A student asked in class last night, "What film can ...

A student asked in class last night, "What film can you recommend for mini-paper #3?" (The mini-papers are, just read an article, visit a museum, read a book, watch a movie that has to do with the time-period we've been covering in this section of the course). This section of the course is Middle Ages and Renaissance. I suggested The Lion in Winter, Name of the Rose - they were delighted to hear that I'd count Holy Grail (SOMEONE in Monty Python - I think Terry Jones - is a serious medieval scholar and did his homework on Grail legends), or any Robin Hood movie including Men in Tights - and from there we got onto the subject of True Medieval Stinkers: The Long Ships, El Cid, King Richard and the Crusaders, The Thirteenth Warrior. (I forgot to mention Season of the Witch, which is right up there...) I said Mongol was definitely okay, and added, "If you want Genjhis Khan, the Worst Movie In The WOrld [except for Showgirls] is the 1951 (I believe) film, The COnquorer, with John Wayne as Genjhis Khan."

It all comes under the heading of History Can Be Fun. (If you can call The Long Ships history...) History can be entertaining. It isn't all dates and awfulness.

I also said, the games Prince of Persia and any of the incarnations of Assassin's Creed are okay, too... I should have mentioned Dante's Inferno as well. Also the mini-series someone made of The Arabian Nights a couple of years ago, each tale set in a different culture of the many-faceted world of Islam, from Western China on through Africa and all stops in between.

They may not remember the name of the last Merovingian King of France or the circumstances of his dethronement by the Carolingians, but they'll remember putting the movie Beowulf into the context of the history class.