A Knight's Tale

I mentioned the excellent movie A Knight's Tale in my last diet post on Friday. Nick Milne was kind enough to say a few words about the movie in the combox, saying:

I'm also glad to see the love for A Knight's Tale, provided, as you say, that we enjoy it for its coolness rather than for any semblance of accuracy. It strikes me that Chaucer's stories about his own times are probably just as stylized as this movie is, albeit in necessarily different ways, so the charge of historical non-fealty on some critics' parts has always left me unsatisfied.

In any event, films like A Knight's Tale stand as proof that post-modernism in art isn't all bad, provided there's some good sense behind it. PoMo is at its best when it's playing with time and genre, and the film is a fine example of both.

I have never read Chaucer (the movie is verrrrry loosely based on the story "A Knight's Tale" from The Canterbury Tales) or read Chesterton's book on him (please don't kill me, fellow Chestertonians), so I don't know how stylized his stories are. But I think he would have liked this movie. And based on what Art Livingston wrote in his review that ran in Gilbert Magazine back in 2006, Chaucer would have scoffed at critics who said this movie was no good simply because the soundtrack featured 1970s-era classic rock:

Only until recently have people paid much attention to minute historical accuracy, and our ancestors would have thought it blatant pedantry to do so. As late as the 18th century, actors trod the boards in performances of Joseph Addison's Cato while being bedecked in periwigs. Similarly, the real Chaucer cared so little for such accuracy that the laws of chivalry bind an ancient Trojan like Troilus.

And then Art concludes, "And then the truth dawned on me: this story is being told the medieval way, just as surely as clocks strike the hour in Julius Caesar—without regard to historicism."

Just so. To slam A Knight's Tale (2001) because its soundtrack features classic rock is to miss the whole point. For one thing, symphonies and orchestras didn't exist in the Middle Ages either, so a more conventional score would have been just as anachronistic. And substituting classic rock for folk music does serve an artistic purpose. They did have popular music then, just as we have popular music now. But how much easier it is to draw the viewer into that world with our popular music than with theirs. That's how songs like "We Will Rock You" and "The Boys are Back in Town" work in this movie, drawing the viewer in, just as the anachronistic hobbits draw the modern reader into Middle Earth. Writer/director Brian Helgeland pulls this off most successfully at a banquet, when a dance tune with lutes and harps and whatnot suddenly morphs into David Bowie's "Golden Years."

Plus, it's just plain fun. As Helgeland jokes on the commmentary track on the DVD, "I'm sorry, but nobody told me that they didn't have classic rock in the 13th century. How as I to know?"

A Knight's Tale is a fun and thrilling celebration of the High Middle Ages. How often do you get that from Hollywood? The story is simple enough: a peasant, William (Heath Ledger) disguises himself as a nobleman in order to compete in jousting tournaments. Geoffrey Chaucer (Paul Bettany) provides the forged patents of nobility. William's recently deceased lord provides the horse and armor. And thus begins a rolicking adventure across France, culminating at the World Championship jousting tournament in London. There is humor both high and low, and great lines a-plenty that guys can quote over beers long into the night:

"Betray us, and I will fong you, until your insides are out, your outsides are in, your entrails will become your extrails I will w-rip... all the p... ung. Pain, lots of pain."

"That does it. The Pope may be French but Jesus was English. You're on!"

"Alright I'm about this fonging close mate!"

"Yes, behold my lord Ulrich, the rock, the hard place...we walk in the garden of his turpulence!"

"Fong him."

A great word, fong. Means "to kick." That it sounds somewhat like the F-bomb is merely a coincidence.

My one criticism is that Church officials are depicted as rather clownish. But then again many Church officials in real life are far worse than clowns. Say, wasn't that two cardinals, two princes of the Church, who invited Catholic pro-abort politicians to two Papal Masses when our Beloved German Shepherd was here last month, in which those same pro-abort Catholic politicians all took communion? Yeah, Church officials being mere clowns would be an improvement. If we don't want clerics ridiculed on film, we should force them to act more like saints in real life. So in this respect the film is depressingly accurate. Some things never change.

I should say a word about Heath Ledger, who died tragically last winter of an accidental overdose of prescription medication. A Knight's Tale was one of his first films. I don't know if he was even 20 yet. Yet even here he shows amazing talent and versitility. Critics say he was masterful in Brokeback Mountain. I'll have to take their word for it because I don't plan to ever see that film. But he is wonderful in A Knight's Tale too, bringing to his role pathos, humor, youthful optimism, and more, making William a fully fleshed-out and developed character. Going by the trailers for this summer's The Dark Knight, Ledger's performance as The Joker looks to be groundbreaking, stunning, brilliant, masterful, and any other superlative you care to supply. No, Heath's Joker will be much more than just Jack Nicholson playing himself in makeup. I will miss Heath Ledger, a rare talent and one of the great Hollywood might-have-beens.