Movie Medievalism, BA Class

The popular perception of the Middle Ages is a product of scholars whose work has recreated the medieval culture: historians and art historians on the one hand, and film directors on the other. This course will investigate and compare these literal and visual discourses: Does the cinema reconstruct or produce history? Does it repress historical memory and substituted it? What are the relations between images, cinematic simulacra, and history? The discussion will compare medieval imagery and Gothic works of art, historical accounts and myths, with their use and representation in historical films, addressing art historical problems and film theory. The course will begin with Fritz Lang’s Die Nibelungen; continue with Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal; Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Decameron; Disney’s classic cartoons Snow White and Sleeping Beauty; Daniel Vigne’s Le Retour de Martin Guerre; Anthony Harvey’s The Lion in Winter; The Name of the Rose by Jean-Jacques Annaud, and will end with Le Roi de coeur, by Philippe de Broca.