« Late Antiquity | Main | Nothing, to no one »
May 07, 2005
Kingdom of Heaven
I went to see this new movie, Kingdom of Heaven, by Ridley Scott (who has done Gladiator and Blade Runner before this).
It belongs to the new trend in "historical" movie making (13th Warrior, Gladiator, Alexander) which is bent on presenting a mixture of fiction and history. This means that while the movie is set in real historical settings (Ibn Fadlan's mission to the Bulgars, Marcus Aurelius' reign, and Alexander, respectivly), the actual adventures of the movie are fictional ("heros" of the film are not actually known historical characters). It does not necessarily mean that these people did not exist, they could have existed, but they also need not have to.
Orlando Bloom's character as the son of a Crusader lord was convincing (although sometimes a little too perfect to believe, but hey, it is Hollywood!), and the bits that were taken from history (the reign of the last king of Jerusalem, Battle of Kerak, death of Reymond...) were actually accurate and quite well done.
The movie was also trying to be culturally liberal and actually showed a rather fair view of the camp of Saladin and was certainly very complementary to him and his politics.
Of course, since I have to have criticism (it's part of my nature, I will get sick if I don't do it!:), I have to say what bothered me about it. Well, we all know that Crusaders did not speak English, not even Richard the Lionheart did (he couldn't, he was French), but in the movie, all Crusaders speak perfect, Oxbridge accented English!! On the other hand, Muslims speak a broken up, heavily accented English which makes it hard to understand their speech.
In the view of the fact that the language of the Crusaders (French) is actually "dubbed" into English for us to understand, making them quite articulate and smart sounding, why are we listening the King of Egypt and Syria and Jordan and Lebannon speaking in broken English, not even managing to express a simple sentence correctly ("waay dey waiting?")? He sounds more like a recent immigrant to America who has not learnt English than one of the greatest Middle Eastern personalities in history. Couldn't he just either be speaking English (like all others, after all, in this movie, French and Germans and Italians all speak English), or couldn't they do it in Arabic and we get the subtitles?
Well, not everything can be perfect, but in short, nice try Ridley Scott!
Posted by Khodadad at May 7, 2005 02:12 AM
Comments
Abt. the English, I agree. Perhaps it would have been better if both spoke decent English, crusaders with a French accent, and Muslims with a Arab accent.
Posted by: SRay at May 7, 2005 05:17 AM
The movie sounds very interesting. I really do like the work of Ridley Scott! Regarding the English speaking, perhaps it would have been more historically accurate to have the Muslims speaking very articulately and the English talking like uneducated peasants. Afterall, the English were just emerging from the dark ages, at that time, and some of the Muslim countries were approaching the height of their cultural development.
If you enjoy visiting the zoo, you may like my new post. :)
Posted by: David at May 7, 2005 11:14 AM
Hey Khodadad,
I agree with the language problem. Just imagine how cool it would have been if everyone spoke as close to possible, whatever language it is that each of them spoke... with subtitles. But that's the least of the problems with writing a historical drama for the masses. In any case, my girlfriend liked it, she said, because it dealt with Arabs better than what she is used to seeing.
My question is though, should you find the time: where is a good place to learn more about Saladin. And is he the same person as Hassan Sabbah?
Thanks all the best,
Amir
Posted by: Amir at May 9, 2005 06:18 PM
Amir Jaan! No, of course Saladin is not the same as Hasan-e Sabbah! Hasan lived in Iran, Saladin lived in Syria and Egypt. Saladin is the European pronunciation of the name of Salaaheddin Ayyubi, the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty of Syria and Egypt and Palestine. He was a Kurd from Arbil. His full name and titles are: Sultan Salaaheddin Abulmuzaffar Yusof ibn Ayyub, Al Malik-ul Naaesr.
A basic English text to learn about Saladin is Stanley Lane-Pool's "Saladin". Other than that, if interested in primary sources, the major historian of Saladin's time was Ibn Wassil.
Hasan Sabbah is not really mentioned in Western Sources, since he really operated in Iran. However, one of his supposed desciples held a fortress near Antioch and is known by some Western sources as "The Old Man of the Mountain". His followers are the ones who come to be known as "Assassins" in the West (from the Arabic word "Hashaashin": herb gatherers). For more about them, read the works of Dr. Farhad Daftari which is by far the biggest authority on the matters of Ismaili history.
Posted by: khodadad at May 14, 2005 11:07 PM