Medieval Movie Nights offer different view on literary classics

About 12 years ago, while teaching a particularly enthusiastic group of students taking a course in classical mythology, Damian Fleming one day asked, “Hey, there’s all this stuff inspired by classical mythology. Would you be interested in watching movies together?”

That’s how “Medieval Movies Nights” started. Early features included Disney’s “Hercules” and “Troy.” These days, attendance is voluntary, there’s no extra credit to be earned, and anyone can come for free. And the numbers are pretty good. Last spring, about 70 people watched “Monty Python and the Holy Grail,” which was related to Fleming’s old English class.

“Look, that rabbit's got a vicious streak a mile wide! It's a killer!”

Fleming’s goal is for everyone to relax, eat pizza, and enjoy a movie together. Afterward, there’s often a short Q&A, which always surprises him because so many people stay for it. The films start around 6 p.m., usually in Neff Hall, Room 101, with everything wrapped and cleaned up by 9 p.m. There are four and sometimes even five movies per semester.

“It’s not something I have time to do in my regular classes, but this enhances them,” Fleming said. “My training is really old literature, ancient and medieval, which I think is interesting, but sometimes hard for students to get immersed in because of the language differences.”

The goal isn’t really to critique the movie so much, but to get students talking and thinking about how it relates to the classes. As Fleming points out, these movies are not usually based on accuracy—but he’s not teaching history, he’s teaching literature, and a movie is people translating literature into a visual form.

“The literature we read is often not set in the time period, and people in every phase of history have different perceptions of the past that they create in their stories,” Fleming said. “The `Iliad’ and the `Odyssey’ don’t actually tell us what the ancient Greek world was like. They tell us what people at a certain time point imagined it to be.”

Wait, “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” is made up? Well, so are Fleming standards “A Knight’s Tale,” “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves,” “The Mummy,” and “The Princess Bride.” And for goodness sake, don’t let Fleming get started on the three versions of “Beowulf,” which usually include scenes the unknown author never dreamed of. There were also varied reactions to the 2021 film “The Green Knight” about an adventure with Sir Gawain.

Fleming rotates about 20 films every two or three years as the students who take his medieval literature, old English, middle English, classical mythology, and Latin classes turn over.

Every film encourages discussions on why the directors and writers possibly chose to try creating scenes not included in the original text. After all, stories about the period from 500 to 1500 A.D. might not appeal to everyone. One of the most popular movies Fleming shows, “A Knight’s Tale” starring Heath Ledger, plays more like a music video than a definitive period presentation.

“It acknowledges that you are not making a realistic movie. It’s impossible to make a realistic movie,” Fleming said. “When people try and make movies like that, they are often boring and depressing, and they are equally not as accurate. We know tons and tons about this stuff, but if you are telling a story, you can’t tell history in two hours. Everything is always an interpretation.”

The key to picking an attractive movie, Fleming said, is finding one that students might already know about and will get excited about. Another is selecting a movie he thinks students should know about, such as “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.” To illustrate the unpredictability of the exercise, this 1975 Python classic bombed during a showing a few years ago when few in the audience bought into the humor, but last year, there was a huge response, with some students quoting lines and anticipating the jokes, which set the energy for everyone.

This year, Fleming is teaching old English again and the movie schedule starts Thursday with “A Knight’s Tale,” followed by the 2007 version of “Beowulf” on Oct. 10. 

“It’s one of my favorite things to do,” Fleming said. “Seeing students on campus at night doing something semi-academic and having so much fun is everything to me. Every time I do one it makes my day, makes my week.”

“Well, we'll not risk another frontal assault. That rabbit's dynamite.”