A quick word from Hypatia

Many thanks to all who've contributed suggestions to Hypatia's reading and listening list. She has emailed to say how grateful she is to everyone — "moved and cheered", she says. And she'll keep checking back, so if you think of anything else, please add it in.

She also says she is very happy for you to picture her as Rachel Weisz, though I must admit this film passed me by completely:

Screening the Past is Live

Regular readers may remember a series of posts in May and June this year, in which I solicited assistance with an essay on the representation of stained glass in medievalist cinema. I'm grateful to all those who wrote in with ideas and suggestions, and who commented on the fragments of the essay I posted on the blog.

I'm pleased to say the essay has been uploaded today, on the excellent Melbourne journal, from La Trobe University: Screening the Past. This is a fully refereed (and for Australians, an A* ranked) online journal. It is part of a special issue, on Early Europe, edited by the indefatigable Louise D'Arcens, whose introduction, "Screening Early Europe: Premodern Projections," would be worth the price of admission alone, except — wait for it — there's no charge. But honestly, this woman has an enviable knack of bringing people together and making excellent things happen. I'm so lucky to get to collaborate with her on this, and at least two other projects.

Anyway, the beauty of online publication is that little changes and corrections can still be made. So if you should get as far as my essay, and then get as far as the second footnote, and feel you would prefer to be mentioned, or not mentioned, or mentioned by some other name, do please let me know as soon as possible.

Because it's the night before the last day of my leave and the last day before our three day Christmas feast begins, I haven't yet had the chance to do more than skim the other essays, but for the record, I got terrifically helpful readers' reports for this essay, and I'm confident this will turn out to be a very important collection. I heard a version of the fabulous Adrian Martin's talk at the postgraduate masterclass that was the starting-point for this collection: it was great to see a cinema specialist coming to visit the medievalists, just as we have repaid the visit in this screen studies journal. Well, something to look forward to, anyway, when I get a chance to sit down and read them properly.

Here's a list of contents: sorry, no links...

Louise D’Arcens: Screening Early Europe: Premodern Projections.

Adrian Martin: The Long Path Back: Medievalism and Film.

Stephanie Trigg: Transparent Walls: Stained Glass and Cinematic Medievalism.

Anke Bernau: Suspended Animation: Myth, Memory and History in Beowulf.

Sylvia Kershaw and Laurie Ormond: “We are the Monsters Now”: The Genre Medievalism of Robert Zemeckis’ Beowulf.

Robert Sinnerbrink: From Mythic History to Cinematic Poetry: Terrence Malick’s The New World Viewed.

Helen Dell: Music for Myth and Fantasy in Two Arthurian Films.

Narelle Campbell: Medieval Reimaginings: Female Knights in Children’s Television.

Louise D’Arcens: Iraq, the Prequel(s): Historicising Military Occupation and Withdrawal in Kingdom of Heaven and 300.

Christina Loong: Reel Medici Mobsters? The Medici: Godfathers of the Renaissance Reassessed.

Laura Ginters: “A Continuous Return”: Tristan and Isolde, Wagner, Hollywood and Bill Viola.

Appendix: Raúl Ruiz: Three Thrusts at Excalibur.

I'd love to know what you made of any of these essays.

Rusty and Cate do Robin and Marion

Apart from Cate looking particularly beautiful in dark brown hair, is there anything about this trailer that suggests any new, or different kind of Robin Hood? Or are there now so many television and movie versions that each new one now appears in relation to the others as if it were simply a new installment in a long running television series?

[Ed. I'm removing that link because it keeps playing as soon as I open the blog: I find there are only so many horses' hooves that make a bearable accompaniment to everyday life... I'm sure it's easy to track down.]

What is Wrong with This Picture ...

... when the teenager stays at home re-arranging his room and doing his music practice while his parents go out to see the new teenage sparklie vampire love storie movie. The movie was washed down with a bag of mixed lollies and some tall glasses of Westgarth's finest sangria. As Chaucer says, "This ys absolutelie the beste teenage sparklie vampyre love storye ich haue evir reade" and the same goes for the movies, too. I've now read the last two books and seen the first two movies, and so while I can't quite remember what happens in Volume 3, I think I have a reasonable grasp of the entire sorry trajectory.

I say "sorry", because although in the first movie I was completely entranced by the brooding mystery of Edward, this movie reminded me that I don't really like vampires very much, despite what Chaucer describes as the "fayre skyn and fashion-sprede slow-mocioun hotenesse of the Cu Chulainn clan, the which have all eaten long ago of the magical Irisshe Salmon of Really Good Hair (oon byte of this magical salmon and ye shal have good hair for evir)."

There's been an awful lot written and said about Stephanie Meyer being a Mormon, and the programmatic chastity of the Twilight sage: no sex — or becoming a vampire — until you are married. Again, I'll quote Maister Chaucer (who's proving himself a most adept textual and cultural critic), when he remarks, "Ther is considerablie moore sexual tensioun than in Piers Plowman."  This is undeniably true. But there's something disturbing, and I would have thought rather un-Mormony about the idea that you might well have a soul; but that you would willingly destroy it for love. I can see romance fiction not being bothered with the idea of a soul, but once you invoke that metaphysic, don't you have to do something with it? Not easy, of course: and even Philip Pullman, for all his brilliance, couldn't quite bring it all off. If Meyer — and the films — get away with invoking the idea of a soul as a plot device, but countenancing perpetual everlasting romantic love and sexual desire and a prodigious child as sufficient compensation for its loss, it's not in any easy agreement with any model of Christianity I'm familiar with.

So the easy dismissive reading of Meyer — that she is somehow cynically exploiting teenage desires to push a Mormon model of sexual restraint— seems to me rather a thin one. Or perhaps it's true that for this religion, morality is more important than spirituality.

Tuesday Sydney medievalism blogging

I don't suppose Bruno really needs to offer any explanation for any of his costumes, but I do kind of like his medieval armour ensemble for his Sydney premiere. Not quite so keen on the metallic hip bones of his skeletal attendants, though.

And look! He even had a horse...

Synecdoche, cricket and colonialism

Joel has just come back from seeing the movie Synecdoche. Highly recommended, apparently.

But in an attempt to resolve a family disagreement on the pronunciation of this word, I reached for my Concise Oxford Dictionary. (I was right, of course, lest you were worried.) But get this: the example for naming the part but understanding the whole is 50 sail for 50 ships, while the example given for naming the whole but understanding the part is England beat Australia at cricket.

Oh they do find it hard to let go of their colonial grandeur, don't they? And oh yes, I'm aware of irony, in that I use the Oxford dictionary, and don't have the Macquarie here. Wonder what their example for synecdoche is?

But it's only a few weeks till the Ashes series begins. Just three words, England: Bring. It. On.

No stained glass, not really.

Help! I'm getting distracted in this essay I'm supposed to be writing on medievalist stained glass, and have got lost in the world of Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger's 1944 A Canterbury Tale. Some readers will remember Carolyn Dinshaw's wonderful paper on this film at NCS in Swansea last year. I've been watching it less for the oddly repellant/attractive queer Colpeper, and more for what it says about the relation between the movies and cathedrals. Witness the English soldier who dreams of playing the organ in a cathedral but plays only for the movies. There is a grand scene of a stained glass window in the film's magnificent closing sequence, but apparently this was filmed in a studio, as the windows of the cathedral were boarded up during the war; and many buildings in Canterbury destroyed. Indeed, the film makes much of a poignant scene in which Alison walks along a street with great cavities where the shops used to be, and a passer-by comments that at least you get a better view of the cathedral now. The need for light coming into the nave must have been greater than the need for historical accuracy, so the windows aren't shown boarded up.

In September 2007, this was the first film to be shown in Canterbury Cathedral, as part of a fund-raising effort to restore roof, walls and .... the stained-glass windows.



If A Canterbury Tale shows a beautiful, ahistorical fake, it also made me think of the final scene in Mrs Miniver, held in the small parish church, whose roof and main stained glass window have been bombed, in an attack that has also killed several characters. The priest preaches of the war of spirit they are all fighting now, against a view through the gothic arches of the English countryside they are defending. Warning: tissue alert.



Hmm. I wonder if the Vicar of Dibley was quoting this in the episode where Geraldine raises money for a new stained-glass window, but donates it to the Columbian earthquake victims and instead puts in a plain glass window that similarly looks out onto a beautiful setting sun?



I feel I'm in danger of losing my focus, but this is all very interesting material. Now I just have to make an argument about it.

Shameless Request for Assistance: Medievalist Stained Glass

I have a theory. And a deadline. Not the most comfortable collocation.

The theory is that many medievalist films shy away from representing "real" or "realistic" medieval stained glass when they show interiors of churches. There are a number of possible reasons for this:

• technical: "real" medieval windows can seem very dark
• practical: (a) they might distract from the main action and (b) their scale and point of view is all wrong for the big screen
• respectful: real medieval stained glass shows Biblical imagery that sits uncomfortably, potentially, with the chivalric ethos that dominates much medievalist film
  
• ideological: (a) real medieval stained glass would risk interpellating the viewer as Christian; and (b) the medieval church is often presented as corrupt and forbidding, not joyful and celebratory
  
• aesthetic: movies like their churches to appear either austere and cold (Name of the Rose), not full of riotous colour; or lit by candles: e.g. the wedding scene in Camelot
  
• stylistic: medievalist movies prefer abstract or new age symbolism to Christian symbols (The Magic Sword: Quest for Camelot; Excalibur?)
  

There are a few other things I want to talk about here: Vincent Ward said, for example, that when making the coloured stock parts of The Navigator he wanted to use a colour palette that drew on the vivid reds and blues of medieval stained glass. I also want to talk about the scene in the Tale of Beryn where the Pardoner and the Miller try and decipher the stained glass images in Canterbury Cathedral.

What I have to do now is watch as many medieval movies as I can in a short time. And it is here, dear readers, that I would welcome your input, whether it seems to confirm my theory or not.

What can you remember about the representation of stained glass, or glass in churches, in medievalist movies?

Srsly, my deadline is very tight; and this is for prospective publication in an on-line format later this year. I wouldn't normally present such half-baked ideas on the blog; and am just going to risk someone thinking this is a good idea for an essay and writing it instead. I reckon I can do this faster than just about anyone, anyway!

I'll be very happy to credit assistance, either by name or pseudonym, as you prefer.

Unlikely connections and textual spirals

Today in Chaucer class we were looking at Troilus's apostrophe to Criseyde's empty palace. Troilus is waiting for Criseyde to return from the Greek camp, and goes through the streets of Troy to look at the house once adorned with Criseyde and now empty; the lantern whose light is extinguished; the ring without the ruby; the shrine without the saint.

Than seide he thus, "O paleys desolat,
O hous of houses whilom best i-hight,
O paleys empty and disconsolat,
O thow lanterne of which queynt is the light,
O paleys, whilom day, that now art nyght,
Wel oughtestow to falle and I to dye
Syn she is went that wont was vs to gye.

"O paleis, whilom crowne of houses alle,
Enlumyned with sonne of alle blisse,
O ryng fro which the rubie is out falle,
O cause of wo that cause hast ben of lisse,
3et syn I may no bet, fayn wolde I kisse
Thy colde dores, dorste I for this route;
And far wel shryne, of which the seynt is oute."

Of course we talked about the difficulties of "queynte" here, but for the life of me I could not remember the Greek name for this figure until now, when I've just looked it up in an article I've co-written (!), which quotes Larry Benson discussing "the most beautiful example of paraclausithyron [the poem before the closed door] in our literature". He argues that Chaucer would not have introduced that obscene pun; and that we err if we are always on the lookout for the double entendre.

But instead of being able to remember this word (I got the "claus" bit but not the rest), I could remember most of the lyrics of "I have often walked down this street before/ but the pavement's always stayed beneath my feet before", from My Fair Lady and I'm sorry to say I sang a couple of stanzas, with a little help. I've also been singing this lovely song all afternoon.

So. Yes. Songs are more memorable than Greek rhetorical terms. No surprises there. And no, it's not exactly the same situation, though I can't remember at what point Freddie sings this song. But it was, all the same, one of those historically impure moments that helps us read the medieval text, I think. Are Chaucer's characters medieval? or timeless?

Another lovely circle has been playing in my mind, too.

Last night we watched Tony Richardson's 1970 film of Ned Kelly starring Mick Jagger. I liked this much maligned film very much indeed. I especially liked seeing Jagger singing the Wild Colonial Boy.

And the Waylon Jennings soundtrack has some great Kelly ballads. One of them is called "Blame it on the Kellys" ("I think I'll steal a horse myself and blame it on the Kellys"). This also has a Robin Hood moment: "bread and milk on the windowsill? Blame it on the Kellys".

At the film's end, though, Kelly is staggering down the railway tracks in the morning mist, wearing the iconic armour and long coat, reeling as more and more police climb down the embankment and fire at him. He staggers and keeps going, and I have the irresistible image of John Cleese as the Black Knight in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. The film recovers itself, but I'm then driven to think about the resemblance between Kelly and the Knight. I mean: look at them!



It's a pretty distinctive shape for a helmet, and I reckon it's not implausible that the Python team had seen the Jagger film.

These are both lovely examples, I think, of the way medieval studies and medievalism both set up these spirals of reference and allusion.

Guest post: Katrina's Beowulf review

My first guest post! Katrina wrote this lovely review of Beowulf for our Medieval Round Table listserve, and I'm posting it here with permission.

Dear Roundtablers

The Roundtable Film Club had its first outing, to see Beowulf in 3D at the
big screen Imax. Helen H arranged the tickets, for which we are all
grateful, and we had a lovely time, except in the bits when we almost
threw up.

The film was immensely entertaining, and I’m sure all our ‘normal’ friends
are glad that we found other medievalists to go with, as we critiqued it
at length afterwards.

The rest of this email has spoilers, but you all know the plot anyway, so
what does it matter?

Actually, there are parts of the movie plot that even the closest reading
of Beowulf would not reveal, mainly about who is and is not sleeping with
whom, and I won’t reveal any details. (The same could also be said of the
frequently naked Beowulf, who was strategically prevented from revealing
his details protected by an entertaining array of helmets, other people'
shoulders, trestles, bits of Grendel, light fixtures and vegetables.)

Visually it’s a stunning film, which goes a long way to making up for the
fairly uninspired script and performances. The 3D-ness of it was
overwhelming at times, with spears landing in the middle of one’s
forehead, and the gruesome dribble of Grendel masticating a brave but
foolhardy Geat getting way too close for comfort.

The sets were ‘virtual’ creations and the actors were all digitally
mapped, which makes for some gee-whiz action sequences, but leads to
heavy, wooden acting. Beowulf’s dialogue came out with all the excitement
of a school speech night, and Angelina Jolie looked even more android-like
than usual (read more about what the actors thought of their digitisation here).

I’m pretty impressed that Angelina had a plait so long that it looked like
a tail and could be used as a weapon. She also has built-in high heels,
giving her the appearance, as Stephanie said, of the advertising poster
from ‘The Devil Wears Prada.’ It was fun to see Ray Winstone transformed
from an ageing tubster into a Scandinavian warrior with Brad Pitt’s body.
But movements cannot be divorced from the bodies performing them, so
Beowulf never looked as if he really fitted and controlled the
impressively muscled body bestowed upon him by the digital technology.
The superhero-style action was sometimes at odds with the grubby realism
of the impressive setting, and rather than being scary or affecting was
often just plain silly.

Anthony Hopkins, barely recognisable except for eyes and voice, was King
Hrothgar, and was clad only in a bedsheet/toga to host a feast in his
accursed mead hall, so we saw far more of podgy loins than we really
needed too. I can confidently assert that no proto-Viking king worth his
arm ring would have shown up in anything other than his most impressive
warrior-standard party gear.

The film had, of course, numerous anachronisms and inaccuracies, but
no-one expected it to be a documentary. The setting is given as AD 507,
yet the Danish landscape featured buildings taller than any it would
actually have for about another thousand years. The Danes themselves
don’t come across terribly well, a bunch of wimps with bad teeth and no
backbone, whereas the Geats are tough in all ways except their names.
“I’m a GEEK” Beowulf proudly announced, or so it sounded. He was calling
himself a ‘Geet,’ turning into a nerdish grunt the name which, in a
Scandinavian pronunciation, would have a palatalised /g/ followed by a
rising diphthong which gives it quite an ominous sound guaranteed to chill
the marrow of the nastiest foe. ‘Geek’ or even ‘Geet’ just didn’t quite
have the same punch.

The whole ‘Finn-fighting’ section of the poem is omitted, but we do have a
Frisian in a bear-skin (complete with head) which is perhaps a nod to the
‘berserkr’ tradition. Beowulf, who fights Grendel naked, goes with the
other interpretation that ‘berserkr’ means ‘bare-shirt.” Oðinn is
frequently invoked, but so too is the new-fangled Christian god, with
Hrothgar’s Denmark subject to Christian missionary, centuries before the
Danes really underwent evangelisation. The introduction of religious
tension seemed a bit gratuitous. As these people are already stuck with a
flesh-eating monster and his scary mother, a sonless king and a golden
dragon, there is enough scope for conflict in there without adding
Conversion, but is perhaps one way of introducing the Christian
perspective of the Beowulf-poet into this decidely non-Christian milieu.

Credit where it’s due - the Viking ships looked absolutely gorgeous. They
were accurate reconstructions of excavated Viking Age ships, which might
make them anachronistic, but I’m not complaining. They were stunning.
I’d sail away on one of them any day.

Anyway, this is way more than my 2 cents worth. I’m going to resist the
urge to mention the preponderance of precious metals, and the visual and
verbal references to other Heroic Age Germanic poety, and hand over to
someone else who saw the movie and might want to share their views and
insights.

One last thing - If you want to read the Danish perspective on the
pre-viking age, have a look at the 12-13th century History of the Danes by
Saxo Grammaticus.

Huge thanks to Helen for organising the trip. It would be great if we
could have similar excursions for any medieval-themed films that come out.
I know my friends would be very grateful if they didn’t have to go with me
. . .

Cheers
Katrina