Knights and jousting tournaments, beautiful ladies and their broken hearts. The ringing of chain mail swords, military campaigns and conquests, a feast of flesh and spirit, burning bonfires of the Inquisition and beautiful witches roasting on them - all this is our idea of the Middle Ages, isn't it?
The best films about the Middle Ages are those where the era is reflected without special embellishments, where the beauty of the noble costumes does not hinder the eyes and the dirt of the streets through which garbage and impurities flow, and the beauty of the architecture that was born then. These are films about strong people, striving for happiness and love, facing pain and injustice, horrors and wars. Films about people overcoming the cruelty of the world.
Creators of the beautiful
"The Name of the Rose" (Der Name der Rose, director Jean-Jacques Annot, 1986) is a treatise by the great Aristotle on comedy, the only copy of which is stored in the secret department of the great monastery library. The book becomes a source of crime and death, which is destined to be investigated by the Franciscan monk William Baskervilsky (performed by Sean Connery) and his assistant, novice Adson (Christian Slater). The film was created in the genre of historical detective story, visually beautiful and spectacular, and all the characters seemed to have come down from the paintings of artists of that era. It contains a few philosophical and religious considerations, in abundance of medieval customs and events, and the work of priests in falsifying world history is shown in amazing naturalism.
“Lope de Vega: The Libertine and the Seducer” (Lope, director Andrusha Weddington, 2010) - without which, besides wars, the people could not live in the Middle Ages, it was without spectacles. Great artists, poets and playwrights created the era and Europe no less than the conquering kings. To mix tragedy with comedy in those days was no less a crime than blaspheming, but thanks to the talents of Lope - both poetic and love - of world history somehow had to put up with it. For his time, he was too swift and full of constant changes, and that was what was important for the director Andrush Weddington. Perhaps you should not look in this film for either a reliable biography or the ease of a love story, familiar from the old television movie "Dog in the Hay", filmed from one of the plays of a prolific playwright. The film by Andrush Weddington is good because it is simple and shot without stereotypes about that time and poets. Although there is plenty of love and romantic poetry in it.
"Ghosts of Goya" (Goya's Ghosts, director Milos Forman, 2006) - the heroes of the film are people as if descended from the paintings of the great painter. Those whose fate he followed, and whose faces here and there are found in his canvases and pencil sketches. The priest Lorenzo (performed by Javier Bardem) and the beautiful Ines (Natalie Portman) first saw each other in portraits in the workshop of Master Francisco Goya (Stellan Skarsgård). A moment, and their fate was already intertwined: the dormant Inquisition, suspecting dissent and in a plate of chicken eaten, not pork, seized the girl, and even the lustful Jesuit priest could not save her and was forced to flee Spain. Fifteen years later, France occupied Spain, slaughtering and hanging the resistance, raping civilians, destroying dissent, but also abolishing the Inquisition on its way. Heroes meet again. They are not beautiful, like the world around them. And only the deafened Goya gives hope, capturing in his immortal sketch, death on a scaffold and a newborn baby in the arms of madness.
Knights and Beautiful Ladies
“Braveheart” (Braveheart, director Mel Gibson, 1995) - Mel Gibson took the film as the basis of the story of the legendary Scottish national hero William Wallace, who fought with the British, and tried to include in his film all possible ideas about the era, about heroism, about love for To the Beautiful Lady, about the desire of the unconquered small nations to Freedom. Among the manure, mud, battles, the clanking of swords and knives glaring at the throats of enemies, women and children, a small but great freedom-loving nation was born. And she was born because she rallied her life, and then the death of a national hero.
“The Knight's Story” (A Knight's Tale, director Brian Helgeland, 2001) is one of the few films about the Middle Ages, made with a good sense of humor, an exquisite irony in the genre of a romantic historical tale. A boy from a poor, noble family, once wearing the owner’s armor, wins a knightly tournament. With this begins his adventures, victories in tournaments and love, as well as crafty enemies. This film was one of the first real acting successes for the talented Heath Ledger, who is a real Knight here without fear and reproach.
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