Synopses & Reviews
The medieval film genre is not, in general, concerned with constructing a historically accurate past, but much analysis nonetheless centers on highlighting anachronisms. This book aims to help scholars and aficionados of medieval film think about how the re-creation of an often mythical past performs important cultural work for modern directors and viewers. The essays in this collection demonstrate that directors intentionally insert modern preoccupations into a setting that would normally be considered incompatible with these concepts. The Middle Ages provide an imaginary space far enough removed from the present day to explore modern preoccupations with human identity.
Review
"An informative, stimulating collection of academic, yet reader-friendly, meditations on the cinematic representation of that most modern of historical and intellectual constructs, the Middle Ages. In welcome contrast to much work on medievalism, the larger cultural phenomenon to which these films are intriguingly related, the editors and contributors demonstrate a sophisticated awareness of the important work done during the last decade on the many intersections between film and history. It is also welcome that all involved, though at least primarily trained in other fields, prove themselves expert enough in all relevant matters cinematic to make this volume of interest to their colleagues in film studies. With its sustaining concentration on gender and otherness more generally, Race, Class, and Gender in "Medieval" Cinema also makes an important contribution to ongoing, important debates within the related areas of cultural and political identity studies."--R. Barton Palmer, Calhoun Lemon Professor of Literature and Director of the Film and International Culture program at Clemson University; Author of Medieval Epic and Romance and Traditions in World Cinema "This stimulating collection sheds important light on the ways in which medieval films construct the past to interrogate the present, particularly as they wrestle with questions of race, class and gender. Its thoughtful and thought-provoking essays cover a wide range of national cinemas (Hollywood, Egypt, France, and Japan), historical periods (from Occupied France to 2004's King Arthur) and genres (fantasy, horror, martial arts), allowing the collection to address its central concerns from a variety of perspectives and presenting a truly rich "other Middle Ages" for film scholars and medievalists."--Susan Aronstein, University of Wyoming
About the Author
Lynn T. Ramey is Associate Professor of French at Vanderbilt University, where she is an affiliate of the film studies program and teaches a course on the history of French film. Her publications include numerous articles on East-West relations in medieval Europe as well as a book,
Christian, Saracen and Genre in Medieval French Literature (2001).
Tison Pugh is Associate Professor of English at the University of Central Florida. He is the author of Queering Medieval Genres and co-editor of Approaches to Teaching Chaucer's "Troilus and Criseyde" and the Shorter Poems.
Table of Contents
Introduction--Lynn Ramey & Tison Pugh *
PART I: MULTICULTURAL IDENTITIES: A LOST IDEAL? * Once, Present and Future Kings:
Kingdom of Heaven and the Multi-temporality of Medieval Film--Arthur Lindley * Chahine's
Destiny: Prophetic Nostalgia and the Other Middle Ages--Don Hoffman * Reversing the Crusades: Hegmony, Orientalism and Film Language in Youssef Chahine's
Saladin--John Ganim * Samurai on Shifting Ground: Negotiating the Medieval and the Modern in
Seven Samurai and
Yojimbo--Randy P. Schiff *
PART II: BARBARISM AND THE MEDIEVAL OTHER * Vikings Through the Eyes of an Arab Ethnographer: Constructions of the Other in
The 13th Warrior--Lynn Shutters * Mission Historical, or "[t]here were a hell of a lot of knights": Ethnicity and Alterity in Jerry Bruckheimer's
King Arthur--Caroline Jewers * Inner-City Chivalry in Gil Junger's
Black Knight: A South Central Yankee in King Leo's Court--Laurie Finke and Martin Shichtman * Queering the Medieval Dead: History, Horror, and Masculinity in Sam Raimi's Evil Dead Trilogy--Tison Pugh *
PART III: ROMANTIC VALUES * In Praise of Troubadourism: Creating Community in Occupied France, 1942-1943--Lynn Ramey * Sexing Warrior Women in China's Martial Arts World: King Hu's
A Touch of Zen--Peter Lorge * The Hawk, the Wolf, and the Mouse: Gender and Other in
Ladyhawke--Angela Jane Weisl * Chaucer's Man Show: Anachronistic Authority in Brian Helgeland's
A Knight's Tale--Holly Crocker * The "Other" Women of Sherwood: The Construction of Difference and Gender in Cinematic Treatments of the Robin Hood Legend--Lorraine Stock & Candace Gregory