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.