Screening Early Europe: Premodern Projections
The study of screen representations of early Europe is a growing area that has come in recent years to occupy a vital place within the various disciplines of early European…
The Long Path Back: Medievalism and Film
Abstract Various forms of neo-medievalism are currently revealing themselves on an international scale, both in popular audiovisual culture and in progressive art cinema. This essay critiques the assumptions behind the…
Transparent Walls: Stained Glass and Cinematic Medievalism
Abstract In its representation of stained-glass windows, medievalist cinema exploits the shared capacity of both media to articulate the dreams, visions and memories of both past and present. Many films…
Suspended Animation: Myth, Memory and History in Beowulf
[1] The last ten to fifteen years have witnessed a rapid growth of academic interest in the formal, cultural and political aspects of both medieval film and graphic novels.[2] While…
“We are the Monsters Now”: The Genre Medievalism of Robert Zemeckis’ Beowulf
Robert Zemeckis’ Beowulf (USA 2007) is an unusual film. It follows an unusual narrative structure – the hero’s path shifts dramatically into the future at the very moment in which we might…
From Mythic History to Cinematic Poetry: Terrence Malick’s The New World Viewed
Abstract Terrence Malick’s The New World (2005) is a poetic evocation of one of America’s founding myths, the story of Pocahontas. While the film allegorises - through the theme of marriage -…
Music for Myth and Fantasy in Two Arthurian Films
Abstract This essay examines music in two Arthurian films: John Boorman’s Excalibur (USA 1981), and the television miniseries Mists of Avalon (USA 2001), directed by Uli Edel. It explores the role of music in…
Medieval Reimaginings: Female Knights in Children’s Television
Abstract This paper will consider three medievalist children’s television programmes, Jane and the Dragon, Sir Gadabout and Maid Marian and Her Merry Men, each of which grant knightly roles to their central female characters.…
Iraq, the Prequel(s): Historicising Military Occupation and Withdrawal in Kingdom of Heaven and 300
Abstract As well as being historical films, Zack Snyder’s 300 and Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven both reflect on the value and the danger of historical commemoration and amnesia. The films’ opposing stances on…
Reel Medici Mobsters? The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance Reassessed
Abstract This article considers the 2004 PBS documentary Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance in relation to its suggestions that the Medici family of Florence shared similar traits to modern Mafiosi. It analyses…
“A Continuous Return”: Tristan and Isolde, Wagner, Hollywood and Bill Viola
[1] Abstract The story of Tristan and Isolde is one of the founding myths of Western culture and fifteen hundred years after its first appearance artists continue to embrace…
Three Thrusts at Excalibur
1. We were in China. I had to clear up some urgent business and, after breakfast with a member of the Gang of Four (Yao Wenyuan), we appointed a leader.…
Contributors
Anke Bernau lectures in Medieval Literature and Culture at the University of Manchester. She is co-editor of Medieval Film (2009) and author of Virgins: A Cultural History (2007), and has authored numerous essays on…