History-War & Society Film Essay.

War and Society Assignment Two The “Military Revolution” Revisited: Warfare in the Middle Ages and Renaissance The central focus of this unit has been on the transformative effects of technology and society on warfare, and how popular culture interprets such changes. In something of a reversal, we began our study of Medieval Warfare and the Geoffrey Parker “Military Revolution” Thesis from the “end game” point – how Western popular culture has romanticized, contextualized, and in some sense, trivialized Medieval society and its way of war. From there we stepped back through our readings and lectures to seek meaning from these different filmed portrayals through the application of the historian’s method of introducing evidence and reaching conclusions through analysis of the artifacts, documents, and events themselves. Your task is to take these very disparate and unique sources of information and test them against each other to assess how popular culture is informed by the historical record and how it is ignored when convenient. In this exercise, you will chose ONE SET of films: •The Thirteenth Warrior (1999) and Braveheart (1995) •Henry V (1946) and Henry V (1989) •The Adventures of Robin Hood (1939) and Robin and Marion (1976) First, you will identify in a short (one page maximum for each) summary the context of these films. Next, you will compare them against each other as films representations of their time – what special message would each film contain unique to the time they were made. This is important, since first and foremost, films do occupy a specific moment in time – not related to their subject, but to the time of their creation. Each of these films has something unique to offer about their time. Second, after you’ve discussed the context of the films, you will assess their role as an interpretation of the historical record. Matching the films against each other, you will identify the key strengths and weaknesses of each as an attempt to portray the past. What are their advantages against each other, and conversely, how are they flawed efforts. As you conclude your paper, you should make an honest assessment of how popular culture can serve as an entre – or obstacle – to understanding the past. Can film produced solely for entertainment purposes (or, as some examples here show, for propaganda purposes) be used to impart a better understanding of history, without compromising (or being compromised by) the impact of contemporary messages.