Greetings--
Sharon L. Krossa wrote:
Which, again, is why I prefer films such as A Knight's Tale and
Shakespeare in Love, which include enough truly obvious anachronisms
(such as modern rock music, psychiatrist jokes, modern coffee mugs,
etc.), and attitude, to essentially scream out "If you use this movie
as source of historical information, you're a fool" over movies such
as TFWNSNBU, Elizabeth, and Kingdom of Heaven, which go out of their
way, both in the film itself and in the promotion of the film, to try
to persuade people that the film is historically accurate and real and
true and can and should be used as a source of historical information
-- that is, instead of screaming "If you use this movie as a source of
historical information, you're a fool", they whisper seductively
"Honest, really, we're not making this up -- believe us".
The thing that gets me is that the movies in the former category (with
the obvious anachronisms) often end up being more accurate and truer to
the spirit of the period they are trying to portray than the supposedly
"accurate" ones. I enjoyed "Knight's Tale", despite a few clunkers here
and there, because there are parts of the whole tourney circuit
atmosphere and the way certain things are set up that are dead-on (and I
have agreement on this from a historian of medieval tournaments). Both
movies also use humour in a way that reveals the past in a way a modern
person might understand.
One of the best examples of this is perhaps the best King Arthur movie
ever made, the immortal "Monty Python and the Holy Grail." The more you
know about Arthurian legend and medieval history, the funnier it
gets--although it's pretty funny even without a jot of knowledge about
either.
Susan
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