300, 300, Dark Knight, Dark Knight, Frank Miller, Frank Miller, Robert Rodriguez, Robert Rodriguez, Sin City, Sin City, Zack Snyder, Zack Snyder

August 2009

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I appreciate Miller's work (and hope to catch 300 at some point), but I don't think he answers the New York Magazine question at all.

Posted by: Chuck | March 17, 2007 at 08:10 AM

It's a perfectly fine answer, though perhaps not the one you'd like to hear. He's saying that creativity is incompatible with squeamish political correctness.

Posted by: David C. | March 17, 2007 at 09:43 AM

Anne--

Don't you think that this is largely hype?

The general concept of blending of live-action and animation techniques has been going on since SONG OF THE SOUTH, and the most recent devices have been used in vastly more interesting ways than 300 in such films as Linklater's WAKING LIFE and CASSHERN. The particular devices are different in each case, but the aesthetic applications in both films are vastly more interesting (and frankly,successful) than in 300. The imagistic shape-shifting effect in WAKING LIFE was perfect for the ideas being conveyed; I found that the techniques used in 300, much as with CHICAGO 10, were reductive: Graphic comic book style trivializing important historical events rather than expanding them. And, for me, the repetition of stop-action and "bullet" tricks became completely dull.

This puts aside the most troublesome aspects of 300, which include its utterly repulsive politics, its gross depiction of Persians, and a script that could easily have been ghost-written by Dick Cheney and Richard Perle! But the content is still there, front and center in the movie, and no amount of technique replaces or hides the film's substance, which argues that true democracy is purely Western, and that it can only be protected with a cadre of suicidally maniacal militarists.

I don't know about you, but this matter utterly swamps issues of any technological "breakthrough," which I think are largely hyped at this point. Or put another way: When a real artist applies these tools, then it really matters.

Best!
Bob

Posted by: Bob Koehler | March 18, 2007 at 04:30 PM

Dear Anne,
When do you think we'll see dead actors back on screen in new movies? Bogart? Cagney? Gable? Monroe? etc. I should think at first they'll just do cameos as the technology is improved. Then bigger and bigger roles. I am assuming it can't be far off. The novelty factor alone will drive audiences at first.

Posted by: John Reagan | March 18, 2007 at 04:47 PM

I saw 300 with a theaterful of adolescent boys, who ate it up. To me it looked like a 50/50 of Ray Harryhausen and Leni Riefenstahl--but with a little Tom of Finland in there for good measure. Many folks I know think of the film as the thin edge of the wedge that ends with the US invasion of Iran. Arianna has a different view: her ancestors kicked Persian butt, take that, Amenadinajad!

x, H.

Posted by: Howard | March 18, 2007 at 04:49 PM

the politics didn't bother me at all. it really happened, then, much that way, even if Miller's image of Xerxes is a little 80s...simplistic yes, but hugely entertaining--or do I just have a weakness for style over substance?

Posted by: Anne Thompson | March 18, 2007 at 04:50 PM

I liked it, too--I love Harryhausen, and am always awed by Riefenstahl, and am a longtime Frank Miller fan (as you might assume, given I'm such a nerdboy at heart).

But I think it's possible to like a movie, to enjoy a movie, to admire the skill with which a movie is made, and still have reservations about the ways in which it will be culturally received-- As is the case here.

Posted by: Howard | March 18, 2007 at 04:53 PM

Peter Bart is totally wrong. 300 is getting mostly positive review from critics.

http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/300/

(At least, it get much more positive reviews than "Wild Hogs" and "Norbit")

Posted by: marychan | March 19, 2007 at 12:55 AM

I'd be interested in reading in more detail why the politics of "300" are considered "repulsive." Also, it may be wirth considering where the "folks I know" who consider the movie a warm up for the invasion of Iran (as if rightwing Washington is capable of pulling strings in leftwing Hollywood?) might be picking up this idea: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21403359-16947,00.html

Posted by: David C | March 19, 2007 at 09:15 AM

Bob makes a good point in mentioning Linklater as using animation in interesting cinematic ways. I wouldn't go so far as to say "more interesting," since both Rodriguez and Snyder used the digital backlot to directly simulate images from the panels from the comics on which their movies were based.

Linklater's work on Scanner Darkly were highly underrated, and I for one don't know why that film wasn't more successful financially. Well...except for the fact that films which realistically depict drug use tend not to be blockbusters. That said, I don't think that Linklater's work is the proper point of comparison to 300. Sure both are "animated," but one is animated in order to create a disorienting reality and make the subject matter hyper-real and more personal. The other is making the narrative into the mythical and less real.

As for accurate comparisons, I think the work on 300 is best compared to other comic book movies. In particular those that borrow panels from the comics they have as source material. Batman Begins isn't a good match because the film is a cinematic visualization of a character, but Daredevil is a good match. The movie borrowed heavily from Joe Quesada's and Frank Miller's depictions of the Daredevil character and directly imitated panels, more from the Quesada/Smith run than the Miller run. In the case of Daredevil the insertions of images from the comics seemed forced, likely because the issues weren't used as storyboards just looked into for "splash pages." 300 used the book as a storyboard and worked well.

That's really another way that Linklater and the recent Miller adaptations differ. The Miller based movies use the Comics as a storyboard while the Linklater films use the digitally captured performances of the actors as the storyboards and then illustrate the narrative.

Just my thoughts.

Posted by: Christian Johnson | March 19, 2007 at 02:03 PM

Bob,

I think that one should distinguish among the many different styles of animation out there right now. Rotoscope animation like Waking Life or Scanners is one thing. Combining live action and animation, like Who Framed Roger Rabbit or Song of the South, is another. Performance capture, which animates and places live performances inside a digital universe, is another. The style used in 300 is a far less expensive and elaborate--even cheap--way to take live actors on soundstage and put them inside a digital environment. That's what Star Wars eps 1,2 and 3 and Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow do. Miller's stylized graphics for Sin City and 300 work with this perfectly. I too imagine a series of movies like Ray Harryhausen's Jason and the Argonauts.

As for the politics...Miller's 300 predates any contemporary politics and as far as I am concerned--as a Classics major who studied Greek in college--this is pure history!

Posted by: Anne Thompson | March 19, 2007 at 04:35 PM

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