My thoughts on – Medieval movies

There are some movies that my other half will outright refuse to watch with me. Fair enough, at times I shout or get annoyed when a historical fact is misrepresented. 2010’s Robin Hood was one of those during which I lost my mind a touch (despite my love of Cate Blanchett).

But, I am also perfectly capable of closing down my historical mind and watching a film as a piece of entertainment. I took a course as an undergrad on ‘Middle Ages and the Movies’, taught by Prof Robert Bartlett, and we were challenged to look at films from several perspectives – the historical background and the influence of the time in which the film was made, as well as how interesting the film was. Its historical accuracy was less significant. I am perfectly able to accept and even enjoy when film-makers choose to alter history, bend a fact or condense a timeline to fit the story.

I get annoyed when the story is changed and would actually have been better, more interesting, told the true or real way – or when it painfully misrepresents real history. One of the keenest examples of this for me is Troy – not medieval I know – based on one of the oldest stories in the world. They chose one of the most beautiful men in Hollywood to play Achilles – great – and an Odysseus who made me wish they would film the Odyssey next with Sean Bean as the main character. Then they destroyed it all.

There are so many historical periods about which there have not been any – or any well-known – films made which surprise me.

These are just the top two I can think of and I know there are 100s more (the real MacBeth? Malcolm Canmore and St Margaret? The First Crusade? The settling of Greenland? The civil war of Stephen and Matilda?)

There is also a great deal of debate amongst historians as how to classify a film as medieval, as authentic, as ‘good’. I’m not here to talk about that today; I may come back to it in a later post. I think there is no question that there are certain markers that make someone think a film is medieval: dress, speech, castles, knights, armor, etc. One can pick apart whether the Lord of the Rings is medieval. I’m not really bothered. The same with Game of Thones, where the places the author has ‘stolen’ from and embellished history are very evident to those of us who have studied it, but who cares? The idea that some of these dramatic events were based in history makes them that much more compelling.

I feel that inspiring interest in the past, and inspiring someone to perhaps go read more about a topic, is a good place to start for a medieval movie. I like to hope that in the modern age, viewers understand that not everything they see on a screen is truth. I realise this hope may be a touch ambitious.

My favourite movies

So, which are my favourite medieval movies? I’ll probably do a full review at some point, but here goes, in no particular order:

1. Sleeping Beauty (1959) – this Disney classic has been my favourite since childhood, when I always wanted to be the Blue Fairy.
2. The Lion in Winter (1968) – Peter O’Toole IS Henry II. I have a whole paper on this movie that I may share in the future.
3. Outlaw/King (2018) – not a perfect film, but authentic in many ways and one of the better Scottish accents by a non-Scot in Chris Pine.
4. Ladyhawke (1985) – camp with insanely 80s music, it is a beautiful love story nonetheless. Matthew Broderick is decidedly un-medieval however.
5. Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves (1991) – Kevin Costner notwithstanding, this is a classic and a monument to Alan Rickman’s talent. Plus that song…
6. Brave (2012) – red-haired Scottish archer girl voiced by actual Scot. Plus Emma Thompson and a bunch of other legitimately Scottish voices. Love.
7. El Cid (1961) – so many problems with this film, including brown face and Charleton Heston. But it is epic.
8. The 13th Warrior (1999) – this movie has one of my favourite film sequences ever of Antonio Banderas’ character learning another language, so cleverly done.

Films I watch as guilty pleasures:

1. Braveheart (1996) – yeah, I know. I’ve literally written a lecture on this movie and its inaccuracies. But I still have love for it.
2. Kingdom of Heaven (2005) – this film had so much potential to be excellent, with a truly winning cast of Liam Neeson, Jeremy Irons, Brendan Gleeson and a cameo I won’t give away just in case…not so much a fan of Orlando Bloom though.
3. King Arthur (2004) – due to my undying love for the late Ray Stevenson.
4. Camelot (1967) – Richard Harris looks embarrassed. But the music is beautiful.

Medieval movies I know I should like but I just don’t:

1. A Knight’s Tale (2001) – I’m of a generation that can find little wrong with anything Heath Ledger did, but I’ve just never been able to get into this film.
2. The Seventh Seal (1957) – again a film most medievalists are ‘supposed’ to like. It’s a really interesting film and I love its portrayal of life during the plague, but I probably would never watch it for fun.
3. The Name of the Rose (1986) – based on the book of which I also was not a huge fan. I’ve never really been into monks or monastic history.
4. Becket (1964) – fantastic acting but the character of Thomas Becket always annoys me.

I’m not a huge fan of Arthurian stories overall, and there are plenty of movies I have not yet watched. There are quite a few out on Neflix/Prime that have been produced more recently that I haven’t gotten to – The King with Timothée Chalamet, The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die the movie that completes the TV show I watched the first few seasons of, The Last Duel which bombed so badly I didn’t know it existed until I found it in a list of medieval movies.

I also realise that this list is very Euro-centric, and most lists that you find online are the same. I imagine that there are plenty of Asian movies, particularly Chinese cinema, based in what we consider to be the Middle Ages. The Korean epic TV show Empress Ki (to which I became addicted for a while during lockdown) is a medieval story. I am also very aware of the multitude of medieval movies that are overwhelmingly male in characters and storyline, more recent ones often with a token strong female. The reasons behind this are, I am sure, complex, but also infuriating.

I have written several papers/lectures on some of my favourite medieval movies and will hope to share them with you at a later time. For now, I hope I have inspired so medieval viewing!

Don’t agree with me? Leave a comment to tell me about your favourite medieval movie!