'Medieval Film' on the Public Understanding of the Middle Ages
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Based on a True History?: The Impact of Popular ‘Medieval Film’ on the Public Understanding of the Middle Ages Paul B. Sturtevant Submitted in accordance with the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy The University of Leeds Institute for Medieval Studies and Centre for World Cinemas September, 2010 ii The candidate confirms that the work submitted is his own and that appropriate credit has been given where reference has been made to the work of others. This copy has been supplied on the understanding that it is copyright material and that no quotation from the thesis may be published without proper acknowledgement. The right of Paul B. Sturtevant to be identified as Author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. © 2010 The University of Leeds and Paul B. Sturtevant iii Acknowledgements An early draft of this thesis contained the line ‘Epic films do not spring, fully-fledged, from the skull of Mel Gibson’. While that line (and the glibness and amusing metaphor it contains) are gone, the sentiment is still there; no matter whose name is in bold on the poster, films are a collaborative art form with hundreds of people working to create the final product. A thesis is no different; just because my name is on the title page does not mean that I did not enjoy the collaborative efforts of a number of people, all of whom deserve acknowledgement and thanks. First and foremost, my supervisors. The interdisciplinarity of this project demanded expertise from a variety of fields, and as such I received helpful advice from a larger-than-usual number of people in different disciplines. Firstly, Professor Richard K. Morris, my supervisor from the Institute for Medieval Studies, without whom my project would probably not been accepted. He has been as supportive as a person could hope for in the face of the many difficulties a project like this inevitably finds, and has maintained both a critical eye and good humour throughout. My second supervisor, Professor Lúcia Nagib, challenged me to revise my instinctual problems with critical theory, and helped me to not just ‘talk the talk’ but also ‘walk the walk’ of Film Studies. During my first year I received supervision from Professor Andrew Wawn, from the English department, without whom I suspect my analyses of Beowulf and The Lord of the Rings would have been not as nuanced as they are. Professor David Morrison from the Institute for Communications Studies provided a crucial methodological ‘leg-up’ at an important moment, meeting with me a number of times, providing books and bibliographies and advice, entirely pro bono, in order to help me teach myself to be an audience researcher. Finally, my fifth column: Professor Elizabeth Sturtevant of the College of Education and Human Development at George Mason University (and also, incidentally, my mother). I highly recommend that every PhD student have a mother who is a professor in a cognate field. She helped with everything throughout, from challenging my assumptions, refining my research questions, being there to constantly bounce ideas off and, during one set of particularly iv memorable Christmas and summer vacations, providing the electric shock therapy necessary to begin, and keep, writing. The fieldwork completed for this PhD relied upon a few colleagues and friends who provided crucial assistance on the days of the focus groups: Cassie and Nicholas Dupras, Michael Garcia, Steve Werronen and Joanna Phillips. Also, I would like to thank all the participants in the study for volunteering their time and providing such ample fodder for this study. I would also like to thank Wendy Cook, manager of the Hyde Park Picture House, for providing a number of film passes that were used to reward the participants in the study for their time; it made a financially-difficult venture easier to accomplish. Those who volunteered their time to read and comment upon my thesis deserve thanks as well. In addition to the above-mentioned supervisors, I had very helpful editorial advice provided by Axel Müller and Geoffrey Humble. I must thank the support structure at the Institute for Medieval Studies, particularly Alison Martin and Mary Swan, for being efficient, straightforward and chasing me when I needed chasing. During the course of my PhD I have worked half-time for the Lifelong Learning Centre at the University of Leeds in order to fund my life. My managers and colleagues there have been incredibly helpful and supportive, (especially Jane Hanna and Kate Barley) allowing me time off, commiseration and ample cups of tea when needed. They deserve my thanks. We live in an exciting era for researchers; every year it seems there is a new technological development which expands our ability to find and utilise the vast swath of human experience. Even better for students, these resources are often free. As such, the developers of the open-source bibliographical program Zotero (at George Mason University) deserve thanks —for providing a tool which makes the boring task of source management and bibliography remarkably easy, and doing so for free: http://www.zotero.org. Additionally, I have found the Google Books, Google Scholar, and JSTOR online research tools crucial in helping me find what needed finding (and a few other things along the way). v I would like to thank my family— my father Dave Sturtevant, my sister Lee and my brother Dan— for facilitating, encouraging, visiting and supporting me through my time in the UK. Finally, (and so in the second place of honour), I must thank my girlfriend – or better put, partner—Tamsin Badcoe. She not only provided editorial advice on my thesis and a valuable sounding-board for ideas, but moreover, continually helped keep me happy, healthy and sane throughout. Without her, this would not have been possible. vi Abstract This thesis examines the understanding of the Middle Ages among the UK public and the impact that popular big-budget films which depict the period have on that understanding. Three films released between 2000 and 2009 are chosen for detailed study, their selection being determined by success at the UK box office as a measure of popularity: Lord of the Rings, Return of the King (Jackson, 2003), Kingdom of Heaven (Scott, 2005) and Beowulf (Zemeckis, 2007). Ten focus group interviews were conducted with nineteen participants, all between eighteen and twenty-six years of age, none of whom had studied the Middle Ages at GCSE level (age 14-16) or higher. In these groups, participants discussed their knowledge of the Middle Ages, were shown a film, and then discussed what they had seen. Participants were asked open-ended interview questions to encourage them to respond in their own terms and define what was important to them. As a result, topics ranged widely. In preliminary discussions, participants discussed how they understood the period, their academic, experiential and pop-culture sources of knowledge, their definitions of the similar terms ‘medieval’ and ‘Middle Ages’ and also their ideas about medieval culture, religion, warfare and crusade. After the films, participants discussed what they had seen usually in the context of what they already knew, sometimes constructing false memories of what they had seen which fit with their previous knowledge. Often they used the language of historical veracity to criticise the film for other related reasons (like poor filmmaking or inappropriate accents). They found support for many of their historical misconceptions in the films, but, rather than accepting all they saw as historical truth, they engaged in a complex critical discourse with what they were shown. The findings of this thesis have implications for medieval (and medievalism) studies, public history, and for the delivery of history in primary, secondary and higher education. vii Contents Chapter 1: On ‘medievalism’ and the ‘medieval film’ .................................................................. 1 Aims and outline ....................................................................................................................... 2 What is a ‘medieval film’? ......................................................................................................... 4 Hypermedievalism .................................................................................................................... 8 Chapter 2: Theory and related research ..................................................................................... 14 The nascent field of ‘medieval film’ studies ........................................................................... 14 Quest for theory ...................................................................................................................... 25 Relevant similar research in other fields ................................................................................ 29 Sociology and the search for a method .................................................................................. 41 Chapter 3: Research methodology ............................................................................................. 49 Research design ...................................................................................................................... 49 Qualitative data analysis ......................................................................................................... 53 Research design rationale ......................................................................................................