A Knight at the Movies

Medieval History on Film

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by John Aberth

Routledge

Due/Published May 2003, 304 pages, paper

ISBN 0415938864

Long before Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Hollywood's version of the Middle Ages had sometimes been laughable. Who can resist chuckling at The Black Knight (1954), in which Arthurian warriors ride across a plain complete with telephone poles in the background? Or The Black Shield of Falworth (1954), in which Tony Curtis--in his best medieval Bronx accent--utters the immortal line, Yonda is the castle of my fodda? These films may not be paragons of historical accuracy, but much of what we know-or think we know-about the Middle Ages has been dictated by what we've seen on the movie screen.

Here, Aberth assesses the historical accuracy of well known cinematic interpretations of the Middle Ages. Separating fact from fiction in more than fifty films from the silent era to today, including Camelot, Excalibur, Braveheart, and The Adventures of Robin Hood, Aberth shows how narrative license routinely makes the distant era familiar by projecting contemporary obsessions and fears onto the past. These stock images of knights in shining armor and damsels in distress rarely sum up real life in the Middle Ages. Instead, the best and most thought-provoking works--like Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal--revel in the differences between those times and our own, drawing us into another world in order to understand and appreciate the differences.

Contents

Prologue
Part I: For the Literary Minded
1. The Bogey Monk: Notre-Dame de Paris, by Victor Hugo
2. Redemptive Violence: The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitaller, by Gustav Flaubert
3. The Rebellious Lovers: Kristin Lavransdatter, by Sigrid Undset
4. Soaring Pride: The Spire, by William Golding
5. The Unhappy Wanderer: Narcisus and Goldmund, by Hermann Hesse
Part II. The Cinematic Treatment
6. Our Nation's Heroes: Alexander Nevsky by Sergei Eisenstein, El Cid by Anthony Mann, and Braveheart by Mel Gibson
7. The Beseiged Loner: The War Lord by Franklin Schaffner
8. Lovable (and Un-Lovable) Outlaws: The Adventures of Robin Hood by Michael Curtiz and William Keighley and Flesh and Blood by Paul Verhoeven
9. Welcome to the Apocalypse: The Seventh Seal by Ingmar Bergman
10. The Case for Animal Accountability: The Advocate by Leslie Megahey
Part III: From Page to Screen
11. The Medieval Detective: The Name of the Rose by Umberto Eco and Jean-Jaques Annaud 12. The Incurable Romantic: Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott and Richard Thorpe
13. Woman of the Century: St. Joan by George Bernard Shaw and Otto Preminger
14. The Two Henry's: Becket by Jean Anouilh and Peter Glenville, and The Lion in Winter by James Goldman and Anthony Harvey
15. The Soldier King: Henry V, by William Shakespeare, Lawrence Olivier and Kenneth Branaugh
Afterword
Appendix: An Interview with Charlton Heston