Medievalism in the Future

As we continue on with life and studies, it’s important to think back on what we learned and also what lies ahead. The importance of internationalism and globalization are growing more and more important as ease of communications and travel cause more cross-cultural interactions to occur. Because of these interactions, I think it’s more important than ever to think back on how we viewed medievalism at the start of the class, how our view of medievalism has changed, and how our class remained limited in its scope of discussions of the medieval in our international world.

Class started with a variety of different definitions and viewpoints about what the medieval period really was and vague notions that it had something to do with disease, and knights, and peasants, and kings. The medieval was the Dark Ages, King Arthur, and the Vikings. It was something both real and fictional and completely confused at the beginning.

I would like to think that through the course of our discussions in class, the medieval (or at least our understanding of it) grew and refined itself. The Dark Ages weren’t really as dark as people make them out to be, stories centered around the “medieval” are usually in some way a commentary of the author, and often reflect a strange mix of both the wishes and the critiques of both the past and the present. Eaters of the Dead and How to Train Your Dragon played with ideas of Vikings whilst simultaneously commenting on modern values and views of the medieval past in different ways. Both show Vikings as large, crude smelly guys with horned helmets and a love of battle. They both also comment on intercultural relations, and how uncomfortable or dangerous the Other seems because of the difference in practices. One plays with storytelling narratives and seems to follow many of the traditional values associated with Beowulf and other heroic epics, while the other introduces a character that supports very modern values of inventiveness, cleverness, and teamwork. Because of the contrasts of these works, and the other works we looked at in class, our understanding of the medieval world changed as our view of what is medieval expanded.

However, our view of the medieval is limited by Western perceptions of medievalism. As we are living in an international world, we need to expand our view of medievalism beyond the Euro-centric view and realize that other countries existed and actually flourished after the fall of Rome. We need to realize – both in the present day and looking back at global history – that there are six other continents that Western history does not even consider when writing its narratives. Japan’s Heian period (794-1185) is considered as one of the most culturally rich periods for Japan. Assigning values of barbarism, knighthood, or other strictly Euro-centric ideals in a global context to all history will only create problems and misunderstandings. In order for us to move forward in this international world, we not only have to look back and understand how European medievalism affects the Western past, but also look at how the rest of the world sees their past and how that past affects their present.

 

Canadian Gothic: Political Medievalism at Ottawa’s Parliament Hill

For Americans, the politics of the Middle Ages tends to concern one form of government: monarchy. But Canada, composed of the British colonies of North America which did not reject monarchy in the late eighteenth century, seems to have historically held a strikingly different view of how the Middle Ages fall in the narrative of political progress. In the British tradition of constitutional monarchy, after all, the origins of the parliamentary system lie in the Magna Carta of 1215. Over the following centuries, this early-established constitutional monarchy gradually evolved into the recognizably republican system that Canada was subject to by the mid-19th century.

Construction of Parliament Hill’s Centre Block in 1863.

Parliament Hill (the collective name for the Canada’s capitol buildings in Ottawa), built between 1859 and 1876, was designed as the visual antithesis to the United States Capitol building. Rejecting the Capitol’s neoclassical architectural precedent for seats of legislative government, Parliament Hill was constructed in a decidedly Gothic Revival style, following the lead of the UK’s still-under-construction Palace of Westminster. The bold architecture of Parliament Hill gave the medieval parliamentary tradition a seat of administration for North America. The buildings of Parliament Hill are even situated on a dramatic mount that rises high above the Ottawa River, as if a European castle. Among the most prominent structures in this complex is the Library of Parliament, in the form of a fantastical Gothic rotunda. This building presents medievalism as not just compatible with, but consistent with intellectualism. The architecture of Parliament Hill places Canada’s seat of republican government within a vestibule of medievalist sensibility.

The fanciful Gothic interior of the Library of Parliament.

The use of medieval imagery in the buildings of Parliament Hill expresses just how maneuverable referencing the Middle Ages can be in modern political discourse (even visually). In the United States, the medieval is frequently viewed as politically reactionary. In Canada, the medieval can connote a tradition of political reform that finds its origins in 13th century England. In both, the medieval has a history of snaking its way into contemporary political rhetoric.

LOTR: Taking the Glory out of War?

One of the most iconic scenes in the Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers is the final war scene. Given the technology of its time, the scene is visually brilliant. It symbolizes a march towards a new world and paints a picture of a faceless army that so perfectly captures how technological advancements like the invention of war machines, guns and explosive devices have made war and violence so impersonal today. The scene uses vivid imagery such as the sobbing faces of women and children as well as auditory tools such as the screams of the Nazgûl that echo the shrill noises of artillery shells that filled the air during World War I, to evoke a number of emotions among the audience. Although this scene fails to depart from the problems that plague duel and war scenes from several other medieval depictions by continuing to glorify chivalry and traditional ideals of masculinity, there is a significant difference in the message this scene sends about attitudes toward war. In class, we discussed discussed the question “Is medievalism necessarily nostalgic?” Personally, I think not.  

To me, this scene speaks volumes about the horrors associated with war. I couldn’t help but draw a parallel with a famous line from Wilfred Owen’s famous poem Anthem for Doomed Youth, “What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?/ Only the monstrous anger of the guns..” (1-2). While some people feel that the repeated cuts to the women and children seemed to add salience to the stakes of the war, making it seem more important, to me it illustrated the senseless pain and tragedy that is inherent in war and violence by highlighting the suffering of countless innocent victims, thus moralizing an end to violence by evoking shocks of sympathy. I think that this message is particularly important to keep in mind given what current political events have shown about the prevalence of hatred and intolerance in the U.S today.

Friendship in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

There has been a general consensus that The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers is a more successful and engaging reimagination of Medievalism than some of the earlier films we have watched. It has been pointed out that introducing the element of fantasy accounts for part of the improvement in the watchability of the film, but I propose that the inclusion of friendship bonds that portray a sense of goodness attract and invite the viewer in even more. The various friendships not only provide a counterpoint to the evil of Mordor and his accumulating army, but also act as a means to draw the audience in to support the efforts to save Middle-Earth.

The most important friendship is that between Frodo and Sam. It is an unwavering bond. Much has been written about this relationship and its connection to both Medieval lord/retainer relationships such as Beowulf and Wiglaf as well as WWI trench relationships (Smol). It is through the inclusion of further relationships, though, that my level of engagement was increased. These friendships include: Merry and Pippin; Aragon and Gimli; Faramir and Frodo; and, Gollum and Frodo.

The friendships of both Merry/Pippin and Aragon/Gimli are lighthearted in nature and provide some comic relief – a stark contrast with the looming darkness of the impending war. While these friends watch each other’s backs, there is also a sense of camaraderie, as seen in the fighting scene on the castle walls. Against a backdrop of the impersonal masses of soldiers, these vignettes of friendship add a personal level to the movie, as well as lighten the overall mood.

In the case of Faramir and Frodo, the nature of the friendship is different and we see it evolve from a relationship as enemies to a relationship of understanding. Faramir, who is motivated by trying to gain his father’s approval, takes Frodo as a prisoner and is intent on keeping him from completing his quest to deliver the ring. With the pleadings of Sam, we watch Faramir soften his resolve, eventually releasing Frodo even though it means not gaining the fatherly recognition he desperately seeks. This conversion of Faramir acts as a means to draw the audience into the spirit of rooting for victory; even those opposed are now on the side of the good.

Lastly, I mention the peculiar relationship between Gollum and Frodo, even though it does not really qualify as a friendship because it lacks constancy and mutuality on the part of Gollum. However, what makes the interaction between the two engaging from the audience’s viewpoint is the verbal battle between good and evil that Gollum experiences and participates in. Frodo treats Gollum with kindness, allowing Gollum to trust Frodo more.

All of these very different friendships attracted and maintained my attention; they add sparks of goodness to a rather dark and desolate plot. Do you agree that in watching the relationships develop in The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers, we too, want to hold onto the good and feel that it is worth fighting for?

Make Medieval Movies Great Again

Why is The Two Towers such an iconic film classic and other medieval films such as First Knight are seldom remembered by anyone? To determine an answer we must consider the various elements of the film rather than just affirm First knight was an awful film. What makes Peter Jackson different from Jerry Zucker? What does Tolkien have on Arthurian legend? Does it come down to visual effects or story? All of these are fair questions to evaluate what we consider good medieval  film.

The easiest thing to consider is if The Two Towers is simply far and away a better story than the tale of King Arthur and Sir Lancelot. When looking at the stories it becomes increasingly apparent the similarities between the two and the evidence of Tolkien taking much of his writing from influence of Arthurian legend: The Kights of the Round Table and The Fellowship of the Ring, Gandalf and Merlin, the ring and Excalibur, Frodo and Arthur’s quests and chivalry, the list goes on. One can take from this that with such similarity, the two are not on significantly different levels of quality, being two of the most iconic medieval or medievally influenced tales in history.

Perhaps it comes down the the people behind the storytelling? Peter Jackson comes to mind as an extraordinary and visionary director largely in part to his work on the Lord of the Rings films. Jerry Zucker of First Knight does not immediately come to mind; however, he is the mastermind behind the classics Airplane, Top Secret!, and the Naked Gun trilogy. For more serious, acclaimed credentials, he is the academy award nominated director of the film Ghost, if you don’t immediately recognize this film, allow me to assist.
 What I’m trying to argue is that Zucker does in fact posses some directing chops and should not be discounted or rather blamed for the films quality.

Could it simply be a matter of budget? First Knight was made on a budget of 75 million while Two Towers was made on a budget of 94 million. This may seem to be a compelling argument given an additional 19 million to work with not accounting for inflation; however, to present a case for First Knight, the new Ghostbusters was made on a budget of 144 million and was objectively terrible. While there may be a discrepancy between budgeting, it is not enough to warrant such a vast difference in quality.

So what about the category of fantasy compared to action? I believe that the vast difference in quality comes purely from this distinction. Producers and filmmakers tend to break away from the mold with great films (i.e Django Unchained and High Plains Drifter in a sea of spaghetti westerns). What Jackson accomplishes is a visually stunning, imaginative take on a genre coupled with action, romance, and conflict presented with beasts and people (elves, orcs, hobbits) that provide another level of storytelling. Where First Knight falls flat is the lack of visual accomplishment and deep, impressive presentation coupled with an inability to separate itself from a typical medieval action tale. The difference is the manner in which the story is written and told, not the story itself.

Cliches and Reimaginings

The overarching theme coupling our three weeks focused on King Arthur and the many legends and stories pertaining to, or connected to him was titled “Reimagning medival imaginings.” At least twice, we read a source text, and then watched a movie loosely based on that source text. Both movies had their problems; however, from what I could hear coming from the rest of my classmates, as well as my self, we generally found one of the movies (King Arthur) substantially more bearable than the other (First Knight). So thus I must beg the (rhetorical) question, what make First Knight so much more cringy?

As we have discussed in class copious amounts of time, lots of stories take place in the middle ages. There’s something fantastical about how modern humans view this era that instills a fascination and this makes the age a perfect setting for many tales that collected make up their own genre. Within this medievalism genre, tales pertaining to King Arthur are within themselves, very numerous, making Arthurian tales a giant subgenre within the already massive genre of medieval based narratives. What’s interesting about these texts about Arthur is that while every one of them usually has the same backdrop and similar characters, they all stand alone in their own right. Yet of course, due to the size of the genre, it is unavoidable that some texts will begin to borrow from each other, and this is where reimagining comes in. Basically, I’d like to think of reimagining being when an author borrows an idea, a theme, or even characters from another work and rework those pieces of that work, or works in order to create something that is original. In that sense, almost all of the stories we have about King Arthur are imaginings, and so are all fan fictions, which is why King Arthur is the worlds biggest fan fiction.

But I digress, the question is why First Knight was so painful to watch. Well, this is the thing–in my mind, reimaginings themselves are completely valid and often very enjoyable. In fact, being able to recognize a theme, situation, or character from another work is very likely to promote a reader/audience member’s enjoyment or understanding of a piece…however…and this is a BIG however…there comes a point where instead of merely a reimagining, something has been used so many times that it becomes a cliche. While there is, of course, potential for reimagining, the medieval genre, and furthermore the Arthur sub-genre is stuffed full of potential cliches, and that is what really makes the different with First Knight…it just is far too cliche. When a theme, or story element, or line has been used so many times that it is so predictable, then it is no longer enjoyable. Basically, because First Knight was so full of cliches, I could basically predict everything that was going to happen. Half of my notes were “so now this is going to happen…oh my gosh look, I was right,” but while I was proud of myself every time I was right, a little part of me inside was crying out in unholy pain at the cringiness of the predictability of the show. The only thing I really can say surprised me is that Malegant saw Mark hiding in the barn, let Mark live, and then Mark didn’t play an important role in his downfall.

Either way, it’s a fine line, a very fine line even walking between reimagining and cliche. Within the Medieval genre, and really literature/film-making in general, avoiding cliches can be like trying to make ones way through a mine field, and if you happen to hit a mine, well I’m sorry, but as this metaphor would go, your movie will probably be very painful to watch, just as I imagine it would be very painful to hit a mine. King Arthur had some mines in it, it can’t really be denied, in fact, it had a very noticeable amount of mines; however, First Knight had an exceedingly cringworthy amount of mines, which ultimately caused all of us to cringe with much vigor.

Memory Loss & Morality: The Buried Giant

This week in class we discussed the myriad themes in the novel The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro, and the questions that arose from those themes. Among other things, we discussed morality, trauma, and motives. Tying these themes together was a question regarding the ethicality of King Arthur’s decision to have Merlin cast a memory loss spell over the English and Saxon people. 

//giphy.com/embed/1GA7jxC6Kzza0

This spell, which caused both parties to forget their differences and history of conflict, was effective in securing peace but had other negative consequences. This was very interesting to me, as well as to the class, and our interest in the matter was reflected by the significant amount of time we spent discussing our varying opinions on Arthur’s actions. 

While thinking about this and trying to formulate my own opinion, I was initially unable to reach a conclusion. After continued consideration, however, I found it necessary to engage in the debate using a different approach. Instead of considering Arthur’s actions at face value as purely moral or immoral, I realized that it was necessary to think about his decision in terms of underlying motivations. While he ostensibly directed Merlin to cast the spell in order to affect peace between the two warring parties, I began to wonder if Arthur did so simply in order to mask his own guilt in the situation. He was the one responsible for the war between Saxons and Britons, as his orders directly led to the gratuitously brutal attack on the Saxon village, which in turn precipitated retaliation and the subsequent war that followed. By all appearances, Arthur is the one at fault for the whole situation. 

(Is King Arthur, shown above, as brave and noble as we have been led to believe?)

Did he simply want Merlin to cast a memory loss spell in order to hide his own culpability? In this case, the spell would surely be considered immoral and unethical. Or, on the other hand, were his intentions, as we might expect of King Arthur, nobler? What are your opinions are on this matter? What do you think was the true motivation behind Arthur’s decision to order Merlin to cast his spell? Depending on your opinion, was doing so an ethical thing to do? If so, why? If not, why?

King Arthur’s “Realism”

Throughout the film King Arthur, we are led to believe that this may be a more “realistic” retelling of the story. Many of the mystical and magical aspects of the story are not present in the movie. Yet many historical inaccuracies exist as well. This begs the question: was the movie trying to be a more realistic version of the story of King Arthur or simply a different take on a well known story?

The answer I believe is a mix of the two. Magical events are often convenient ways of moving a story forward, but they are not very convincing. Pulling a sword from a “magical stone” was the focal point of many of the other versions of King Arthur. King Arthur the movie remedies those parts of the tale by ignoring them or not putting much emphasis on them. At the same time, realism is suspended in the movie for the sake of entertainment. Armor piercing crossbows and large longbow battle formations were not the way Romans or Saxons fought their battles. Roman “knights” were not present in their empire, at least not in the way the Knights of the round table were portrayed in the movie.

A more realistic representation of how a Roman soldier would look

What does this all mean for King Arthur as a movie? Its attempt at a different version of the classic tale shows an interesting version of Arthur as a man who is just like everyone else. He overcomes his trials through determination and faith instead of divine intervention (as he said in the movie, God was supposed to take his life, not the lives of his men) or magic. The viewer only needs to accept in this version that some of the historical information is not entirely accurate for the setting. Whatever take the creators of the movie were going for, they had considerable freedom because of the lack of real information on King Arthur as a person.

Reimagined Legends, New Beginnings

During the film King Arthur we were presented with a modern day version and what the producers say is a historically accurate look at the legend of King Arthur. But how true does the movie actually hold itself to the legend of Arthur? For our class on Monday we were told to read Geoffrey of Monmouth’s version of the King Arthur, and for myself personally I felt it was as historically accurate as it could be because at the end of the day it is still a legend, and a legend is usually a story told to entertain people. So is it wrong for the movie to claim that it represents a legend in a modern context, while not necessarily referencing the legend or holding true to the version of the legend that we read? Is it bad that this movie creates an almost new chapter to add to the legend of King Arthur? That it simply relies on the legend in name and some of the big overall details about the legend?

I don’t think so. Instead I believe that by creating this movie, the story of Arthur spreads to a wider and more diverse public. By making a movie about King Arthur, interest is created in the legend that the movie comes from. You also have a chance of spreading the legend to a wider audience. By creating a movie you create a more accessible way to learn about King Arthur because its easier to watch a movie than to read about a legend and since it is a movie, it is advertised to get people to go and watch it and this usually works out very well. So why create this movie that is loosely based on the legend of King Arthur that we read from Geoffrey of Monmouth view? The same can be asked of basically all other movies based on King Arthur throughout history, and any other movies based on legends. I believe the answer to this is to simply keep the legend alive and to keep spreading it. I believe by creating a newish movie we put the legend in a new modern day light and allow a new audience to learn about it in a way that feels so dated.

The Effect of Dante’s Inferno

Dante’s Inferno is a very symbolic piece of literature and these was shown by the many different ways that it can be interpreted. It can be applied to Christians today along with the Christians of the past and the non-believers of the past. “Contrapasso” the punishment fitting the crime explanation can be a very powerful persuader to both modern people and the believers of the medieval times. The vivid imagery of the punishments that Dante writes could cause people to self reflect and change their ways. Non-believers of the time also who heard the story could have been scared of what the God that the church believed in in could be so cruel to his people and allow this to happen. As a reader today we do not consider the book to be such a real option to what the actual afterlife actually is. We had a small mention of what people believe the church believes in today’s society. There are many different views on a higher being or if one exists at all.

I feel as are class skipped over this and focused a lot more on the terrible of the vivid imagery that was taken too far by the game. As a person who admitted to playing the game I can say that the video we watched skipped over some of the puzzles and actual thinking that the game involves. I do believe this game does take the story a little too far but it is based off an interesting story and it has to tweak it some just to make sense as a video game. The developers would not just through you into hell a place full of monsters and not have you kill them.  I do not believe this makes up for the vulgar imagery but it also has a target audience and I enjoyed the game as a change of pace from the regular FPS games at the time.