Paul Bettany’s Chaucer Isn’t Too Pop Culture, Or Why A Knight’s Tale Deserves Academic Love

Published by Brianna
Breaking my own rule of never watching a film adaptation before reading its source text, I watched Brian Helgeland’s A Knight’s Tale long before I read Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale.  In my defence, I had forgotten much of the film’s content by the time I got around to reading the Canterbury Tales, and I hope to demonstrate that it would not have mattered if I did.  Now that I have re-watched the 2001 motion picture as a medieval literature student and a screenwriter with a particular penchant for adaptations, I have recognised an unexpected medieval-ness behind Helgeland’s boldly modern text, and I have re-weighed the efficacy of transmission of medieval literature through popular culture.
If you have not heard of or deigned to watch A Knight’s Tale, here is the official trailer:
Either way, I hope you will read on as I grapple with a) Helgeland’s anachronistic and “generic translation [that turns] high culture into popular culture” (Forni 254); b) the accepted view of popular culture as low culture; and c) our tradition and authority complex when it comes to medieval and medievalist texts.

From The Knight’s Tale to A Knight’s Tale

What makes a modern adaptation or reinterpretation text scholastically and artistically valid in the realm of medievalism (defined here)?  In working toward an answer, I am indebted to Louise D’Arcens and her 2008 article titled “Deconstruction and the Medieval Indefinite Article: The Undecidable Medievalism of Brian Helgeland’s A Knight’s Tale.”  She points out the significance of Helgeland’s indefinite “A” as opposed to Chaucer’s definite “The” and explains, among other things, that the film’s “undecidable medievalism” places it in a different category from, say, Peter Jackson’s strict adaptation of Lord of the Rings.  It is tempting, as a history buff or a Chaucerian or a medievalist, to watch, study, and criticise A Knight’s Tale as an adaptation of The Knight’s Tale, which almost necessarily leads one to view it as an American / capitalist / individualist / [insert any modern ideology with negative valence here] warping of the medieval period.  But these judgments rely on the a priori notion that the film’s sole intention was to create a visual adaptation of a medieval story, a medieval sport, a medieval society.  What I have gathered reading interviews with writer/director Brian Helgeland and watching the film as an admittedly childish (read: unassuming) medievalist leads me to reject that idea in favour of a more forgiving reading of the film as a medievalist text.

A Knight’s Tale is less a visual translation of and more a response to the modern that can be found in the medieval (or the medieval that can be found in the modern); it was first conceived by Brian Helgeland as a medieval sports film, and his inspiration for the film’s story stemmed from the fact that only nobles could compete in jousting tournaments (Reel 6 Interview).  Based on this tidbit, the primary “source text” for A Knight’s Tale is not, in fact, The Knight’s Tale.  The film is not an adaptation of Chaucer’s text at all (which is, by the way, a rendering of Boccaccio’s Teseida, not an original story, at least in the modern sense of the term).  Its inspiration stems from Helgeland’s fascination with the medieval sport of jousting, and its construction is based more on an ideology of cultural transmission than a strictly historical or literary tradition.  Helgeland explains Chaucer’s presence in the text, which clearly goes beyond the film’s title:

“One of the dangers of a period movie is that everything gets kind of put up on a pedestal and covered in varnish…I was an English major, and when we studied Chaucer he seemed like a guy who stepped out of a museum with dust all over him. But he had to be a more kind of out-there guy to write all that stuff. So having no idea, I’m hoping Paul [Bettany]’s version of Chaucer is closer to who Chaucer probably was…” (Contact Music)

Helgeland wanted Geoffrey “Geoff” Chaucer in his film to subvert the museum quality of the medieval period.  And for those of you who are still hoping for faithful adaptation, Helgeland did intend for his film to take place during a six-month period of Chaucer’s life for which historians have no record, which means that a) he did do his research and b) our adaptation theory can be thrown out the window.  The film’s setting and story is set in a fanciful medieval neverland, really.  Helgeland gets off the hook.

Furthermore, Brian Helgeland’s interviews reveal that a dialogue with, rather than a translation of, the medieval period was in his head for the making of A Knight’s Tale.  One interviewer remarks that “it seemed the movie was about youth and identity in some ways, and also questioning the powers that be” (Contact Music).  I would argue that this film’s subversive questioning is what makes it so delightfully medieval.  Even if you disagree, it is clear that Helgeland’s aim was to coax to the surface those medieval aspects of modern society, or to tease out the modern-seeming aspects of medieval society.  In short, the film really is easier to appreciate if one’s critical viewing considers Helgeland’s vision for the film:

“We have computers and cell phones and cars, and all that. But they had all that too, they had horses, they wrote things down — I really believe that people have never changed, really. They laugh, they fall in love, they go to war, they never change” (Interview with Marty Mapes).

Of the people, By the people, For the people 

Perhaps it’s the American in me that delighted in William, Watt, and Roland’s quest to stick it (jousting!) to the (noble)man.  Don’t we all love an underdog story?  The short answer: not if it gets too close to beloved literature and literary figures.  The long answer: not when it propagates “the pervasive, and ostensibly insurmountable, chasm between the popular and the academic Chaucer” and “transform[s] a Boethian exploration of human happiness and divine justice into a predictable and vulgar myth of fulfilment” (Forni 254); and certainly not when it “refus[es] to acknowledge the nature and mannerisms of social customs and people in Europe at the time” (Jeffrey Badder).  In defense of the first complaint, Kathleen Forni does make an astute observation.  She argues that A Knight’s Tale denotes the modern reception of Chaucer as a figure for popular culture (as opposed to Shakespeare’s popularity with intellectuals) (Forni 262).  While I agree that Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales lends itself well to the modern storyteller who might wish to create a comic, pop culture-y text set in the medieval period, I do not necessarily think that we should lament it.  After all, even Shakespeare wrote for the masses–the foundlings occupying the standing space in theatres were part of the Bard’s carefully aimed double entendres and satire.  And the modern conception of popular culture–having much to do with mass printing–does not really fit in Chaucer’s time.  This brings me to Forni’s second point.

As I noted earlier, Brian Helgeland clearly did not have an adaptation of Chaucer’s Knight’s Tale in mind when he set out to write A Knight’s Tale. He had jousting, 70s rock, and the philosophy that a man can change his stars guiding his script.  He was writing a tale about a knight, not the tale about the knight, as  Louise D’Arcens articulates in her argument.  He is not trying to recreate Chaucer’s “Boethian exploration of human happinessand divine justice,” so we certainly cannot hold his film to that standard.  Consequently, I cannot agree with Forni’s judgment on A Knight’s Tale on the grounds that her arguments are supported by assumptions that simply cannot be applied to Helgeland’s film.  Furthermore, she does not consider the film’s genre, or the fact that film is meant to be massively consumed and is closely bound up with “popular culture,” which she seems to think is a dismantling of Chaucer’s image as the classy father of English poetry. A Knight’s Tale is irreverent, maybe, but so is the Canterbury Tales. A Knight’s Tale is a comedy, a kind of modern tribute to the medieval sport of jousting.  (All criticism I read about the film did allow that the cinematography of the actual jousting is phenomenal.)  So why can we not appreciate A Knight’s Tale for what it is?

Our Obsession with Lineage: A Pristine Medieval Period

Brian Helgeland’s A Knight’s Tale subverts textual authority in a way that especially bother medievalists.  Whether it is with Queen’s “We Will Rock You” or Jocelyn’s failure to conform to our ideas of a medieval noblewoman, Helgeland defies expectations anyone might draw from the title of the film, its inclusion of Geoffrey Chaucer, or its medieval setting.  Is it, then, the feeling of being duped that upsets the likes of Jeffrey Badder and Kathleen Forni?

The former’s tone of disappointment as he describes the opening scene certainly points to the frustration of expectation:

“The crowd “does the wave” as at a modern baseball stadium, competitors pump their breastplates like football players, and the nobles, apparently fans of 1970’s rock-and-roll, sing along to the theme music; the guitar solo, in fact, is even timed to appear as though it comes from the trumpet players on the tournament grounds” (Jeffrey Badder).

The opening of A Knight’s Tale reminds me of scenes in Shrek where 90s pop music rules the fairytale land.  No one seems to be bothered by it, perhaps because Shrek is acknowledged as a fairytale; it is animated.  Although A Knight’s Tale does pull the rug out from under those of us who come in to the film expecting a historically accurate adaptation of Chaucer’s first Canterbury Tale, I would argue that the film is straightforward and honest about its fairytale quality from the beginning.

I am inclined also to view the medieval scholar’s discomfort with A Knight’s Tale as a manifestation of our obsession with tradition and lineage and of our tendency to view historical figures such as Chaucer and historical cultures as pristine and sacred (in that they should be preserved and studied rather than embodied, filtered, and transmitted in a modern hand).  After all, the notions of textual tradition and authority have existed at least since Chaucer’s lifetime; in Troilus and Criseyde, for example, he probably invented a classical textual source for his story, crediting a “Lollius” whose name only appears in the Chaucer’s text.  What’s more, Chaucer and other medieval writers freely borrowed, innovated, and plucked pieces from other texts while modern authors are governed by not only copyrights protecting intellectual property and reverence for the past, including its literary figures.  This creates a standard for film adaptations that is creatively restrictive.  While there is something to be said for strict adaptations, the strength of Brian Helgeland’s comic and epic tale is in its humour and its apparently modern view that “a man can change his stars.”

Conclusions

“If we are to truly grasp the significance of a medievalist text within the undecidability of medievalism, we need to accept, and not condemn, its partial truth, its blithe purloining, and most of all its fluctuating allegiances, which it directs promiscuously not only to the medieval past, but also to other…pasts, the present, and even the future” (D’Arcens 98).

Louise D’Arcens’s conclusion resonates with my experience watching A Knight’s Tale for the second time (the first time as a medievalist).  It was marked by delight and recognition of unexpected medieval elements.  I anticipated a quirky medieval-esque comedy, so I was pleasantly surprised whenever Helgeland dropped gems like the importance of pilgrimage (in Chaucer’s introductions of Will as Sir Ulrich).  And although steeped in modern ideology, I recognised Helgeland’s construction of an estates satire within the template of Hollywood’s cathartic good vs. evil plotline: The priest, for example, is shushed by the fiery Jocelyn as tries to silence her in his cathedral.  Geoff Chaucer calls attention to the class divide at tournaments and pokes fun at the noble class by addressing “everybody else here not sitting on a cushion” when he introduces Sir Ulrich.  And unredeemable baddie Count Adhemar is thoroughly shown to be as ignoble in manner as Will is in blood.

My viewing of the film was consquently enriched by my determination to watch it as a product of its time and as in dialogue with, rather than necessarily deriving from, a bygone time and culture that continues to intrigue modern society.  As scholars and film-viewers, we can learn something from such a reading of Helgeland’s text: taking a break from the traditional criticism of medievalist texts is beneficial, for both academic inquiry and cinematic pleasure.

Works Cited:
D’Arcens, Louise. “Deconstruction and the Medieval Indefinite Article: The Undecidable Medievalism of Brian Helgeland’s A Knight’s Tale” in Parergon, vol. 25, no. 2, pp. 88-98. Australian and New Zealand Association of Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 2008. Article. Web. 31 March 2016.
Forni, Kathleen. “Reinventing Chaucer: Helgeland’s A Knight’s Tale” in The Chaucer Review, vol. 37, no. 3, pp. 253-264. Penn State University Press, 2003. Article. Web. 31 March 2016.

 

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