Epic Movies: Larger than Life

'Why the hell are people going to see 300?' a friend emailed me the other day, just as news was breaking that US audiences had propelled it to the top of the box office charts. A programmer at a small art house cinema, my friend has just suffered through another slack week after only a dozen or so customers turned out for a not very challenging retrospective of films starring a very famous, highly respected Hollywood actor-director. He probably wasn't feeling too confident about this week's Scandinavian animation programme.

I could feel his pain. Repertory cinemas have been struggling ever since video won the hearts and eyes of consumers, and it seems even avid film buffs are more likely to buy a DVD of a movie they admire than go to see it (again) on the big screen. Meanwhile just one or two big films dominate the marketplace at any given time. For three days in North America last week, almost every other ticket sold was for 300 - a movie with no major stars (Gerald Butler, David Wenham, Lena Headey), from a director with no track record to speak of (Zack Snyder), in a genre that produces as many misses as hits (historical epic).

So why the hell are people going to see 300? One thing's for sure, it's not because of the critics - most of them unconvinced (though they probably preferred it to the previous chart-toppers, Norbit and Wild Hogs). I very much doubt it translates into new-found enthusiasm for Gerald Butler, either, valiant trouper though he may be.

Only two years ago Oliver Stone's epic Alexander made, oh, about $50 million less on its disastrous opening weekend, so it's unlikely to be the public's thirst for knowledge of Ancient Greece and men in togas.

So does Frank Miller deserve the credit? It's his comic book that is the inspiration for this new take on an old story (Miller himself was inspired by the 1962 Ralph Richardson picture, The 300 Spartans). Maybe so, though Elektra wasn't a hit. But that was Miller-lite. This time - as with Sin City - the filmmakers have turned to CGI to channel Miller's lurid tone, full throttle violence and stylised graphic treatment. As a result, 300 plays less like Braveheart or Gladiator than as a mutant action movie/sword and sandal/videogame hybrid. It's not scientific, admittedly, but my impression is that it's the unusual look that whetted people's appetite for the film, and it's the combination of do-or-die heroics and videogame ultra-violence that sends them out on a collective high.

All of which could make the runaway success of 300 a bitter pill for old school film lovers like my friend, brought up on the fond belief that cinema reflects reality and captures truth; that what used to be called 'the liveliest art' was inherently a humanist medium.

But even if 300 looks suspiciously new-fangled from some angles, and leaving aside its deeply dodgy politics for now, I wonder if ancient history isn't repeating itself in other ways. Since Cabiria, the first feature-length blockbuster in 1914, the movies have regularly turned to classical times as a means to show off the latest in cinematic spectacle.

When film felt threatened by TV in the 1950s, the studios invested heavily in widescreen technology like CinemaScope, and decided bible stories like The Ten Commandments and The Robe were a natural fit. History allows space for more poetic license than contemporary drama, and the further back you go, the more the 'facts' blur into legend and myth. That's the kind of stage showmen like Cecil B De Mille, Ridley Scott and Peter Jackson are going to relish, and it's clear that 300 has the same age-old appeal.

Perhaps the most telling statistic from its boffo $70 million opening weekend is the fact that it drew in a record-breaking $3.4 million from 62 IMAX screens. That makes for a staggering screen average of $55,000, more than twice the figure for conventional cinemas. We are always drawn to larger-than-life figures, people who live on a bigger, braver, more adventurous scale than we do, and those Spartans certainly qualify, especially projected eight stories high.

Tom Charity
tom.charity@lovefilm.com