Robin Hood on Film/TV News

The upcoming 9th Biennial Conference of the International Association of Robin Hood Studies convenes from 31 October through 3 November at St Louis University and opens with a slate of panels on Robin Hood on screen. Details as follows. The complete program and conference information can be accessed at http://robinhood.slu.edu/index.html.

Thursday, 31 October

Session 1- Screen Games 1 [1:15 – 2:45 Il Monastero]

1. What a wicked game to play: The Robin/Guy/Marian Triangle in the 2006 BBC Robin Hood
Leah Larson, Our Lady of the Lake University

2. Playing the Bold Robin Hood: The Early Ballads in Season One of the BBC’s Robin Hood
Kelhi DePace, Auburn University Montgomery)

3. Mummers and jousters: Gentrification in Robin of Sherwood
Laura Blunk, Cuyahoga Community College


Session 2 – Screen Games 2 [3:00 – 4:30 Il Monastero]
Chair: Colin Pajda

1. The Evolution of Maid Marian in Film
Haley Cole, Auburn University Montgomery

2. Russell Crowe’s Robin Hood and a game of variants
Joanna Szwed-Sliwowska, University of Warsaw

3. Through the Virtual Greenwood: A Discussion of Robin Hood Video Games
Thomas Rowland, Saint Louis University

CFPs PCA/ACA 2014 (11/1/13)

The Popular Culture Association/American Culture Association has published its calls for papers for the 2014 meeting in Chicago. Relevant areas include the following. Click the link for further details:


Medievalism in Popular Culture

Shakespeare on Film and Television

Tolkien Studies - Special Topic – New for 2014!

Adaptation (Film, TV, Lit., & Electronic Gaming)

 

Open Call Quarterly Review of Film and Video

A head's up from the MLA's Announcements of General Interest list:

Quarterly Review of Film and Video (QRFV) seeks new submissions on film, video, and moving-image studies. QRFV is devoted to providing innovative perspectives from a broad range of methodologies, including writings on newly developing technologies, as well as essays and interviews in any area of film history, production, reception, and criticism. The editors invite compelling, well-crafted essays on all aspects of film and the moving image—history, theory, and criticism—and welcomes essays on video games and video installations, the moving image in popular culture, and the ways in which the digital and filmic image now intersect in production, distribution, and exhibition. Also of interest are articles that explore the recovery of neglected films and issues arising from the digitization of the moving image, as well as interviews with directors, festival reports, and theoretical essays. QRFV regularly publishes 6–10-page book reviews. Potential reviewers should query the editors before undertaking a review. The editors also assign reviews. Submissions are accepted throughout the year; there is no deadline. The journal publishes five issues a year (four regular issues and one year-end special issue). Articles range from 20 to 35 pages in length, including notes and works-cited list, and may be in MLA or Chicago format. The complete guidelines for QRFV articles and reviews can be downloaded at http://eng-wdixon.unl.edu/format.html. The Transfer of Copyright Agreement, which must be downloaded, signed by the author, and submitted with each article or review, is at http://eng-wdixon.unl.edu/qrfv.pdf. Send submissions to wheelerdixon@windstream.net. For more information, write or call the editors, Wheeler Winston Dixon and Gwendolyn Audrey Foster, Dept. of English, 202 Andrews Hall, Univ. of Nebraska, Lincoln 68588-0333 (402 472-6064; fax: 402 472-9771).

Sinbad Marathon Today on Syfy

Syfy is airing a marathon of the new series Sinbad today. I saw the first episode and thought it had some promise (see teaser below and its Wikipedia page at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinbad_(TV_series) ) but have not been able to catch the later episodes. The series, produced by British network Sky1, will be out on DVD and Blu-ray in the fall and can be viewed now on Amazon Instant Video and iTunes.





Here are the times and episode listings:

11:00 AM Sinbad, Season 1 : Pilot

12:00 PM Sinbad, Season 1: Queen Of The Water-thieves

01:00 PM Sinbad, Season 1: House Of Games

 02:00 PM Sinbad, Season 1: Old Man Of The Sea

03:00 PM Sinbad, Season 1: Hunted

04:00 PM Sinbad, Season 1: The Siren

05:00 PM Sinbad, Season 1: Homecoming

06:00 PM Sinbad, Season 1: Kuji

07:00 PM Sinbad, Season 1: Eye Of The Tiger

08:00 PM Sinbad, Season 1: For Whom The Egg Shatters

09:00 PM Sinbad, Season 1: Fiend Or Friend?

10:00 PM Sinbad, Season 1: Land Of The Dead

Sword in Stone and Robin Hood Updates

Advance reviews of both The Sword in thse Stone and Robin Hood Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Edition combo packs reveal that both releases will include concept art for scenes deleted from the films. Further details at the following site:

The Sword in the Stone:

http://www.criterionforum.org/DVD-review/the-sword-in-the-stone-dual-format-edition/disney/1202

http://moviemansguide.com/main/2013/07/review-swordinthestone-bd/


Robin Hood:

http://www.criterionforum.org/DVD-review/robin-hood-dual-format-edition/disney/1204

http://moviemansguide.com/main/2013/07/review-robinhood-bd/

Kozintsev’s Shakespeare Films by Tiffany Ann Conroy Moore

Sorry to have missed this:

Kozintsev’s Shakespeare Films: Russian Political Protest in Hamlet and King Lear
https://mcfarlandbooks.com/product/kozintsevs-shakespeare-films/
Tiffany Ann Conroy Moore
McFarland

Price: $40.00
Print ISBN: 978-0-7864-7135-5
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-4766-0028-4
9 photos, notes, bibliography, index
202pp. softcover (6 x 9) 2012

Available for immediate shipment

About the Book

This book is a study of Grigory Kozintsev’s two cinematic Shakespeare adaptations, Hamlet (Gamlet, 1964), and King Lear (Korol Lir, 1970). The films are considered in relation to the historical, artistic and cultural contexts in which they appear, and in relation to the contributions of Dmitri Shostakovich, who wrote the films’ scores; and Boris Pasternak, whose translations Kozintsev used. The films are analyzed respective to their place in the translation and performance history of Hamlet and King Lear from their first appearances in Tsarist Russian arts and letters. In particular, this study is concerned with the ways in which these plays have been used as a means to critique the government and the country’s problems in an age in which official censorship was commonplace. Kozintsev’s films (as well as his theatrical productions of Hamlet and Lear) continue along this trajectory of protest by providing a vehicle for him and his collaborators to address the oppression, violence and corruption of Soviet society. It was just this sort of covert political protest that finally effected the dissolution and fall of the USSR.


Table of Contents

Acknowledgments viii

Preface 1

Introduction 3

1. Kozintsev’s Contexts 1: Hamlet in Russia in the 18th and 19th Centuries 25

2. Kozintsev’s Contexts 2: Soviet Hamlets from the Revolution until after Stalin’s Death 52

3. Hamlet in the "Thaw" and Kozintsev’s 1964 Film Adaptation 74

4. Kozintsev’s Contexts 3: Russian and Soviet King Lears from the 18th Century through World War II 106

5. King Lear Revisited in the Brezhnev Era: Kozintsev’s 1970 Film Adaptation 136

Epilogue 179

Chapter Notes 182

Bibliography 185

Index 193


About the Author

Tiffany Ann Conroy Moore teaches writing, literature, film and public speaking at several colleges in Southern New Hampshire.

[link updated 25 June 2018]

Reel Middle Ages at 15

For immediate release:

In 1999, Kevin J. Harty's The Reel Middle Ages: American, Western and Eastern European, Middle Eastern and Asian Films About Medieval Europe was published by McFarland and ushered in a renascence for the study of medieval subjects on film, television, and electronic games.

The Virtual Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages seeks help in commemorating the fifteenth anniversary of this ground-breaking work. If you are interested in helping us to further the study of the medieval on screen, please sign up to our moderated discussion list Medieval Studies at the Movies at http://movies.groups.yahoo.com/group/MSAM_DL/ , which will be re-launched later this year, and/or become a follower of our blog Medieval Studies on Screen at http://medievalstudiesonscreen.blogspot.com/ . Previous members of the discussion list are asked to contact the list moderator, as many accounts are now inactive.

Michael A. Torregrossa
Co-Founder, The Virtual Society for the Study of Popular Culture and the Middle Ages

From the Disney Vault Update

Disney is re-releasing both The Sword in the Stone (1963) and Robin Hood (1973) to Blu-ray next month as part of special anniversary editions including digital copies of both films (whether purchased as part of the DVD or Blu-Ray/DVD combo sets). Both were recently released as DVD special editions (in 2008 and 2006, respectively). No word yet on whether or not they will include any new extras. I append the advertisement from the Disney Movie Club. Both films can also be purchased from various online sellers, though, curiously, Disney's own DisneyStore.com fails to list either product.

Also of interest, the Disney Movie Club is offering Season 2, Volume 2 of the popular 1990s' series Gargoyles as a 3-disc club exclusive. The set completes the season (first released to DVD in 2005). The Gargoyles are originally from 10th century Scotland but active in the modern world, where they interact with a number of figures from medieval myth and legend, including Macbeth, King Arthur, the Lady of the Lake, Cú Chulainn, Odin, and the Weird Sisters from Macbeth. In addition, this half of the season introduces Titania (from Midsummer Night's Dream) into the Gargoyles universe and also integrates both her and Puck (also from MND) firmly into the Gargoyle's extended family.

Contents for Beowulf on Film

According to WorldCat here are the contents for Haydock and Risden's Beowulf on Film: Adaptations and Variations due out from McFarland this fall:

Introduction-a Freud complex and the problem of Beowulf in film / E.L. Risden --

Film theory, the sister arts tradition and the cinematic Beowulf / Nickolas Haydock --

The cinematic commoditization of Beowulf: The serial fetishizing of a hero / E.L. Risden --

Making sacrifices / Nickolas Haydock --

The hero, the mad male Id, and a feminist Beowulf: the sexualizing of an Epic / E.L. Risden --

Dragon, where art thou? "othering" in Beowulf films / E.L. Risden --

Meat puzzles: Beowulf and the horror film / Nickolas Haydock --

Our man Beowulf: Bowra, Ker, and the contemporary struggle with heroism / E.L. Risden --

Conclusion-the postmodern Beowulf / Nickolas Haydock.

In addition, in terms of cataloging, the book is listed solely as Beowulf -- Film adaptations; this is unfortunate, for it fails to link to the larger range of scholarship on medievalisms on screen.

Haines's Music in Films on the Middle Ages

Update number three for the night highlights an intriguing new book from Routledge (unfortunately the price may limit its reach):

Music in Films on the Middle Ages: Authenticity vs. Fantasy
By John Haines

To Be Published October 14th 2013 by Routledge

Series: Routledge Research in Music

Hardback: $125.00
978-0-415-82412-5
Available for pre-order

DESCRIPTION:

This book explores the role of music in the some five hundred feature-length films on the Middle Ages produced between the late 1890s and the present day, ranging from historical epics such as Joan the Woman (1917) to medievalist stories such as The Lord of the Rings (2001-3). Haines focuses on the tension in these films between authenticity and fantasy, between the surviving evidence for medieval music and the idiomatic tradition of cinematic music. The latter is taken broadly as any musical sound occurring in a film, from the clang of a bell off-screen to a minstrel singing his song; it includes both diegetic and non-diegetic modes. Medieval film music must is considered in the broader historical context of pre-cinematic medievalisms, on the one hand, and, on the other, of medievalist cinema’s main development in the course of the twentieth century as an American appropriation of European culture. The book treats six pervasive moments that define the genre of what could be called medieval film: the church-tower bell, the trumpet fanfare or horn call, the music of banquets and courts, the singing minstrel, performances of Gregorian chant, and the music that accompanies horse-riding knights, with each chapter visiting representative films as case studies. These six signal musical moments create a fundamental visual-aural core that is central to making a film feel medieval to modern audiences, and these musical stereotypes originate in medievalist works predating cinema by some three centuries.


CONTENTS:

Preface
1. The Making of the Middle Ages
2. The Bell
3. The Trumpet Fanfare and the Horn Call
4. Banquet and Court Music
5. The Singing Minstrel
6. Chant
7. The Riding Warrior
8. Conclusion
References
Filmography


AUTHOR BIO:

John Haines is Professor of Music History and Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto, Canada.

Return of A Knight at the Movies

Two of three updates for the night:

This just in from Routledge--

A Knight at the Movies: Medieval History on Film, 2nd Edition 
By John Aberth

To Be Published June 30th 2014 by Routledge – 352 pages

Purchasing Options:

Paperback:
$39.95
978-0-415-82532-0
Not yet available

Hardback:
$130.00
978-0-415-82531-3
Not yet available


Details on the first edition are available from the publisher at http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415938860/ and on Amazon.com at http://www.amazon.com/Knight-Movies-Medieval-History-Film/dp/0415938864/.

The new edition includes about 20 additional pages. It is unknown at this point how extensive the revisions will be. It also not yet available for pre-ordering from Amazon.

Catching Up 7-18

A quick update for today.

Expect the recent TV listings for Chiller and Syfy to be updated by the end of the week. I am also slowly adding more productions to the link list on the margins of the blog.

Michael Torregrossa

Lee on Cold War Comics and Films

With apologies for the multiple cross-postings:

Lee, Peter W. “Red Days, Black Knights: Medieval-themed Comic Books in American Containment Culture.”Corporate Medievalism II. Ed. Karl Fugelso. Studies in Medievalism 22. Cambridge, Eng.: D. S. Brewer-Boydell & Brewer, 2013. 181-200. Print.

Haydock on Beowulf in SiM

From the latest volume of Studies in Medievalism:


Haydock, Nickolas. “Film Theory, the Sister Arts Tradition, and the Cinematic Beowulf.” Corporate Medievalism II. Ed. Karl Fugelso. Studies in Medievalism 22. Cambridge, Eng.: D. S. Brewer-Boydell & Brewer, 2013. 153-80. Print.

Coming Soon: Digital Gaming Re-imagines the Middle Ages

One last post for the night:


Digital Gaming Re-imagines the Middle Ages 
Edited by Daniel T. Kline 

Series: Routledge Studies in New Media and Cyberculture

To Be Published July 22nd 2013 by Routledge

Hardback: $125.00 978-0-415-63091-7
Available for pre-order


Digital gaming’s cultural significance is often minimized much in the same way that the Middle Ages are discounted as the backward and childish precursor to the modern period. Digital Gaming Reimagines the Middle Ages challenges both perceptions by examining how the Middle Ages have persisted into the contemporary world via digital games as well as analyzing how digital gaming translates, adapts, and remediates medieval stories, themes, characters, and tropes in interactive electronic environments. At the same time, the Middle Ages are reinterpreted according to contemporary concerns and conflicts, in all their complexity. Rather than a distinct time in the past, the Middle Ages form a space in which theory and narrative, gaming and textuality, identity and society are remediated and reimagined. Together, the essays demonstrate that while having its roots firmly in narrative traditions, neomedieval gaming—where neomedievalism no longer negotiates with any reality beyond itself and other medievalisms—creates cultural palimpsests, multiply-layered trans-temporal artifacts. Digital Gaming Re-imagines the Middle Ages demonstrates that the medieval is more than just a stockpile of historically static facts but is a living, subversive presence in contemporary culture.


Introduction: "All Your History Are Belong to Us": Digital Gaming Re-imagines the Middle Ages
Daniel T. Kline


Part 1: Prehistory of Medieval Gaming

1. The Right to Dream of the Middle Ages: Simulating the Medieval in Tabletop RPGs
William J. White


Part 2: Gaming Re-imagines Medieval Traditions

2. "Best and Only Bulwark": How Epic Narrative Redeems Beowulf the Game
Candace Barrington and Timothy English

3. Systematizing Culture in Medievalism: Geography, Dynasty, Culture, and Imperialism in Crusader Kings: Deus Vult 
Jason Pitruzzello

4. The Portrayal of Medieval Warfare in Medieval: Total War and Medieval 2: Total War
Greg Fedorenko

5. Gabriel Knight: A Twentieth-Century Chivalric Romance Hero
Angela Tenga


Part 3: Case Study 1 – World of Warcraft

6. Coloring Tension: Medieval and Contemporary Concepts in Classifying and Using Digital Objects in World of Warcraft 
Elysse T. Meredith

7. Sir Thomas Malory and the Death Knights of New Avalon: Imagining Medieval Identities in World of Warcraft 
Kristen Noone and Jennifer Kavetsky

8. Accumulating Histories: A Social Practice Approach to Medievalism in High Fantasy MMORPGs
Jennifer C. Stone, Peter Kudenov, and Teresa Combs

9. "Awesome Cleavage": The Genred Body in World of Warcraft 
Kim Wilkins


Part 4: Case Study 2 – Dante's Inferno, The Game

10. The Game's Two Bodies, or the Fate of Figura in Dante's Inferno 
 Bruno Lessard

11. Courtly e-Violence, Digital Play: Adapting Medieval Courtly Masculinities in Dante’s Inferno 
Oliver Chadwick

12. Shades of Dante: Virtual Bodies in Dante's Inferno 
Timothy J. Welsh and John T. Sebastian

13. The Middle Ages in the Depths of Hell: Pedagogical Possibility and the Past in Dante's Inferno 
Angela Jane Weisl and Kevin J. Stevens


Part 5: Theoretical and Representational Issues in Medieval Gaming

14. We Will Travel by Map: Maps as Narrative Spaces in Videogames and Medieval Texts
Thomas Rowland

15. Author, Text, and Medievalism in The Elder Scrolls 
Michelle DiPietro

16. Technophilia and Technophobia in Online Medieval Fantasy Games
Nick Webber

17. The Consolation of Paranoia: Conspiracy, Epistemology, and the Templars in Assassin's Creed, Deus Ex, and Dragon Age 
Harry J. Brown


Part 6: Sociality and Social Media in Medieval Gaming

18. Casual Medieval Games, Interactivity, and Social Play in Social Network and Mobile Applications
Serina Patterson