Okay, guys, in order to take some breath from my Perot TL, I have decided to open this thread, that is conceived as being for collective works. If you want to post them here, it's okay. All kinds of arts will be addressed: literature, music, cinema, theater, webseries, TV shows, comics, and so on. I have already some projects in mind, but you can propose them if you want. All PODs, unless I say otherwise, are unrelated to each other.
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Come and Take Them : The Legacy of the Battle of Thermopylae in Modern Culture
Literary Arts Review of Harvard, Nov. 2012
Nowadays, French literature scholars are still dazzled by the choice of Gustave Flaubert for his very last novel. In the first place, it seems to have nothing in common with the bitter irony of Madame Bovary and Sentimental Education. In fact, The Three Hundreds seems to form a perfect diptych with Salammbô, sharing the Mediterranean setting and the epic and antic background. Flaubert had considered, just after finishing Salaambô, a novel focused on the battle of Thermopylae. In the last years of his life, he paid a visit to the site of the battle in Greece and came back to the study of Herodotus. Needless to say, The Three Hundreds raised considerable enthusiasm when it was published after Flaubert’s death, in 1881. The writer who despised honors, the army and the bourgeois society would have been utterly disgusted : the epic touch carried by the novel was what the vengeful Third Republic needed to culturally entertain its population, and it was soon a compulsory reading for French schoolboys. In the era of jingoism and colonialism, the sacrifice of the Spartans standing alone against the two million Persians made the novel known throughout the world.
Because Flaubert’s novel is everything but patriotic and chauvinistic. In hindsight, the modern reader will see that the Greeks, and the Spartans particularly, are far from being the champions of democracy : they are corrupted, drawn against each other, and each city want to take advantage of the Persian invasion to rise to prominence. The Persian Empire, in comparison, is a hard place to live, but almost heavenly compared to Sparta, where it is pointed out that such a militaristic system could never last forever. The ideas of valor, duty, courage and honor are pointed as ridiculous, through the characters of Eurytus, who foolishly runs back to the battle while he had been sent back to the city, or the suicide of Pantites, who arrived too late on the battlefield. Aristodemus, who managed to survive to the battle after being returned to home by King Leonidas, is blamed by the Spartan crowd ; and Ephialtes, the traitor, is presented as a reasonable man. All the pompous catchphrases of the novel, from « Tonight, we celebrate our dinner in the Hades » to « Then, we shall fight in the shades » are nearly ridiculous when compared to the serious of the Persian army. All the reasonable actions are made by the other Greeks or even the helots. However, true humanity seems to be achieved when nothing else can be done, and when sacrifice is the only way : that’s the true morality and message of Flaubert’s The Three Hundreds.
Since the invention of cinema, the adaptation of Flaubert’s masterpiece, one of the best known French modern novels, has been awaited. A two-minutes silent film, Leonidas’ Farewell to Sparta, was made in 1902 ; however, having two millions three hundred (counting Greeks and Persians) actors running half naked and fighting for hours before a camera rebuked many film directors. Intolerance’s financial failure convinced David Wark Griffith that historical epics in costumes were doomed. A script by Thea Von Harbou was found in her personal archives : it was during the early Nazi era, and The Three Hundreds was turned into a fervent Nazi fresco, filled with sexual innuendos. Sacha Guitry, for some time in the 1930s, talked with Jean Gabin of an adaptation, and even went to spot filming locations in the Algerian desert, but all plans were quickly abandoned due to the beginning of the Secodn World War. Orson Welles also considered filming The Three Hundreds, but executive meddling when he filmed The Magnificent Ambersons dissuaded him forever.
At the time of Welles’ rebuttal, movie producers in Hollywood finally went to the idea of an adaptation. In 1942, people needed a strong, inspirational story to motivate them against the enemy : and the success of Sergeant York the previous year convinced them in this idea. The Three Hundreds was proposed, as the story of the Western civilization standing, ready to sacrifice themselves against the Barbarian hosts. The Three Hundred Spartans, Best Movie Academy Award in 1942, or better known as the « American Alexander Nevsky », remains one of William Wyler’s best movies, served with an all-star cast : Errol Flynn as King Leonidas flanked by his leutnants Appollo and Diakenes, played respectively by William Holden and Ronald Reagan, Betty Grable as Queen Gorgo, Fredric March as Xerxes and Peter Lorre as Ephialtes. Of course, the Hollywood classic made great liberties with the original novel : for instance, the historically naked warriors are shown with wool antic clothes, as the Hays Code was reigning at the time. While the Spartans are shown as the champions of democracy, the Persians are shown as monstruous and barbarian, which is totally contrary to the novel. Nevertheless, The Three Hundred Spartans remains one of the best sword-and-sandals ever, and a truely dramatic movie, filmed in Iowa.
The postwar period didn’t wanted to deal with a remake of the Hollywood classic, so the battle of Thermopylae was forgotten a bit : the idea of a heroic sacrifice against all odds can be seen as a narrative device in many movies of the era, westerns and war movies all alike. As cultural pieces inspired by Flaubert’s novel, we have Nikos Kanzantzakis’ Reflections on The Three Hundreds; a propaganda movie commissionned by the Greek dictatorship and a low-key Italian sword-and-sandal starring Richard Harrison and, interestingly enough, a then-unknown Clint Eastwood as a Spartan extra who was waiting for the making of A Fistful of Dollars. But undertaking Flaubert’s novel literally, which was until lesser known than the Hollywood classic, didn’t come until 1995 and Paul Verhoeven’s ambition.
Paul Verhoeven’s Hot Gates is by far the most faithful movie ever to the original book, being even filmed on location in Greece (with other scenes filmed in Italy or Spain), thanks to comic book author Frank Miller’s script. Its depiction of violence and graphic sex (both heterosexual and homosexual) was heartily contested at the time and impeded the movie from being nominated to any Academy Award, but it was all the same. It even became an issue during the 1996 US presidential election, when Pat Buchanan said that a Dutch director had obliterated the values of honor and patriotism displayed in the movie. But yet, it is true : the Spartans were violent and xenophobic slaveowners, and Persians weren’t monsters. Jeremy Irons makes miracles in playing the megalomaniac Xerxes, so is Daniel Day-Lewis as the glory-obssessed Leonidas, Edward Norton as Aristodemus and Linda Hamilton as Queen Gorgo, all served with John Williams’ epic soundtrack.
Verhoeven’s movie reinitiated interest into Flaubert’s novel which was, along with historians’ advice, the main inspiration for the BBC TV series’ The Persian Wars. The Battle of Thermopylae concludes the second season : the first one had been reserved for Marathon, and the third and last for the Battle of Platea. The two-episode finale earned many awards to its actors, Christopher Eccleston (Leonidas) and Benedict Cumberbatch (Xerxes).
***
Come and Take Them : The Legacy of the Battle of Thermopylae in Modern Culture
Literary Arts Review of Harvard, Nov. 2012
Nowadays, French literature scholars are still dazzled by the choice of Gustave Flaubert for his very last novel. In the first place, it seems to have nothing in common with the bitter irony of Madame Bovary and Sentimental Education. In fact, The Three Hundreds seems to form a perfect diptych with Salammbô, sharing the Mediterranean setting and the epic and antic background. Flaubert had considered, just after finishing Salaambô, a novel focused on the battle of Thermopylae. In the last years of his life, he paid a visit to the site of the battle in Greece and came back to the study of Herodotus. Needless to say, The Three Hundreds raised considerable enthusiasm when it was published after Flaubert’s death, in 1881. The writer who despised honors, the army and the bourgeois society would have been utterly disgusted : the epic touch carried by the novel was what the vengeful Third Republic needed to culturally entertain its population, and it was soon a compulsory reading for French schoolboys. In the era of jingoism and colonialism, the sacrifice of the Spartans standing alone against the two million Persians made the novel known throughout the world.
Because Flaubert’s novel is everything but patriotic and chauvinistic. In hindsight, the modern reader will see that the Greeks, and the Spartans particularly, are far from being the champions of democracy : they are corrupted, drawn against each other, and each city want to take advantage of the Persian invasion to rise to prominence. The Persian Empire, in comparison, is a hard place to live, but almost heavenly compared to Sparta, where it is pointed out that such a militaristic system could never last forever. The ideas of valor, duty, courage and honor are pointed as ridiculous, through the characters of Eurytus, who foolishly runs back to the battle while he had been sent back to the city, or the suicide of Pantites, who arrived too late on the battlefield. Aristodemus, who managed to survive to the battle after being returned to home by King Leonidas, is blamed by the Spartan crowd ; and Ephialtes, the traitor, is presented as a reasonable man. All the pompous catchphrases of the novel, from « Tonight, we celebrate our dinner in the Hades » to « Then, we shall fight in the shades » are nearly ridiculous when compared to the serious of the Persian army. All the reasonable actions are made by the other Greeks or even the helots. However, true humanity seems to be achieved when nothing else can be done, and when sacrifice is the only way : that’s the true morality and message of Flaubert’s The Three Hundreds.
Since the invention of cinema, the adaptation of Flaubert’s masterpiece, one of the best known French modern novels, has been awaited. A two-minutes silent film, Leonidas’ Farewell to Sparta, was made in 1902 ; however, having two millions three hundred (counting Greeks and Persians) actors running half naked and fighting for hours before a camera rebuked many film directors. Intolerance’s financial failure convinced David Wark Griffith that historical epics in costumes were doomed. A script by Thea Von Harbou was found in her personal archives : it was during the early Nazi era, and The Three Hundreds was turned into a fervent Nazi fresco, filled with sexual innuendos. Sacha Guitry, for some time in the 1930s, talked with Jean Gabin of an adaptation, and even went to spot filming locations in the Algerian desert, but all plans were quickly abandoned due to the beginning of the Secodn World War. Orson Welles also considered filming The Three Hundreds, but executive meddling when he filmed The Magnificent Ambersons dissuaded him forever.
At the time of Welles’ rebuttal, movie producers in Hollywood finally went to the idea of an adaptation. In 1942, people needed a strong, inspirational story to motivate them against the enemy : and the success of Sergeant York the previous year convinced them in this idea. The Three Hundreds was proposed, as the story of the Western civilization standing, ready to sacrifice themselves against the Barbarian hosts. The Three Hundred Spartans, Best Movie Academy Award in 1942, or better known as the « American Alexander Nevsky », remains one of William Wyler’s best movies, served with an all-star cast : Errol Flynn as King Leonidas flanked by his leutnants Appollo and Diakenes, played respectively by William Holden and Ronald Reagan, Betty Grable as Queen Gorgo, Fredric March as Xerxes and Peter Lorre as Ephialtes. Of course, the Hollywood classic made great liberties with the original novel : for instance, the historically naked warriors are shown with wool antic clothes, as the Hays Code was reigning at the time. While the Spartans are shown as the champions of democracy, the Persians are shown as monstruous and barbarian, which is totally contrary to the novel. Nevertheless, The Three Hundred Spartans remains one of the best sword-and-sandals ever, and a truely dramatic movie, filmed in Iowa.
The postwar period didn’t wanted to deal with a remake of the Hollywood classic, so the battle of Thermopylae was forgotten a bit : the idea of a heroic sacrifice against all odds can be seen as a narrative device in many movies of the era, westerns and war movies all alike. As cultural pieces inspired by Flaubert’s novel, we have Nikos Kanzantzakis’ Reflections on The Three Hundreds; a propaganda movie commissionned by the Greek dictatorship and a low-key Italian sword-and-sandal starring Richard Harrison and, interestingly enough, a then-unknown Clint Eastwood as a Spartan extra who was waiting for the making of A Fistful of Dollars. But undertaking Flaubert’s novel literally, which was until lesser known than the Hollywood classic, didn’t come until 1995 and Paul Verhoeven’s ambition.
Paul Verhoeven’s Hot Gates is by far the most faithful movie ever to the original book, being even filmed on location in Greece (with other scenes filmed in Italy or Spain), thanks to comic book author Frank Miller’s script. Its depiction of violence and graphic sex (both heterosexual and homosexual) was heartily contested at the time and impeded the movie from being nominated to any Academy Award, but it was all the same. It even became an issue during the 1996 US presidential election, when Pat Buchanan said that a Dutch director had obliterated the values of honor and patriotism displayed in the movie. But yet, it is true : the Spartans were violent and xenophobic slaveowners, and Persians weren’t monsters. Jeremy Irons makes miracles in playing the megalomaniac Xerxes, so is Daniel Day-Lewis as the glory-obssessed Leonidas, Edward Norton as Aristodemus and Linda Hamilton as Queen Gorgo, all served with John Williams’ epic soundtrack.
Verhoeven’s movie reinitiated interest into Flaubert’s novel which was, along with historians’ advice, the main inspiration for the BBC TV series’ The Persian Wars. The Battle of Thermopylae concludes the second season : the first one had been reserved for Marathon, and the third and last for the Battle of Platea. The two-episode finale earned many awards to its actors, Christopher Eccleston (Leonidas) and Benedict Cumberbatch (Xerxes).
