N.Y. Times’s A.O. Scott: Yup, Robin Hood’s a Tea-Partier
by Big Hollywood
Go ahead and file this in your “unlikely” drawer:
You may have heard that Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor, but that was just liberal media propaganda. This Robin is no socialist bandit practicing freelance wealth redistribution, but rather a manly libertarian rebel striking out against high taxes and a big government scheme to trample the ancient liberties of property owners and provincial nobles. Don’t tread on him!
So is “Robin Hood” one big medieval tea party? Kind of…
As you probably know, the Breitbart team frequents these Tea Party rallies, and we’ve yet to come across the “disillusioned war veteran just back from a distant, violent campaign against Muslims” tea-partier that Russell Crowe allegedly portrays in this year’s “Robin Hood.” Scott neglects to mention this inconvenient theme in his review.
We’ll report back and let you know if Robin Hood more closely resembles a libertarian rebel, as Scott suggests, a forward-thinking, spread-the-wealth around type of revolutionary, or somewhere in between. We have our suspicions what he will be, but according to Scott, the films does pick on the French.
If it does turn out Robin Hood has a libertarian streak, it would be interesting to ask Team “Robin Hood” when exactly the disillusioned vet theme was added to the script. Call us cynical, but it’s easy to picture the project’s higher-ups meeting on the script only to agree it’s good, but just a little too Tea Party. Maybe this PTSD-vet-just-back-from-the-War-on-Terrorism theme was in the script from day one, or maybe it was injected as an eleventh hour save, but either way, it certainly has the makings of a textbook sucker punch.
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102 Comments
I'm split. I love Medieval history, and I did appreciate how Gladiator brings history to those who only associate such a grand study with their volley ball coach's half-assed attempts at the subject in high school.
At the same time, Kingdom of Heaven was laden with white guilt (although I do concede Scott at least made the white protagonist behave fairly well) and I'm getting rather impatient with these films that are just entitled leftist mouthpieces as opposed to cinematic works of art (like El Cid and Ben Hur were).
The original Robin Hood stole from the rich what was stolen from the poor in taxes and gave it back to them. Kind of like Bush's tax refunds. He never was a a wealth re distributor. That was a lib fiction./
well, the real story of Sir Robin of Loxley- if he indeed existed- was this…
While King Richard the Lionheart was away fighting Saladin in The Crusades, his brother the bad King John illegally assumed the crown, and immediately raised taxes to confiscatory levels and banned hunting of the 'King's venison', amongst other things.
Sir Robin rebelled, and led his Merry men on raids to take back THEIR illegally gained taxes and returned them from whence they came. Never was it 'stealing from the rich to give to the poor'. Sir Robin, after all , was a nobleman. King John had the Sheriff of Nottingham pursue Robin- but he knew Sherwood Forest far better and could elude the sherrif's men with ease.
And, of course, there's Maid Marion…
Normally I would be inclined to be more interested in watching the film, then I remembered it's from the NY Times. So I must ask myself, why am I even wasting my time thinking about it?
I've read NY Times articles for far too many years to buy anything that comes out of their paper.
I'm not in the entertainment industry, but what ever industry, it always comes down to funding. So it would seem logical if politics were injected, that's where it started.
Agreed. You'd think some one on the left would at least open a book before making a proclamation.
Boy… to have the likes of Errol Flynn and Warner Bros. back making movies Again. Thank God for dvd's.
Gotta say, I'm normally a big fan of all the Breitbart sites and what they're trying to accomplish.
But I think you might be falling into the exact same trap as our opponents here in the "is Robin Hood Garibaldi or Barry Goldwater" debate?
Ridley Scott's very good at trying to to get inside the historical era of his films, in a good way ("Gladiator," "Black Hawk Down," and the director's cut of "Kingdom of Heaven"was much better than the poor excuse that was the theatrical release). I know that a film's PR campaign will obviously be slanted, but everything I've seen so far has suggested that Scott is trying to put Robin Hood into the historical context behind the signing of the Magna Carta, which is something that Conservatives should be absolutely ecstatic about if true and if it's pulled off (the Magna Carta is often seen as a cornerstone in the founding of the British political system which was adapted by the American Framers, classical liberty and all that we hold dear).
The Kurt Loder review BH is currently linking to on the site doesn't like the film because it's "too historical," going into all the back story and political context of the early 13th century. I sure hope so. The "disillusioned war vet" theme does make sense for the historical context (Richard the Lionhart actually died fighting in France on his way back from the Third Crusade), so it shouldn't intentionally be read as an endorsement of Janet Napolitano (I could be wrong of course, and if so I'll come back here and retract everything I said). The PR spin about the film being "thematically contemporary" with the veteran returning from fighting muslims was the movie intentionally backpeddling from accusations that it was potentially pro-Tea-Party. That could be spin, we don't know for a fact.
I think some historians should weigh in on how historically accurate the movie is. Getting the historical context correct would make it much easier to see where any departures that might be a sign of political bias are creeping in.
Just a little too Tea Party? Yeah I can envision that meeting too.
What a miserable group. I'd rather roll with CBOE guys 8 days a week.
Yes, and then there's Maid Marion….
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUtdKm6lERQ
If you ask me Brietbart's gang of Merry Persons aren't going after the movie, from what I read, sounds like they admit they haven't seen it yet. Sounds to me like they're opening fire on the NY Times.
In which case I say 'Talley Ho''
ho!
funny stuff. Hard to believe that Rob Reiner ever made a good movie, but there you have it…
good post…
Well, Crowe is on board as loving both the character and the finished product. He doesn't please easily…
Rob Reiner? Did you mean Mel Brooks?
The problem with Ridley is he injects his modern political sensibilities into historical epics. Unfortunately, this often involves a healthy does of revisionism, Christian-bashing, Muslim-loving, morally-inverted garbage. Remember "Kingdom of Heaven" where metrosexual Orlanda Bloom informs us that Muslims ain't so bad and we should share Jerusalem with them. I give you Ridley Scott:
*
Balian [Orlando Bloom's character in Kingdom of Heaven (2005)] is an agnostic, just like me. I am not fighting another holy war here, I am trying to get across the fact that not everyone in the West is a good guy, and not all Muslims are bad. The tragedy is that we still have a lack of understanding between us, and it is 900 years since the Crusades. We have never truly resolved our differences.
*
Only problem is Kigdom of Heaven portrayed Christians as warmongering nutjobs, and the Muslims as noble, nuanced, peaceful saints. Yeah, Ridley.
Historically accurate? The Hollywoodist?
You are talking about an industry that gave an Oscar for a documentary to Al Gore. A documentary! Of course Hollywood doesn't get the benefit of the doubt.
Look no farther than Breitbart's gang?
Echo that!
That wasn't Meat Head, that was Mel Brooks.
Not quite up to his greatest work, Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein. But it had a some good laughs. The Men In Tights scene cracks my wife and daughter up every time.
I particularly like the jokes about the visually disabled character*.
* What can I say, a little bit of PC makes sense. Its all the crap they try to lay on top of it that bugs me.
From what I've read so far, this version of Robin Hood has NOTHING to do with the legendary hero, nor with "robbing from the rich to give to the poor." It's a prequel – Robin's back story before he became a merry outlaw. Evidently, Scott & Helgeland are more interested in English history than English folklore, and it's history that's front & center in this movie. I love medieval European history, but sticking Robin Hood in the middle of it is, as one reviewer said, like making Pecos Bill the hero in a movie about the Alamo. Why? Who knows?
I think the Brits hate their own history now – or are embarrassed by it. At least the artistic/intellectual classes seem to be.
Funding? Bada bing. EdSKi's on a roll.
I believe you're confusing your Cary Elwes movies here. Rob Reiner made "Princess Bride", whereas "Robin Hood: Men in Tights" was Mel Brooks.
And Reiner made quite a few good movies early on, lest we forget "This is Spinal Tap".
I don't know. I hear he's been a little out of sorts lately…
I won't be seeing this movie NOT because it may or may not be a Tea Party movie. I won't see it because Robin argues against fighting Muslims in th Crusades – a completely unnecessary element to add to a Robin Hood movie. Plus, where's the bloody adventure? I'm tired of these self-serious movies that destroy our legends and folklore instead of embracing them. Sometimes hyper-realism is hyper-stupidity!
Stole the line from Ed Harris in The Right Stuff.
"You know what makes this rocket go up? Funding."
Agreed. And if you ask me, that's a glimpse into the heart of modern liberalism, much better than I can come up with.
I'm not in the business, so I can't say for sure how movies are made, but it looks to me like the director is pretty much in the driver's seat on most projects. When Meathead is the director he can make all the dominoes line up exactly as he wants. And if it makes money, that's proof he can do that.
Modern liberals think that type of mentality is exactly what's needed in politics. A competent director who can pull it off.
I get what you're saying, but I think dragging Robin Hood into a meticulous recreation of 13th-century social and political…stuff is a mistake. Robin Hood is a legend. Fantasy. Lighter than air. Trying to make him more "real" by embedding him in "real" times and "real" events is counterproductive. It's sort of like making Flash Gordon the hero of "Apollo 13." Sure, the Flash Gordon serials and "Apollo 13" are both feature guys flying through space, but that doesn't mean they belong together. They inhabit two completely different imaginary universes – and that's as it should be.
Same thing with Robin Hood. He doesn't live in 13th-century England – he lives in Merrie England. I'm content to let him remain there.
I was going to say that I've enjoyed the Ridley Scott movies I've seen but reviewing his IMdb.com entry I see that I've only seen 3 of his movies; Alien, Blade Runner, and Legend and I've always liked to make fun of Legend because of the butcher job someone did editing it for American audiences. (Someday I'd really should watch the full version just to see what was cut out.) The trailers for the new Robin Hood really haven't interested me so I think I'll stick to my DVDs of the BBC's Robin of Sherwood series from the 80s and save myself the price of a ticket.
A lot of people do that, it's not limited to just Ridley or his crowd. I believe the technical definition is moral relativism, but can't be sure, I was busy with physics, calculus, drinking and chasing co-eds in college to worry about liberal arts.
What they do is take isolated slices of history out of their historical context, and judge them by today's standards. And that's a rigged match from the get-go.
To really understand historical persons and events need to be judged and evaluated in the context of their times. Otherwise its a waste of time.
Bills…books…reading is so passe these days. Just ask anyone on the left.
In all the Robin Hood legends there is no real proof that he even existed. They think there were a few highway men who robbed the rich and gave to the poor. The poor being his Merry men and their families hiding in Sherwood since the all had a rice on their head from the Norman Lords. There are stories that a certain Saxon noble rebel against Prince john. I have never read where Robin Hood fought in the Crusades., we know King Richard did in two of them. Europe was engulfed in Islam, on the west they were 80 miles outside of Paris,on the east they were on the Rhine, in the south they were working their way up Italy. Europe was this little piece of what was left of the Holy Roman Empire. It took 400 years to drive out the Muslims out of Sicily and I think in Europe, including Spain close to 600 years or maybe that was from the first time they stepped foot in Europe.
Today Hollywood makes films that project our times and since the left control the purse strings they control the subject matter. All these remakes are here today, gone tomorrow. The suits can't come up with anything new because they nave no vision, talent and are not showman. They are money makers and its not about story its about bottom line.
I will stick with Errol Flynn's version of THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD for the simple FACT it is a fun and entertaining film. The star of the film Errol Flynn was a happy go lucky guy that loved life and living it to the fullest and this film reeks of this spirit.
Crowe is a pissed off actor who brews and brews on screen thinking he is Brando or somebody and what he is, is a bore. He can't do interviews for fear he will swear and walk off. Why give this bum YOUR hard earn money. Go BUY the DVD of the ERROL FLYNN version, that no chin Costner tried to make a better Robin Hood and he crashed and burned, so will Crowe's version.
Liberals tend to rewrite history in films to prove their agenda was around in the middle ages to validate what is going on today by the democratic party.
To be fair, RH already is embedded in "real" times and events. So is Sherlock Holmes and James Bond. It's known as "historical fiction," which means the "fiction" has to be new and entertaining, while not spitting in the face of the "historical."
Nicely written, but what do you mean by "the Breitbart sites and what they're trying to accomplish"?
One thing Scott gets right – Robin's basic story is about the same thing the Magna Carta was about: people fighting an overweening government. It wasn't about democracy or any of that modern stuff. What they had in those days was a system of traditional rights, privileges and obligations proper to each social class, which had been handed down (as far as they knew) from ancient times. King John had been violating many of those traditions, ignoring them, or warping them to his own advantage. Among other things, he was taxing the hell out of everyone – not only increasing the old taxes that people more or less accepted, but making up new ones as he went along. Hence the starving peasants, hence Robin Hood…
Magna Carta was a contract between John and the nobility (and other concerned classes), enumerating and reaffirming their ancient rights and promising not to violate them any more. It was an attempt to force a government that was governing badly, to govern well instead. No "freedom for my people" involved. Just a restoration of proper government.
I'm gonna give it a shot because A. O. Scott don't like it. Nor do most film critics. That's usually an indication of an entertaining movie.
Plus I love Russell Crowe. No matter what an a$$hat he is. Mystery, Alaska and Gladiator are two of my faves.
yep- 'Princess Bride'…
sorry…
good post- well written and reasoned. The Magna Carta WAS the template for our Constitution- which, is, of course far superior…
Unless it has Errol Flynn, Olivia De Havilland, Claude Rains, Basil Rathbone and Alan Hale, Sr in it, it ain't Robin Hood ("Men In Tights" is the sole exception).
Sir Walter Scott added the Crusades to the Robin legend in "Ivanhoe".
According to the libs, the Christians were the violent ones during the Crusades. Let's remember that the muslims were out to violently capture and ravage the Holy Land. It's always by the sword with these barbarians.
I thought Edward Norton's king seemed just and wise, and only the sleazy french dude and his pal were the over-the-top scheming warmongers. Jeremy Irons & David Thewliss' characters were reasonable guys too. I like Kingdom of Heaven a lot–I think it's underrated. It has an amazing soundtrack, and even wispy Orlando manages to act a little. The overall theme of the movie to me was that whatever good religious motivations began the Crusades greed and ambition ruined them. I would love a prequel featuring Liam Neeson and his badass multi-ethnic Crusaders, though.
Or as Vodkapundit would put it, "Read is hard!"
Did anyone see Crowe on Oprah a few weeks ago? He gave her the sword prop. You could see her thinking "what the %$@& do I do with this??") I think it's gonna tank. Crowe & Blanchett are, sorry to say, a little too old for this stuff. I was initially interested in the film, but the more I read that it's a gloomy prequel/history lesson, I feel my motivation to see it rapidly draining away…
I fear the Brietbart organization doesn't have the juice to get into critic's pre-release screenings much anymore…we seem to get reviews of new releases days or weeks late. Didn't seem that way last year, which is a shame.
Short historical correction: At its height, Islam barely made it over the Pyrenees from Spain to southern France. It was never "80 miles outside of Paris." Remember Charles Martel, Charlemagne's grandfather, who repulsed the Moorish invasion and drove them back over the mountains? Battle of Tours, AD 732?
Moreover, while the Muslims did take over Sicily, Italy was divided between the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Lombardy – not under Muslim control. And while scouting parties might have made it to the banks of the Rhine, there was no real Muslim presence in Germany (although, to the east, they did make it to the gates of Vienna – but that was under the Ottoman empire in the 17th century).
Back on topic: I went to see this movie this afternoon. Anachronisms kept pulling me out of the story. The barons, when they meet up with the king, spout off about equality between themselves and John, completely disregarding the whole "divine right of kings," which was pretty much the underpinning of feudal society. Nobody would ever have mistaken a group of yeoman archers for knights, no matter how much chain mail they threw on, besides which the archers wouldn't have DARED to impersonate their betters, because of the consequences of being found out. I kept waiting for somebody – ANYBODY – to arrest Robin for stealing the king's horse, which was a HANGING OFFENSE. I'll mostly skip over Cate Blanchette doing her Joan of Arc imitation, but I will mention that nobody blinks twice at Robin and what appears to be a man making out in front of everybody (I don't think the English had a DADT policy). And after one of the characters is killed, the body is burned on a funeral pyre, in total contravention of contemporary beliefs and practices.
I'm a huge fan of Russell Crowe, but I couldn't give this picture more than one-and-a-half stars. Very disappointing.
(Sorry – got my posting order mixed up. The above comment should come after the one that's below, which is a response to Jack Marino's post. I do apologize.)
Al Gore didn't personally win the Oscar. The film's two producers took home Oscars. Maybe a minor point, but Hollywood liberals will seize upon it as evidence that we don't know what we're talking about.
NCNora , thank you for the correction. I use to know most of this stuff to be dangerous. Thank you again for setting the historical record striaght. We do want the facts out there not the Hollywood revisionist to fit their agenda.
Um, that's like saying a snarling pit bull is in a bad mood.
No biggie.
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Costner's Robin Hood sucked on multiple levels. I'll just stick to "Men in Tights" when I have the yen to watch a version of RH….."A chastity belt! That's going to chafe my willy!"
No matter, we shall endeavor to persevere.
No doubt, but in the internet era, freshness seems not to last long at all. To make a mark, you have to keep pace with a quickness. A 3 day old review is about as relevant as a week-old newspaper on the internets.
NCNora,
Good historical correction below, but I've got one for you. The 12th/13th-century setting of the Robin Hood legend was quite a bit before the concept of the "divine right of kings." The order of feudal society was largely a pyramid-shaped protection racket, with lesser lords swearing loyalty and service to greater lords, and so on, on up to the king. There was no strong central government, and the king was very much a "first among equals" that had to play ball with the barons in order to get things done. The barons had their own armies and castles and often defied the king. The divine right of kings came into play in the early modern period (late 16th/17th centuries) along with the beginings of strong national governments.
My 81 yr old father and I saw this movie today. He's a huge fan of "Gladiator" and we both love Russell Crowe. Robin Hood was no socialist. Both King Richard and later King John kept England in poverty from constant war and high taxes (sound familiar). The church also plundered what the people had and what the crown and the church didn't take the orphans took. I thought it was a really great movie. In one scene he talked about how men should take care of themselves. There was also a saying that went like this "rise up, rise up" and "Lambs become Lions", something similar. When asked by one of Robin's friends what it meant he replied "never give up".
This movie is suppose to be about how the legend of Robin Hood began. In the movie he was an archer for King Richard during the crusades. Through a series of events he ends up in Nottingham. I would give this movie a chance before comparing it to any other Robin Hood. My father is a huge fan of all of the Robin Hood movies especially the Errol Flynn ones and he loved it. It was a well written story and very well acted. I give it 5 stars.
<smacks forehead> D'oh – you're right! I like how you describe it as a protection racket. "Nice castle you got there – sure would be a shame if another, stronger knight overran it…." Thanks for the correction.
I still think the movie was weak, though.
No problem.
Robin Hood the bowman represents an important theme in the legend, since the English (originally Welsh) longbow played an important role in ending the feudal system — at least on the battlefield. With the longbow, the common man could (literally) knock the noble off his high horse (see the battles of Crecy and Agincourt).
Thanks for the movie review. I still think that Errol Flynn is the last word on Robin Hood, but I was kinda looking forward to this (I like Crowe and Scott).
I'll catch it on cable next year…
Libertarian or not (and it's a stretch) the film sucked. Scott has seen some brighter days. I won't spoil the ending for you, but when it looked as if the film would continue indefinitely I gathered my things and stood to leave. Then the credits rolled. Technical walk out!
Amen to that!!
"GLADIATOR" was merely a remake ( and in MHO, not a good one ) of the old movie "THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE", with a few dumb tweaks.
Robin Hood has always been a fictional character, though the original comes from early pagan Celtic folk tales, was then filtered through at least three "outlaws', whose exploits were those of petty thieves, finally winding up in highly romantiacized and enobled fiction of Victorian lit of all kinds.
Robin NEVER was a part of ANY Crusade in the Holy Land! That canard of modern fiction, only come out in movies and feeble T.V. shows from the 1980s, or so.
In IVANHOE, Robin is part of the plot to get up King Richard's ransom and that's it. It is this 1811 novel, by Sir Walter Scott, which opened the floodgates to later, Victorian fiction, bringing back such moribund fictionalized historical figures as Robin and King Aurthur.
Richard actually died in France, where he had always kept the seat of his kingdom, fighting a breakaway Duke, which had less than nothing whatsoever to do with any of the Crusades.
And the above is the briefest of brief FACTS, both historical and fictional, which you asked for and greatly needed.
If you'd like some book titles on this topic, I'd be happy to supply you with some.
Well if he's a tea partier he's OK by me…I will see it Sunday…
Hear, hear!
It's why I prefer grounded Aussies (and Kiwis….and the Maori).
There's a reality to them.
The Brits are our stiff-upper lip cousins who think they set the tone for film couture.
You haven't seen "Black Hawk Down" ??!
It's in my Top Five Films of All-Time!
"American Gangster" ?
LOVED it!!
I think that most people here at BH are already anti-Crowe fans. Or anti-Scott fans. Not sure which.
That said, the ENTIRE time the "R H" trailers have been online or on television, I've been seeing the conservative (if not libertarian-conservative) messages in glaring black and white.
Granted, I had to work all day opening day yesterday and haven't seen it. But I love the Crowe-Scott team, and I don't think I'm going to be SuckerPunched by some political message.
However – I am NOT afraid to admit I'm wrong and will return to the BH threads and eat crow (no….pun intended) if I must.
Sad face.
going in a few hours!
I'm a HUGE fan of Russell Crowe – took an afternoon's worth of vacation time to see this yesterday. I have a tradition of seeing RC's movies at least on opening weekend, if not opening day. I was prepared to like this movie. It disappointed me, for a number of reasons, some of which are laid out in my comments upthread.
I'll be interested to learn what you think of it. Make sure to post your impressions later today.
Robin Hood is NOT a Tea Partier. Robin Hood steals from the productive rich to give to the shiftless poor in a great wealth redistribution. Of all fairy tales in our history, this one is perhaps, the most obscene.
Ah, Ridley the blind. I think most of the civilized world would be more than happy to share with Muslims; the problem is that they tend to form closed, totalitarian theocracies where words like "tolerance" and "share" are fantansies at best. I wouldn't even care if they kept themselves to strict closed societies like the Amish, but they seem to be compelled to force the larger world to conform to their own standards of religion, dress, and behavior.
The Medieval rich were not productive rich.
Please.
Their money was not our capital, put to productive use. The whole point of feudalism was to keep a static aristocracy in power, and prohibit a tradesman class from rising up and overtaking them. It held for a thousand years until banking, i.e., freedom in the realm of money, took hold.
I know today banking is being misused, and debt employed to render our citizens debt slaves. The times keep changing….
Richard was not the "good King" of legend. IT was Richard's wars and ransom that bankrupted the country. He spent less than 6 months in England during his entire reign. HE much preferred to live in France. He also spoke not one word of English.
Right you are, Ed and back then, the vast majority of the Western World HATED the Muslims.
Did some of those who fought in the Crusades pick up some things ( chess, for one ) from those whom they fought and brought them home? Of course they did; however, lest we forget, these were fanatical HOLY WARS propagated by the Catholic Church for Christendom, against the "INFIDEL" ( a CHRISTIAN/CATHOLIC term ); sometimes even against Jews and fellow Middle Eastern Christians.
Ridley Scott always plays fast and loose with factual history and his latest film appears to be no exception.
This is supposed to be historical fiction. why the hell does it have to have a political outlook? That is what is wrong with movies today. Just tell a good story.
Yet Richard, for all of his faults, of which there were many, some of which you mentioned, WAS and still IS considered to be a "GOOD KING" b y the English.
The Crusades ( yes, ALL of them ! ), as well as many other European wars, placed heavy financial burdens on the populace……….both "rich" and poor alike.
Through his mother, Eleanor of Aquitaine, Richard inherited great lands in the Lang a doc region of France and didn't even speak a pure version of Medieval French, but instead, a patois of French. The fact is, NO English kings, for over a century after the ascension of the Norman English kings, spoke Saxon English ! The longer the "French" rule of England, the more "Frenchified" the Germanic "English" became.
The Catholic Church more or less outlawed banking as we know know it; usury laws laws being cited and therefore one of the rare occupations allowed Medieval European Jewry……..prior to their expulsion throughout most of Europe. The exception to that rule was the Knights Templar, which got them into trouble when the King of Paris ( France was yet to be a unified nation ) , who didn't want to repay his loans, so colluded with the then Pope against the Knights Templars, in a bogus case, which just about completely wiped them out, through torture and death.
Um dear, Nolte just reviewed it..look up..there it is. So……your point?
Oh now lets all split hairs over a movie that has nothing to do with this one. Bill…how much money would be needed to make YOU GO AWAY! To FRANCE..or something.
Whats wrong with defending the Holly Land against Islamicfascists whom if you haven't noticed have killed dozens of people in the last year here in the USA…funny how I can see the subtext of Bush Derangement syndrome going on here. And none of these terror attacks based here in the USA happened on Bush's watch…but they sure as heck happened on O's watch…so your point aboutn contemporary history?
Well said Ed! Well said.
I actually posted my comment before Nolte's official review went up, my pretty. And my point above still stands–I've been reading reviews of the film for days now, indicating the authors went to advance press screenings. (maybe even Cannes, where it premiered) Nolte's review going up so late in the day of the film's release to the public indicates that maybe he didn't get into such an advance screening, but had to plunk down his $12 with the rest of us proles. Call me shallow, but I like reviews as soon as I can get them. Any later and it feels like looking at sports scores two days after the game. The info is still true, it just feels out of date.
Thanks!
The history of the Crusades are a lot more complicated than you'd ever guess from a public school education. There were multiple crusades, the first one ot two (I think, working from memory here) wasn't made up of soldiers, they were women, children, priests, peasants. But they didn't even get through the Caucus mountains before for they were wiped out by Europeans.
It should also be noted the Crusades (the ones with soldiers) are in the same general time line of when Europe was becoming more organized into nation states. That meant more diplomacy, which meant less need for highly skilled, highly armed professional soldiers. Which meant a lot of them were hanging around with out a lot to do.
Close Ed, but not quite right…………….off the top of my head. IIRC, the very first Crusade was the doing of a rabble rousing Hermit; though it was mostly armed soldiers and men whom we'd now call "mercenaries", whom the Church promised immediate entrance to heaven, if they went; as payment in full for every single sin they'd ever committed in the past, as well as dispensation for all future sins as well.
The last Crusade, THE CHILDREN'S CRUSADE, was a horror show and made up almost entirely of children as young as 6 through early teens.
After the FIRST CRUSADE and the later ones, which placed Europeans as overlords over Jerusalem, was mainly comprised of nobles and soldiers. Once Jerusalem was "safe", that's when pilgrims came and gave rise to the Knights Templar and the Hospitaliers were formed, in part, to protect the pilgrims.
Yes, the history of the Crusades is complicates and also very interesting; though NONE of it has anything at all to do with the fictional Robin Hood EVER having been engaged in fighting in any of the Crusades…….at any time.
It all began when Europeans got POed about Muslims being in power in Jerusalem and their ever growing power and menace to/encroachment on Europe. This, in part, is one of the things that Osama bin Laden is still having hissy fits over. He and all other radical Muslims want "their" lands ( which they haven't had for a millenia + ) back and a world wide Caliphate.
the one who says that he's not watshing the movie because Robin hood defends Muslims is an asshole, it's a stupid arguement. read history well, read Spain history, read Muslims history. you'll see fighting for love against haters and against ignorance. Islam came to say "there is no compulsion in religion". Robin hood was fighting for freedom. and anyone against freedom is a pig.
I think it's funny that people think that Christians weren't just as brutal in the Middle Ages as the Muslims. They were, but the Christians learned not to do it. The Muslims did not..
In the Middle Ages, people like me (i.e. Jews) were massacred by both sides equally on their ways to the Crusades (and back). Don't pretend that the modern ideas of tolerance by Christians were reflected way back then. The Christian crusaders left a river of blood in their wake.
I saw the movie. I liked it. It was long. But it had an interesting "reboot" of the story. I did see the political outlook in it, but honestly, I was just looking to be entertained. I have no interest in taking political points from raging a$$hats like Scott or Crowe. I never have and I never will.
Progressives will go to any length, any stretch to connect violence to the Tea Party.
But of course that's an anachronism that's built into the legend- Robin's "English" longbow wouldn't be an English weapon until after Edward I's troops encountered it in the hands of the Welsh, a century later.
Actually the Saracens mantained numerous colonies/raiding bases in South Italy in the 10th Century, as the decaying Carolingians no longer had the ability (or interest in Italian affairs) to fight them off. Muslims even looted the Vatican and destroyed the original Tomb of St Peter. It was the Normans who eventually dislodged them- and the Pope's alliance with the Normans and thus breaking with the Empire set the course of centuries of European history.
" read history well, read Spain history, read Muslims history. you'll see fighting for love against haters and against ignorance."
I have read history, very, very well- and the currently fashionable myth of enlightened, tolerant Muslims is a LOAD OF HORSESHIT.
Yes, the future "Hammer of the Scots" knew a good weapons system when he saw one.
Was it Edward I who banned all sports but archery? Learning the longbow required extensive training and constant practice.
That was his grandson Edward III
The children in England are losing their own history at an astonishing rate. I suppose this has something to do with Mao's policies which did the same thing in China, or tried to.
I recently saw "Robin Hood" and found it engaging. I'm a conservative historian (no, really, there are such animals!), with a recent Ph.D. in U.S. history (so, not a medieval expert, but with some coursework in it). When Robin denounces King Richard early in the movie for massacring about 2,000 Muslims at Acre, that is true. When Prince/King John snaps at his mother by attacking his brother Richard for bankrupting the kingdom for wars, his own ransom (Richard was held for ransom by the emperor of Germany on his way back from Palestine), he was right. I did find "Kingdom of Heaven" to be politicized claptrap, but this movie seems to be much better (I'm waiting on the sequel(s) to be sure). Remember, in feudal Europe, there was no nationalism or patriotism as we understand it. People were loyal to their region, town, etc. And don't forget. Robin Hood is a legend, with numerous versions that have evolved over time. Don't worry too much about what people do with legends.
I'm a conservative, I saw the movie, and I loved it. The speech about liberty was so well-taken that as we walked out I said to my son that I wish our governing class still believed it today. A teaching moment! Plus the period aspects of it were very convincing and well done.
Soimeone may have already commented on this–I'm pressed for time can'
t can't read all of them–but one of the stupidest things I've heard in the MSM was when CBS Sunday Morning did a piece recently on Robin Hood and his various screen incarnations. Commenting on the new movie, the reporter said that Russell Crowe's Robin fights against oppressive taxation and seeks to limit the power of King John–which made the reporter compare the new Robin to Che Guevara! I felt like e-mailing CBS and saying sarcastically, "Yes, whenever I think of anti-statist heroes fighting against oppressive taxation and for limited government, I always think of Che Guevara." Was that reporter a blithering idiot, completely ignorant of history, or both?
Seems like there should be a requirement to see the film (read the bill) before talking ill of it. I just saw it and liked it. Is it perfect? No, but it was fun and enjoyable. Robin seemed more libritarian than anything else. It didn't harp on the bad Chirstians killing muslims. Just a simple question then they moved on.
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