Marie antoinette trailer kirsten dunst

Marie antoinette trailer kirsten dunst

A dispute among the Greeks regarding their best defense was resolved thus: the Peloponnesians, led by Sparta, would build a wall across the Isthmus of Corinth in order to protect the cities of southern Greece. Athens, which was vulnerable, would be evacuated, and the powerful Athenian fleet would be used to engage and destroy the Asian naval forces, thereby depriving Xerxes of necessary support. But time was short, and an attempt to delay the relentless advance of Xerxes army was necessary to enable the Athenians to abandon their city and the Peloponnesians to marie antoinette trailer kirsten dunst their defensive wall. A statue honoring Leonidas in Sparta features, in Greek, his response to the Persian kings demand that the Spartans lay down their weapons: Come and take them. The choke point for the Persian advance was the pass at Thermopylae, where the main route south from northern Greece ran through a narrow lane between the sea and the steep slopes of Mt. Kallidromos. Heavy silting over the centuries has caused the coastline to recede some distance from the mountain, but the modern highway follows almost exactly the ancient coast line, and, at the western end of the pass, the ancient route was probably only a few yards from the sea. It was here that the Greeks decided to make their stand. A force of perhaps six to seven thousand Greeks, led by the Spartan king, Leonidas, made its way to Thermopylae, intent on delaying the Persian advance. For two days the Greeks, led by Leonidas and 300 of his fellow Spartans, maintained a furious defense against the invaders. There can be no question about the bravery and determination of the Spartans who sacrificed themselves in order to delay the Persian advance. Asian casualties were high, but the inexorable press of large numbers-plus the treachery of a local Greek who told the Persians how to circumvent the pass by a high mountain path-turned the tide against the Greek forces. Learning that he had been betrayed and was about to be surrounded, Leonidas dismissed most of his forces except for his Spartans and a few other Greeks, the latter of whom eventually fled the scene or defected to the Persians. The Spartans died to the man. There can be no question about the bravery and determination of the Spartans who sacrificed themselves in order to delay the Persian advance. The pass at Thermopylae was the scene of several such engagements in antiquity and during later centuries, but the most dramatic example of history repeating itself occurred in April 1 There was little hope that the juggernaut of marie antoinette trailer kirsten dunst German army, led by tanks and bound for Athens, could be stopped by Allied troops. But there was hope that the advance of the Germans could be slowed in order to complete the evacuation of Athens by British and Greek forces. A small, determined band of ANZAC soldiers stationed themselves around the pass at Thermopylae, and for two days managed to slow the German advance, thereby permitting the successful evacuation of Athens. These brave Australians and New Zealanders escaped the Spartans fate, and lived on to fight again another day. The sacrifice of the Spartans at Thermopylae was commemorated in an epigram of the ancient Greek poet Simonides: Go, stranger, and tell the Spartans that we lie here, obedient to their command. In 1955 the Greek Archaeological Service dedicated a plaque bearing Simonides words at the crest of a small hillock in the pass where Leonidas and his band probably made their last stand. A wonderful story, to be sure, and fit for re-telling, which in modern times means film. In 1962, The 300 Spartans was released, featuring a very buff Richard Egan as Leonidas. Although it suffered from many of the flaws of the worst sword-and-sandal epics of that era, it attempted to recreate faithfully the politics, diplomacy, and military events that actually were part of the Thermopylae story. Now we have 300, a truly modern bit of movie-making that combines live actors playing against a digitized background. To judge this films adherence to historical fact insofar as we understand it is to do it a disservice, for the film does not even pretend to be historically accurate. It is based on a graphic novel developed by Frank Miller and Lynn Varley, whose previous credits are mainly as comic book and graphic novel writers and illustrators. This film version of Miller and Varleys graphic novel is the inspiration of director and co-writer Zack Snyder, who is said to have been deeply moved both by his childhood viewing of the 1962 The 300 Spartans and by the Miller-Varley graphic novel. Millers influence on Snyder appears to be profound. In the on-line production notes for the film Snyder is quoted as saying Frank took an actual event and turned it into mythology, as opposed to taking a mythological event and turning it into reality. That vision clearly absolves the filmmaker from any pretense of historical accuracy. In brief, this is a comic book version of Thermopylae writ large, utilizing all of the tricks of virtual reality and digitized magic. This film is not even science fiction, a genre based on an extension of reality. In fact, 300 is one step removed from sci-fi: it is fantasy.