filmography

This post will be revised and updated from time to time, and film titles will be hyperlinked, where possible, to online clips and, it is hoped, to YouTube downloads (sometimes a whole work, more often that work divided into several shortish parts).

TOP ONLINE RESOURCES

• CMRS goes to the Movies (Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, UCLA)
• Medieval History in the Movies (The Internet Medieval Sourcebook – Paul Halsall, Fordham University); another list (1996) by Paul Halsall, for Mediev-L; from that same forum, nominations for worst Medieval film of all time (many are so bad they’re good, and I happen to be rather fond of several on the list).
• Studies of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages (Michael Torregrossa, University of Connecticut) “the official blog of The Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages, a virtual community of scholars and enthusiasts organized to promote and foster scholarship on and teaching and discussion of representations of the medieval in post-medieval popular culture and mass media. Encompassing material produced from the close of the Middle Ages to today, these medievalisms can be categorized as survivals, revivals, or re-creations of the medieval in post-medieval eras.”
• The Internet Movie Database
• Wikipedia’s List of Films Based on Arthurian Legend and
• The extensive filmography and bibliography at Arthurian Film (Kevin J. Harty, c/o The Camelot Project)

ARTHURIANA

From the sublime to the ridiculous (but mostly, I trust, the former).

• Camelot (Logan, 1967: Richard Harris, Vanessa Redgrave, Franco Nero – from the Lerner & Loewe musical)
• Lancelot du Lac (Bresson, 1974: Luc Simon)
• Perceval le Gallois (Rohmer, 1978: Fabrice Luchini et al): the best Perceval film ever; script, ± Chrétien de Troyes
• Feuer und Schwert (von Furstenberg, 1981: Peter Firth)
• I Skugga Hrafnsins (Gunnlaugsson, 1988: Reine Brynolfsson, Tinna Gunnlaugsdottir): the best Tristan film ever.
• First Knight (Zucker, 1995: Sean Connery, Richard Gere, Julia Ormond)
• Merlin (Barron, 1998 TV series: Sam Neill, Helena Bonham Carter, Miranda Richardson)
• A Knight’s Tale (Helgeland, 2001: Heath Ledger, Rufus Sewell)
• King Arthur (Fuqua, 2004: Clive Owen, Ioan Gruffudd, Keira Knightley)
• Tristan + Isolde (Reynolds, 2006: James Franco, Sophie Myles, Rufus Sewell)

MEDIEVALISM

• Die Niebelungen: Siegfried – Kriemhilds Rache (Lang, 1924)
• La Passion de Jeanne d’Arc (Dreyer, 1928: Falconetti) + the following Joans:
  • Rossellini 1954 with Ingrid Bergman
  • Bresson 1962 with Florenz Carrez
  • (cough, splutter) Besson 1999 with Milla Jovovitch
• The Adventures of Robin Hood (Curtiz, 1938: Errol Flynn)
  • Robin Hood (Disney, 1973: the best Robin Hood movie)
  • Robin and Marian (Lester, 1976: Sean Connery, Audrey Hepburn, Robert Shaw)
  • Robin Hood: Men in Tights (Mel Brooks, 1993)
• Det Sjunde Inseglet / The Seventh Seal (Bergman, 1957: Max von Sydow)
• The Lion in Winter (Harvey/Goldman, 1968: Peter O’Toole, Katherine Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton)
• Decameron, II (Pasolini, 1971)
• Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Gilliam and Jones, 1975: Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, Michael Palin). Possibly the finest and most verisimilitudinous medieval film ever made. Also:
  • Jabberwocky (1977)
  • Erik the Viking (1989)
  • The Fisher King (1991)
• Le Retour de Martin Guerre (Vigne, 1982: Gérard Depardieu)
• The Name of the Rose (Annaud, 1989: Sean Connery, Christian Slater)
• Les Visiteurs (Poiré, 1993: Christian Clavier, Jean Reno, Valérie Lemercier)
• The Hour of the Pig (Megahey, 1993: Colin Firth, Ian Holm)
• Kristin Lavransdatter (Ullmann, 1995)
• (slight clearing of throat) Kingdom of Heaven (Ridley Scott, 2005: Orlando Bloom, Liam Neeson, David Thewlis)
• (cough, splutter) Beowulf (Zemeckis, 2007: Anthony Hopkins, John Malkovich, Angelina Jolie)

SECOND-DEGREE MEDIEVALISM

Comprising literary fictions of less direct Medieval association; versions and variants, translated and refashioned onto film; some po-mo business. This list cannot possibly encompass the plethora of imaginative otherwordliness (Burton, Gilliam, Jeunet, Svankmajr, del Toro, … ), Medievally-inspired fantasy and horror, and more or less chivalrous superheroes out there. Superheroes would appear to be very fashionable at present – and, even, the topic of discussion in more highbrow publications. Out of prejudice, I have included some superheroines.

• The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Diterle, 1939: Charles Laughton, Maureen O’Hara)
  • Notre Dame de Paris (Delannoy, 1954: Anthony Quinn, Gina Lollobrigida)
• A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (Garnett, 1949)
• Ivanhoe (Thorpe, 1952: Elizabeth Taylor, Joan Fontaine, George Sanders)
• Prince Valiant (Hathaway, 1954: James Mason, Janet Leigh; Hal Foster comic strip)
• The Masque of the Red Death (Corman, 1964: Vincent Price, Jane Asher, Hazel Court, Patrick Magee): Hammer at its best, inc. Roeg cinematography
• Knightriders (Romero, 1981)
• Conan the Barbarian (Milius, 1982: Arnold Schwarzenegger)
• The Princess Bride (Reiner, 1987: Cary Elwes, Robin Wright)
• Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Spielberg, 1989: Harrison Ford) … and the others …
• Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy (Wilson, 2000: Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Stephen Fry, Christopher Lee, … )
• Shrek (Adamson, 2001: Mike Myers et al) and Shrek 2 (2004) but not 3.
• Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (TR1 West, 2001; TR2 de Bont, 2003: Angelina Jolie, John Voight, Daniel Craig, Ciarán Hinds)
• J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings (Jackson, 2001-03: Elijah Wood, Ian McKellen, Viggo Mortensen, Orlando Bloom, Sean Bean, … )
• The Hours (Daldry, 2002: Nicole Kidman, Julianne Moore, Meryl Streep) and assorted others on writing, metafiction, and so on
• Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (DeEmmony et al, 2003: James Nesbitt, Julie Waters, Bill Nighy, … )
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer (1997-2003)
• (cough, splutter) Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series (Liberman, 2004: Danny Glover, Isabella Rossellini)
• J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit (del Toro, 2011: Ian McKellen, others t.b.a.)
• George R. R. Martin’s Game of Thrones / A Song of Ice and Fire (2011-)