Prepare for Revision!

As I look closer into the pages of Frank Miller’s 300 graphic novel, I begin to further understand how my first introduction to Leonidas and his 300 Spartans was shaped. Zack Snyder’s film adaptation not only supplants Miller’s story, it also leans heavily on his artwork.

The recreation from glossy page to brilliant screen is so solid in fact, I would align it with Bloom’s revisionary ratio of tessera, pushing further in the direction of the strong poet.

300, the graphic novel, is clearly the epic song; Frank Miller is clearly the strong poet. Having read Miller’s blistering revision of the Batman in The Dark Knight Returns and glancing through snippets of his Sin City, I don’t find it hard to believe that Miller naturally inhabits this cinematic, somewhat gruesome and jarring, perspective on narrative, setting, and character. But I think Snyder’s commitment to emboldening the masculine, the vibrancy, the imposition, and the oppressiveness of Miller’s pages is unique in its translation of the subject material.

Miller’s pages achieve a gritty reality that allow the reader escape from the clean, modern world. His 480 B.C. is a muted brown and muddy red landscape where honor and war are the only things of value to the Spartan guardians. Everything about their world is hard, daunting, and ominous — right down to their abdominal muscles and loosely covered penises. These white-saviors inflict brutal physical and psychological warfare on the colorful, diverse, and unshapely hordes of Persians.

Snyder expertly pushes every inch of Miller’s narrative further to fulfill the strong poet’s pursuit. Snyder borrows panels from nearly every page and reimagines them on the big screen. One particular full-page panel shows silhouetted Spartans pushing Persians off a steep cliff and the words supply the chaos: “Persians gasp and groan and gurgle and scream and stumble and tumble and fall….”

Snyder utilized this exact panel on promotional marketing and in his film, using the abilities of CGI to lengthen the deadly fall, zooming out and letting the drama of slow-motion replace Miller’s text. Instead of silhouettes, Snyder let his art form show the rich red of the Spartan cape and the blood of those slain. I had this massive poster hung to cover the door of my childhood bedroom.

In numerous other ways, Snyder enhances Miller’s comic. He filmed entirely on green screen so to recreate and increase Miller’s dramatic depiction of the Hot Gates — visuals that just couldn’t be achieved with on-location filming. Snyder’s actors carry the beefy masculinity of Miller’s Spartans further than he ever took it — short of full nudity. Dirt and sweat outline every muscle and shots of shear strength and power populate most of the frames.

On the other side, Snyder ramps up the “grotesquery” of the Persian empire. Each imperfection of the hunchback Ephialtes, every risqué dancer, and all the jewelry on Xerxes is prominent and detailed to contrast the heterogenous heroes.

Zack Snyder takes Miller’s material and extends it to the fill the medium of film and further push the boundaries of Miller’s dark and bold style.