CGI in 300 (2007) by Kyle Gardner

In the film 300, 2007 by Zack Snyder, audiences follow the story of a battle between the Spartans and Perisans. The Spartan’s are led by King Leonidas who faces off against King Xerxes and the Persians. According to an article by Dean Richards in the Chicago Tribune titled Film gives stars ‘rippling abs’ , 2007 it suggests that most of the film was made through use of CGI. In this article Richards interviews the cast as well as director Zack Snyder. The director Zack Snyder tells Richards that 300, 2007 had a “small budget of $60 million; 1.306 digital effects were used in the film” (Snyder, 2007). This is quite an amazing feat considering most ancient roman films have been shot naturally without the use of CGI. In the past, films like Quo Vadis, 1951 built enormous sets and had extremely large budgets. As modern technology has advanced film producers have been able to rely on shooting scenes with green screens inside a studio more and more, saving money on elaborate film sets and extras. One of the most interesting parts about the making of the film 300, 2007 is that it is highly based on the comic book also titled 300, 1998 by Frank Miller. In the short film 300 | A Glimpse from the Set: Making 300 the Movie | Warner Bros. Entertainment, 2020 director Zack Snyder discusses how all of the elements of the comic book were almost identically replicated in the adaptation to the big screen. 

In the short film Snyder goes into detail about some of the aspects of how CGI can create these landscapes that would not be possible if you were shooting with a regular camera. Snyder makes a very interesting point when discussing the first battle scene where the Persians descend on the Spartans near the water.  He explains that “when you blow out a highlight in a photograph the sky would be white. That’s not what happens in 300. The highlights are blown out but the sky still has detail and in some ways even though it sounds super simple, it’s incredibly different from the way you see” (Snyder, 2020). This is a fascinating point by Snyder as it suggests that many of the important scenes from the comic book would not have been able to be recreated without the use of CGI technology.  The film 300, 2007 uses CGI to make the battle scenes look extremely dramatic and brutal like they once were back in ancient times. In Ancient Rome and Greek history there have been many examples of the brutality of battle, but none better than the Iliad. The Iliad is an ancient epic poem which was written by Homer. The Iliad and the film 300 have many similarities in their depictions of combat. In Book IV of the Iliad there is a section that is very similar to the scene in 300, 2007 at the 52:03 minute mark of the film. This section of the Iliad states “He struck at the projecting part of his helmet and drove the spear into his brow; the point of bronze pierced the bone, and darkness veiled his eyes” (Homer, Book IV). Here, there is brutal murder that occurs as a spear has gone through a warrior’s head. This section is almost uncanny to the 52:03 mark of the film 300, 2007 where a Spartan kills a persian by throwing a spear through their head. The CGI in the film 300, 2007 is an amazing feat and it enhances the viewing experience immensely. Although the film 300, 2007 is not an entirely non-fictional tale, it does an impressive job of emulating 300, 1998 the comic book as well as ancient texts such as the Iliad. 

Homer. “Book IV” Iliad

Zach Snyder. 300 (2007)

Mervyn Leroy. Quo Vadis (1958)

300 | A Glimpse from the Set: Making 300 the Movie | Warner Bros. Entertainment. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v–r6XKICks&t=4s

Miller, Frank. 300. Dark Horse Books, 1998. 

Richards, Dean. “Film Gives Stars ‘Rippling Abs’.” Chicagotribune.com, 24 Aug. 2018, https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-xpm-2007-03-09-0703100025-story.html.

Spartacus and the Cold War by Kyle Gardner

The film Spartacus released in 1960 by director Stanley Kubrick is a classic Ancient Roman film filled with battles, love and death. Although on the surface Spartacus seems to be a film about the story of Spartacus and his battles with the Roman Military it is really an allegory for the geopolitics of the Cold War. In the 1940’s and early 1950’s leaders such as Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler were in power. Their totalitarian rule scared the United States and President Harry Truman as the country headed into the Cold War. According to Cold War Romans, a journal article by Margaret Malamud “The Trope of Romans as decadent oppressors enjoyed a resurgence in film during the Cold War…The distinction between Romans and their victims was now mapped onto the political and ideological map of the 1940’s and 1950’s. Rome and Romans were deployed in a rhetoric of the Cold War, initiated by President Truman in March 1947, that universalized a discourse of freedom and set out a simple, mutually exclusive alternative: freedom or tyranny. In Hollywood historical epics, spectacles of Roman legions on the march, megalomaniacal emperors, and cruel repressive elites conveyed a tyranny associated with hyperbolic militarism” (Malamud, 122)  Spartacus is no different from this narrative outlined by Malamud. Spartacus is played by actor Kirk Douglas. Throughout the film Spartacus is continuously oppressed by the Roman government. He is jailed and given the death sentence by starvation. Spartacus is then introduced to Marcus Crassus, played by actor Laurence Olivier, who forces Spartacus to fight to the death with other slaves. Before this fight happens there is a scene where Crassus confronts Spartacus. Crassus states “Spartacus, you are he aren’t you?… You must answer when I speak to you”. (Kubrick, 1960) After Crassus states this he slaps Spartacus in the face.

Crassus, a powerful roman figure takes advantage of Spartacus who is a slave. This is one of the first scenes in which we see the argument by Margaret Malamud in play. Crassus, who is representative of authoritarian governments such as Nazi Germany abuses Spartacus who is representative of the oppressed class and American democracy. This scene is showing the audience that authoritarian rule is brutal and dangerous. Later in the film there is a scene where the slaves are trapped between Crassus and others. Crassus offers to the slaves to identify Spartacus but they refuse and begin to all say “I am Spartacus”. (Kubrick, 1960) This scene is an excellent representation of one of the other concepts that Malamud examines in her journal article regarding the difference between British and American actors in these Ancient Roman Films.

Malamud states that “These projections of imperial Rome also rely on colonial projections in which the audience identifies itself with the colonized or oppressed peoples of the Roman empire. What Maria Wyke has called the “linguistic paradigm” of Hollywood cinema-the casting of British Actors as tyrannical, evil or decadent romans and American actors as heroic Chritians, Jews, or slaves…The colonial model further empowers the projections of postwar film epics that make the Roman Empire stain in for the tyrannies of the decadent Old World from which the United States had delivered itself in the recent war and against which it now will defend, im Truman’s words “all free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation”. (Malamud, 123) In this scene Spartacus, played by American actor Kirk Douglas is feeling the oppression and brutal reign of Crassus, played by British actor Laurence Olivier. This scene is a great representation of the narrative Truman wanted to paint of the authoritarian leaders: brutal, classless, and oppressive. Spartacus serves as a representation of the pitfalls and dangers of an authoritarian government and shows the liberty and freedom of American democracy in a time where authoritarian ideology was at the forefront of global politics.

Work Cited:

Malamud, Margaret. “Cold War Romans.” Arion: A Journal of Humanities and the Classics, vol. 14, no. 3, Trustees of Boston University, 2007, pp. 121–54, http://www.jstor.org/stable/29737318.

Kubrick, Stanley. I’m Spartacus – Spartacus (8/10) Movie CLIP (1960) HD. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKCmyiljKo0. 

Kubrick, Stanley. Spartacus (9/10) Movie CLIP – Crassus Identifies Spartacus (1960) HD https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKCmyiljKo0. 

Kubrick, Stanley. Spartacus. Universal Pictures, 1960.