Welcome to the Hollywood History Site Blog, being used by the students of Wartburg College’s HI 231, Hollywood History. Students will be blogging about the films they are watching and about the readings they are doing. We will be watching over 100 years of history films about the European Middle Ages, seeing how the technology and our understanding of the past change over time and how contemporary issues find their way into movies made to tell stories about that past.
Final Post
Taking HI231 was the best way to end my freshman year at Wartburg College, I learned more about the middle ages in this class than any of my high school classes. We got to see movies I never would have tough existed and some of which are now easily in my top 10 list of movies. The class discussions are great, and Prosser Lindgren is great at explaining everything there is to know about movies and history.
Discussion of Alexander Nevsky
Alexander Nevsky was an important film for rousing the spirits of the Russian people to stand and fight the future invasion of the German Wehrmacht, but did it do its propaganda job well, and was it even a good movie? Was Alexander Nevsky a well-made movie, to answer this we need to see if there are any issues with the movie at all. ignoring minor issues like why Alexander lives in a small house with other people when he is a prince, the movie has a couple of editor errors in early scenes such as crowds starting to cheer then the camera cuts to no one cheering, then they start to cheer again.
During the battle on the ice, the movie does not really make an attempt to mimic swordplay, relying more on close-ups of people swinging swords at nothing to fill time, it is here that the movie really loses it for me, until this final battle I was in awe of the Ferocity of the Teutonic Knights, but here the bad editing and horrible swordplay ruin it. In the essence of horrible swordplay in parts of the battle, they just stop caring, resorting to a guy killing dozens of German soldiers with a wooden plank. Then after the Teutonic knights receive heavy losses they form a shield wall, with some horrible reversed camera edits. A Russian even states that they cannot penetrate the shield wall, but do not worry they open up for Alexander Nevsky for no reason so he can duel their leader.
After the Germans let Alexander Nevsky knock out their leader, and their princes begin to be killed one by one, they begin to retreat. This leads to a big plot hole in the film as the traitor Russian from Pskov gets captured, but then kills his capture and escapes. Magically he gets captured again at the end of the movie, but we don’t see it happen which is weird because the movie made a big show of him killing his capturer and making it look like he escaped.
overall I think Alexander Nevsky is a great story, just not a good movie.
Final Post
This last May term has been a really good experience as i have been able to watch and learn about so many new films. I will be honest in admitting that some of these films were very hard to watch, but i did enjoy watching a variety of films that i know i would not be watching at all if i was not in this class. There were some movies that i watched that i really enjoyed such as A knights Tale and Sword in the Stone. Both of these were very popular at the time but i never got around to watching them. When reading the book i was very interested in learning how exactly movies were first made as it was such a slow process and there were a ton of advances from the first puppet shows to where we are now with the different CGi and film making processes used now. This class has given me an appreciation for foreign films as i have been able to understand them with the help of some of the in class discussions. Overall i thought this class was of really good quality and feel like it will influence how i watch some films in the future as i will be able to put the different things i have learned together and enjoy a film even more for the way it was made.
Movie comparison Vikings & 13th Warrior
When watching these two movies I found a lot of similarities between the two in both of them they old a very strong viking culture. each of these films covers the main beliefs and norms in the groups. Showing their love for mead and food, while also an insight to their love for violence and the trust they have in Odin to help them fight in battle and guide them to Valhalla when they do eventually do die in battle. The Vikings movie focused more on the culture at home and showed how raids were done and prepared for while in the 13th Warrior it was more about the beast that they were fighting and the culture between the band of vikings in the group. There are also the use of Gods that played a lot in these movies as you can hear them yell out Odin while entering battle and can see the acceptance of death in every one of them during battle. I would say that in Vikings the ship was much more historically accurate as it was smaller, but for the most part both movies did a great job at sticking to the roots of the Viking ways. Something very important to both plots was the use of foreigners in these movies as in Vikings it is the Englishman who was feeding them information on were to attack, while in the 13th Warrior it was the Arab that was the outsider that helped along the way and even went an fought with them in the end.
My Final Thoughts
This class was not what I expected it to be. When I signed up for Hollywood History, my first thought was finally I can see how films started, what the technology was like, and the trend of modern films. With these thoughts in mind, never would I have thought that I was going to watch medieval films. When I think about it, I have watched a lot of historical films for fun and in class. Now I am more open-minded with films.
So far my favorites movies have been the Court Jester, The Sorceress, and The Sword in the Stone. Each film had its favorites, for Sword in the Stone it was the cartoon effect of feeling like a kid again. I enjoyed watching Disney movies as a child so the nostalgia was real. For Court Jester, I thought it was funny. It kept my attention the entire time. I enjoyed the plot and how at the end there was a happy ending. As for The Sorceress, at first, I was not interested and confused as to why we were watching this film. Then it reached the climax of who was getting killed and my attention was grabbed. I enjoy mysteries so I was on the edge of my seat the whole way through.
As aforementioned in my other posts, film will be a part of my life and career. I want my movies to have an impact on my audience. It won’t be medieval, but it will have those elements that I learned in class. As I have learned there are always stories that need to be told, it is just a matter of how, when, and where. In this class, each film had a story that needs to be told during that time period, and each one was done successfully.
A Cinematic Experience
Coming into to this class I knew very little about history and filmmaking. After taking this class my eyes have been opened to both of these subject matters. Especially since coming into this class I was not an individual that commonly watched movies.
The medieval times were a time of decline and corruption for the most part yet Hollywood chose this time period for many films. Throughout the class, I found this surprising to me but soon realized that this time period always supported film writers with all the necessary components to present a film worth watching. There were many legends and historical novels written either at this time or about this time period. Additionally, there was always conflict and romantic intrigue. These came in the forms of an extreme social class gap between peasants and royalty as well as the common theme of marriages forming not for romantic purposes but for political reasons.
Another aspect of this class that really opened my eyes to the cinema world was all the technical specifics that go into producing a noteworthy film. Ranging from the expensive sets, the holes dug out for camera angles, and right down to the specific film used. Interestingly enough as I viewed films from different countries I was able to see the cultural differences between different countries when it came to making films. Some filmmakers were able to be very liberal in the way they went about portraying ideas, whereas others had to produce very strict and regulated material.
Lastly, it is amazing how far films have come from the 1930’s to now in the 21st century. Going from black and white film to computer-generated imagery has completely changed what filmmakers are capable of. The world of cinema will continue to get richer and richer, providing all us viewers an opportunity to just sit back and enjoy ourselves.
Ivanhoe Critique
I did the double feature for Ivanhoe and A Knight’s Tale and thought it was a pretty good movie even though I had my hopes pretty low as it was an older movie and was not sure if it would be able to follow up to the excitement of the Knights Tale. Once i started this though I have to say that i fully enjoyed every second of it was full of story and even the action that was show was not too bad for the time. It wasn’t quite to scale with Knights Tale, but it did its best to show some good action. I do enjoy the main character Ivanhoe as well because he look like a badass and destroys all of his opponents like its nothing. He is an odd character as well with how direct he is. Overall I think this movie was pretty great and was a great film to show off the middle ages and the way in which the knights would participate in the tournaments.
Representation of Peasants in Films
No medieval world is complete without its people, and while the aristocrats and Royals are the main focus of many of the films we have watched, peasants complete the middle ages facade. In the movies, we have watched in class peasants of the middle ages have been portrayed many different ways. In Alexander Nevsky, the peasants of Rus were seen living in holes in the ground, but when the time called they were both able to take orders and be comparable fighters able to take on and eventually defeat the well equipped, well trained Teutonic knights. Other movies we have watched have taken a different approach to peasant life. In the Name of the Rose, the people living outside the monastery were seen as almost savages, they lived in filth not doing anything, and did not even speak for the entire movie. The “Girl” in the movie went as far as to prostitute herself just for food, this was not a very accurate depiction of serfs in the middle ages. A more accurate movie for peasant life was The Sorceress. This movie showed presents as normal working people, a little on the dim side not knowing how to write, and blaming forest spirits for sick children. They were not too dirty but the movie still showed that they were not the cleanest of people. this feels like one of the most in-depth accurate showings of peasants in our movies. In Brother Sun Sister Moon, we saw a couple of working peasants in robes but mostly the peasants just went to church. There are the bright technicolor depictions of peasants where the people living in the forest were clean and well-dressed. These depictions are tied as most inaccurate with the people in the name of the rose. Overall every movie has its own take on life in the middle ages, but the movie that most accurately depicts peasant life would have to be, The Name of the Rose.
Final Post
Historical films from the Medieval Era are not always on my watch list. After this class I am able to say that films that fit into the category should be on my list. There is a lot to learn about life and events in the past but being that it is a movie and it is so visual I am able to relate to it movie. I find it incredibly easy to relate to the films as I like to learn with the use of visuals. I have always heard that it is important examine historical events in order to prevent them. This may relate more to modern history but it can help teach us about modern history too. Technology and lifestyles have changed a lot since the Middle Ages but humans have not.
For my last May term I think that is somewhat fitting to take a Hollywood history class. I will be able to take these lessons from the classroom to the real world. I do not think that I will ever stop watching movies. I have a particular liking for bio pics. As we have watched bio pics in this class I will continue to use the critical eye that I developed in this film. Being able to detect fallacies in historical movies is a skill that I would say I have not mastered but certainly refined in this class.
This class came as a shock to me a little bit. With the title of Hollywood History, I figured that we would examine older Hollywood films that were made in the United States. I have thoroughly enjoyed being exposed to a different type of film and topics that are included. I will continue to utilize my critical eye when I watch films in the future.
A Semester of Change
At the beginning of this semester, I had very little experience to what I would classify as studying history. I had taken the required history classes in early high school such as US History and World History. These courses provided me with a very basic outline for my historical perspective. This in turn means that any and all additional knowledge I have gained about history stems from conversations and more importantly films.
There have been a number of historical films that I have seen throughout my life that have helped shape this perspective. These include The Patriot, The Pianist, Hidden Figures, Braveheart, and many more. These films are still surpassed in number and information when considering the films watched during the course of the class.
These films as a whole give the viewers a good perspective on how different historical events occurred. Unfortunately, it can also be said that a large majority of the population has a similar experience as me to where I have had very little formal history education. This means that writers and directors have a certain level of responsibility when it comes to being historically accurate within films. A large majority of the historical films that we watched within this class are historically accurate to a certain degree, but most individuals will take these films very literally, due to this reason writers and directors must be historically accurate.
Within our society there needs to be a conversation discussing the shared responsibility between directors and viewers on the historical knowledge that is gained and shared through film. As discussed, writers and directors need to make an attempt to maintain and improve the historical accuracy of their films. Additionally, viewers need to do a better job of checking the facts within these films for accuracy when using these as their primary source of historical knowledge. Hopefully through these two measures we can move as a society to greater knowledge of history through the resource of film.
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