the making of braveheart
Feb. 23rd, 2006 09:10 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
llywelaSo glad I made myself brave the wind and rain to go to the free seminar down at Lifelong Learning tonight. Richard was excellent - he's improved his delivery so, so much since the last time I heard him give a paper.
The seminar title was 'The Making of Braveheart', and was basically a tour through the historiography of the William Wallace legend, from what few contemporary sources are extant, through 15th century hagiography (namely Blind Harry's lengthy praise poem) right up to the modern re-telling of the legend in the form of Mel Gibson's 1995 film. Which I have now been reminded just how much I detested.
That said, Richard did point out that for all its flaws in terms of accurate historical detail, the film can and does take its place in what has been a very long tradition of re-workings of the legend to suit the audience of the day.
Richard always amuses - he's another who was at uni at about the same time as me and hasn't managed to escape yet. He's now doing his PhD at Glasgow University. Or at least, he's registered to do his PhD at Glasgow University. Since he still lives in Cardiff and does all his research down here, it's kind of a long distance thing...
Also, my best friend Heather was there with her nephew Ashley, who I haven't seen since he was about the same age Small is now, but is now a strapping 15 year old. Time flies!
The seminar title was 'The Making of Braveheart', and was basically a tour through the historiography of the William Wallace legend, from what few contemporary sources are extant, through 15th century hagiography (namely Blind Harry's lengthy praise poem) right up to the modern re-telling of the legend in the form of Mel Gibson's 1995 film. Which I have now been reminded just how much I detested.
That said, Richard did point out that for all its flaws in terms of accurate historical detail, the film can and does take its place in what has been a very long tradition of re-workings of the legend to suit the audience of the day.
Richard always amuses - he's another who was at uni at about the same time as me and hasn't managed to escape yet. He's now doing his PhD at Glasgow University. Or at least, he's registered to do his PhD at Glasgow University. Since he still lives in Cardiff and does all his research down here, it's kind of a long distance thing...
Also, my best friend Heather was there with her nephew Ashley, who I haven't seen since he was about the same age Small is now, but is now a strapping 15 year old. Time flies!
