Possible allusions to Iraq 'unavoidable,' says '300' director

By BETSY PICKLE
Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Even before its release, "300" has stirred up discussion about its possible allusions to the war in Iraq.

"I guess that's unavoidable," says director Zack Snyder. "I tried to make a movie that looked at the nobility of conflict, and is there such a thing. I didn't do it in relationship to what's happening now because I ... don't have that much foresight _ I wish I had.

"The point is only that there can be nobility in sacrifice. That is a real thing. In some way, does that give context to sacrifice that we've maybe lost in the muddle, in the gray, of our current situation? Is there a way to get that back?"

Snyder doesn't have the answers. But to those who would consider President Bush a modern-day Xerxes, using mighty U.S. forces to invade the autonomous nation of Iraq, he would call the connection a stretch.

"The story's ... over 2,000 years old," he says. "Does history have some sort of bad habit of just being a big circle? Yeah. But is that part of my design? I don't think so."

(Contact film critic Betsy Pickle of the Knoxville News Sentinel at pickle@knews.com.)