I can’t wait to go see 300. Every preview I’ve seen makes me shiver with anticipation; only a 30 second glimpse is enough to grab my full attention: brilliant other-worldly colors and movement, the epically pervasive grandiose desire for glory that inspires men to do impossible things and of course the movie’s setting in Greek classical legend.

I’ve been reading reviews on the movie out of curiosity, and the reactions it is getting are interesting to examine. Some gush over the undeniable aesthetic majesty of the film, but seem unsure about how such remarkable beauty should be viewed when inseparably mingled with incredible violence: “What is most disturbing about the violence here is how awfully pretty it is – so pretty that it hides the ugly truth about war.” Others put on faux scholar’s robes and decry the film’s unabashed embracing of the superiority of the Western World, a claim that is quickly denied validity by real scholars:

Victor Davis Hanson, a military historian and classics scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, said it’s not so easy to judge 300 from a contemporary perspective. He said Miller’s story simply adopts the partisan point of view that Greek writer Herodotus and other home-team historians had about the Spartans, who were lauded as champions of Western freedom.

Still others seem completely confused about the movie, bowled over by its vivacity, but unable to grasp if it has significance and left weakly trying to get the upper hand by throwing down irrelevant condescension: “A flashback shows that Leonidas was raised in the brutal Spartan way (i.e., child abuse) and became king after slaughtering a gigantic wolf.”

Perhaps the violence of war can inherit the beauty of its purpose.

I have not seen the movie yet, I hope to see it this weekend and bring back a full report on its impact on me and on its felt significance, but already I have a big question. How should we react to incredible beauty when that beauty appears in the form of ferocious violence? For some reason I find myself thinking of Oscar Wilde at this point, a man who was obsessed with beauty. It seems clear from what I know of Dorian Grey that beauty can be a veneer, an empty vindictive ghost. Yet I have a suspicion that true beauty is more than a veneer. So where does that leave me? Perhaps I’ve asked the wrong question. Maybe beauty doesn’t appear in the form of ferocious violence, but can be the object of it. Maybe Leonidas and the Spartans are inflated versions of a true ideal, of a universal archetype. It is possible that from the perspective of the Spartans the enduring beauty of freedom and maintained community are so compelling that they lend beauty justification to actions taken to ensure their continuance. That is, perhaps the violence of war can inherit the beauty of its purpose. I’m not sure how solid an argument that is, but it seems compelling enough to me (not anymore). Dorian Grey still turns out a monster, and Leonidas a hero. Hopefully I’ll be watching that hero this weekend.

Update

Upon further reflection I think it is ridiculous to assert that violence can inherit the beauty of its object. Perhaps violence may be morally justified by its object or purpose, but its potential for aesthetic beauty is an entirely different question. Artistically, however, it may be useful to use beauty as a means to convey morality.