ITL 230 CC: ITALIAN MIDDLE AGES &FILMS

From TV series like Game of Thrones and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina, to videogames like Dante’s Inferno and Assassin’s Creed, popular imagination loves to engage with ideas of the Middle Ages. Medieval times and texts are sources of fantasy tropes and historical revivals, filled with images that generate serious and ironic revisitations even today. But what are the modes through which our never-ending fascination feeds on the texts, the characters, and the stories of the medieval times? What are the preferred themes that creep along the cinematic world? How does cinema help us understand the Middle Ages?

Some of the themes explored will be: the search for a hero; epic battles; sex and love; ironic reinterpretation; the Crusades; the Arthurian romances; the afterlife; the racialized Other; Islam and Christianity. Our texts will include: Song of Roland, Dante’s Divine Comedy, Boccaccio’s Decameron, Petrarca’s Guide to the Holy Land, Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando Furioso, Torquato Tasso’s Jerusalem Delivered, Medieval lives of Muhammed and St. Francis of Assisi. Our film sources will include: Pier Paolo Pasolini’s Trilogy of Life, Jean-Jacques Annaud’s The Name of the Rose, Moustapha Akkad’s The Message, Bruce Neibaur’s Journey to Mecca, Mario Monicelli’s L’armata Brancaleone, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Game of Thrones, and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina.