10.Text Analysis of 300

Textural Analysis Of 300 (53 Seconds)

The movie is based on a Spartan, King Leonidas and a force of 300 men who go against the law of their country to fight the Persians at Thermopylae in 480 B.C. it is an action filled movie with hard-core fighting, which happens to be one of my favourite films.

Cinematography: The establishing shot is one which is a close-up of a skull. Then there is a shot of the baby being held in a man’s arm and there is a switch between the baby and the man showing the man’s face in a lot of detail by placing the camera extremely close to his face (extreme close-up). The man who is holding the child is standing on a cliff and the person standing behind him can be assumed to be the mother of the child. There is then a low angle shot from the bottom of the cliff showing that the man is basically trying to introduce the young boy into the world of war by showing him the skull. Though the baby may not understand it seems like they are going through a tradition or ritual of some sort. There are breaks in between where the camera is facing the sky and there are bursts of lighting giving it a scary, very spooky sort of look. The next shot there is a zoom out between the two pillars and a boy stands up showing his expression very clearly. There is then an over the shoulder shot of the boy then showing that there is a man much older than him and the two are fighting. There are close-up shots of the boy followed by an over the shoulder shot of the boy which keeps on switching for a couple seconds till there is a high angle shot when the man disarms him and an extreme clos-up of the boy’s face and then him getting hit. The camera then slowly lowers as the boy falls being in level with the boy giving a better perspective from the boy’s view of how big the other man is. There is then a low angle shoeing the boy and the audience can see his weapon that had fallen before he got hit which is followed by a close-up of the boy showing his expression of the fact that he had been hit and showing his anger. There is a low angle shot from a couple of meters away of the mother who is overlooking the combat training between the man and boy. There is then a dolly shot where the camera follows the boy as he does a flip. After this there is a shot of the boy stroking the shield that the man is holding and there is a close-up of his face showing his curiosity.

Sound: it starts off with a man talking who is telling a story of a boy who is being “baptised in the fire of combat” making this non diegetic sound as it is coming from outside the scene. There is music playing in the background which is instrumental and warlike.  There are lots of drum beats making it even more interesting putting the audience on the age of their seats. The fighting scene where the boy shouts and the swords clash the sound there is diegetic as it is heard from the scene. The sound of the man hitting the boy is very audible and is quite loud giving it importance. Even the small movements as the boy is falling can be heard even though there is music in the background making it a nice interesting mix of sound but yet keeping the audience interested.  There is a couple of second’s gap while they are fighting and then again the man telling the story talks again giving a slight background about the boys fighting educations. Finally there is then sound of the man knocking on the shield which is pretty loud.  

Editing: from the beginning most of the shots last only a couple of seconds long giving the movie a fast pace from the very beginning. When the fighting is going on the shots switch quickly from the boy’s face to the two of them fighting moving the audience’s attention to the boy rather than the man or the women. The lighting in the first shot where the baby is in the mans arm there is extremely low key lighting giving it a spooky sort of start, but the following scene starts of in day light making it high key lighting as it is bright and shows the scene more clearly.

Mise En Scene: the clothes that the men wear are mainly covering only their lower body whereas they are bear chested whereas the women are more covered than the men which may be due to social issues but also since the movie is set so long ago. Their clothing is one aspect to which we see their culture but also the way they carry their selves n=and the architecture. Which is a central courtyard where normally in the olden days there was training which took place there. The main theme of the story is how Sparta craves for freedom and how the young boy later becomes the king of Sparta and they just show his training as a young boy in brief and that is what happens to all the young boys in Sparta so that they are experts in battle. From the beginning scene we can conclude by ourselves that the movie is about that and we also know that because there is a narration going on telling this to us in the background.