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Even those who barely know a thing about the 2006 action blockbuster 300 (Zack Snyder) are still aware of the splash it made when it hit the theaters. Few action films come under such a polarizing audience experience; if you saw it you loved it or hated it. Although such hyperbole is often misplaced when discussing film I can’t help but understand 300 in these terms. Roger Ebert, famed movie critic, gave the movie two stars while Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 60%, from the critics, and an 89% from the audience. Even when I told my friends that I was re-watching this film, some were astonished I hadn’t invited them to join, while others were perplexed I would even consider revisiting the movie—either way, judgment abounds and no one is lacking of an opinion. I find that at the crux of this disagreement is an intriguing disparity of taste, not in content, but in style. Snyder takes great pains to establish a mood distinct to this movie alone, and as a result he bends the boundaries between realism and formalism, two styles of filmmaking ostensibly at odds.
One of the primary aspects of 300 that Ebert laments is its overuse of computer-generated-imaging (CGI). Ebert decries that “although real actors play the characters and their faces are convincing, I believe their bodies are almost entirely digital creations.” Ebert is not alone in his qualm, as many people believe that the overuse of CGI blood, ships, setting, and even muscular build, lends itself to a falsification of reality and not an enhancement of the movie experience. Snyder indeed uses CGI to its extreme, but I do not quite agree with Ebert and his camp that the CGI takes away from the experience. I find it naïve to watch 300 in the hopes of seeing a purely realistic rendition of the battle of Thermopylae; however, if one watches 300 under the guise of a modern film trying to recreate and translate the famed battle found in the pages of Herodotus’ Inquiries, then one’s viewing experience will be much more fruitful. How does one articulate the horrors of ancient war to a modern audience? How can one capture the tension, gore, triumph, and defeat of a soldier in such a war? It is a tall order, and I believe Snyder approaches this problem through his use of formalism. Every shot is oversaturated and has an incredibly high contrast; the men have muscles of heroes; the Persian army is an unimaginable size; the setting always matches the emotion of the shot; and the dialog is an overwrought dramatization of conversations found in war. Snyder takes liberties in his aesthetic, departs from traditional realism, and embraces the tools of formalism to pull his audience into the suspense and action of Spartan war.
It is also worth noting that Snyder did not create his rendition of the battle of Thermopylae out of thin air, his creation is a film version of Frank Miller and Lynn Varley’s graphic novel 300. If one looks to the graphic novel 300 it is easy to see that Snyder was not merely using formalism as a means to better address ancient war, he was also using formalism as a tool to bring a graphic novel to life. In 2005, a year before 300 (Snyder) hit the box office, Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez heavily used formalism in their film Sin City (another Frank Miller graphic novel) so as to pull the story from the page to the screen. Snyder is not alone in mixing realism with formalism in an effort to recreate graphic novels; he is, however, often underappreciated in this regard. In order to understand Snyder’s amalgam of realism and formalism, one must address not only the historical moment he is trying to recreate, but also the graphic novel he is embodying and bringing to life. The darkness of war, the glory of heroes, and the importance of home are tantamount to Snyder’s 300, as is his formalistic use of CGI to articulate such themes.