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.