Old Vs. New -- 1962's "The 300 Spartans" and 2006's "300"

There have been several tributes made about the battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C.E., including poetry, songs, television programs, and, of course, film. The films I am about to review were both rather high-budgeted for their time. I am fascinated that two stories of the same origin can have such a different tone and purpose. While "300" (directed by the maker of the gorgeous "Sin City" used the battle to employ striking visual effects (and to be, let's face it, INCREDIBLY badass), the 1962 telling was released as an allegory to encourage the different nations of the Free West to stand up to the USSR during the cold war. While "300" received criticism for being historically inaccurate, "The 300 Spartans" was released in a time where historical accuracy wasn't a priority (and why should it have been? this was before the days of wikipedia, after all).

Without further ado, here are the two trailers in question.


The 300 Spartans:




and 300:




Quite a difference indeed! I should mention, 300 is based off of Frank Miller's brilliantly made graphic novel, which was inspired by The 300 Spartans (Miller attributes his interest in Thermopylae to having seen this movie as a child). While there is a plethora to be said about both in terms of plot and execution, I will devote this entry to the music alone.

The 300 Spartans (hereafter referred to as Spartans) was scored by Manos Hadjidakis, a Greek composer who was nominated for two Tony Awards the year before this film's release.  Like Helen of Troy before it, Spartans has a rather generic instrumentation. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the same studio orchestra was employed. The score within the trailer varies between a Phrygian dominant-centered melody and what I hear as a Hungarian minor with a few borrowed notes from parallel modes (perhaps to make it more aurally accessible to the 1962 listener). You will also find a rather strict Dorian melody peppered in places (I've found an excerpt of it and have placed it below)... Those triumphant horns were essentially inescapable in Hollywood films, but Manos certainly did not disappoint us in the Greek flavor of his soundtrack.



I enjoy the strong sense of modality in this score, and while it is certainly not an exact replica of any ancient Spartan war song, there is a clear hat-tip to the simple, modal, through-composed music of Ancient Greece.

The soundtrack to 300 was composed by the award-winning (but less prolific thusfar) Timothy Williams, known also for  The Watchmen and the re-release of Day of the Dead. Unfortunately, it seems as though two tracks in it were... lifted... from Goldenthal's 1999 score of Titus, and, as a result, received MUCH negative criticism. Even James Southall of Movie Wave gave the album his first-ever "no stars" rating, calling it a "despicable album; all those involved should be ashamed (not to mention prosecuted)". That link goes to the review, if you're interested -- it's quite scathing! I will not be taking this into account when critiquing (it's terribly easy to accidentally plagiarize when it comes to music; I can't be one to point fingers!), but it does explain why he hasn't gotten a Zimmer-esque number of film-score jobs since then.

300's soundtrack is, obviously, quite different in tone, orchestration, melody, and underpinnings from Spartans. There is strong use of drums, including an actual drumset (snares particularly trip me up), electric guitar, an enormous all-male choir, tubular bells, and strings. In places, it falls victim to the same orchestration folly as Spartans...  Williams had a studio orchestra, and he wasn't about to squander it by getting a small aulos/lyre ensemble to perform a thin and simple historical piece.

No, he had something utterly hardcore in mind.




It is certainly worth noting that the choral words in this score are sung both in Latin and in Greek. Each piece used in an action scene has a very heavy war-drum, unlike Spartans, which both intensifies the action and is more historically believable, as the little music that Sparta did employ (most of their music was used to train youth) revolved around drumming and marches. The melody is modal (again, Phrygian) with thick underpinnings and parallel open fifths, which were prevalent in later Greek music. It appears as though whoever *did* compose this (again, not pointing fingers) certainly did their homework.

So why, then, would a Greek composer have a less-Greek-sounding score?

If I had to guess, I would guess that anachronisms were less of an issue in early film (the information on Greek music wasn't nearly as well-circulated among the common film-goer, and there were most likely far fewer people willing to research it). Also, because the 1962 composer was Greek, I imagine that he didn't feel the need to do as much research as his later counterpart. They are both very good examples of Greek-American fusion from different times. I, for one, look forward to seeing the 2040 telling of the battle of Thermopylae.



If you were curious, here is a juxtaposition of one of the tracks in question with its alleged (heh) victim. I'll let you be the judge.

The music of 'Helen of Troy' (1959), Warner Bros

I must admit, I am a sucker for anachronisms. They've brought us such a variety of odd hybrids, ranging from Steampunk to Renaissance Festivals to Hipsters. I delight in the peculiarities of a non-consensual  blending of cultures, sometimes long after one has run its course (and could have any say in the matter). My next few entries will focus on a few examples of how films about the Ancient Greeks have let a bit of zeitgeist slip in and color the stylistic choices.. Particularly the music.

We're starting with the 111-minute long Action Adventure Drama, Helen of Troy, directed by Robert Wise in 1956. The music was done by famous Austrian composer, Max Steiner, also known for Gone with the Wind, Casablanca, and The Last of the Mohicans.



Quite the epic, no doubt.

There is no doubt that the music suits the age of the film -- we could most likely replace a bit of the incidental music from The Sound of Music with the opening theme in this trailer. The instrumentation is quite entirely indicative of the 1950's -- enormous orchestras with brass instruments and large string sections...

However, around 1:04, when they begin talking about the "Legions of Imperial Greece", there is a clear melodic attempt at conveying the Greek Aura. We'll focus on that bit for now.

While, again, the instrumentation is anachronistic, the first few seconds of the melody could be convincingly Greek-sounding if re-scored. It hovers around the dominant in a Phrygian/Aolian modality, with many instruments doubling on the same part. The drum pattern isn't traditional, but it is still included (as it was reported to have appeared in Greek War Music, played on the Daouli, the Defi, and the Toumbi).

 In its entirety, it's quite apparent that the music of Helen of Troy conveys the 1950's drama much more than it captures the Greek aura. That being said, I wonder if the potency of the emotion in this film would suffer a bit if the composer had limited himself to only Greek instruments.

..Well, I doubt the drama would be lessened if he had, but I'd be willing to bet that the thickness of the orchestration made the story a bit more accessible to the masses.

In the near future, I will be focusing on more films, but I'm *very* excited about analyzing the music of more recent video games, such as God of War.

For your listening pleasure, here's a little something I stumbled upon while researching Greek War Music. I have found no evidence online or offline that we have records of these specific drum beats, but maybe they've read or heard something I haven't.