ROBIN HOOD: Some reflections

ROBIN HOOD

and......The Way We Really Were

Part 1:

Last night I watched some, but not all, of the story of Robin Hood, the heroic outlaw found in English folklore.  According to legend he was also a highly skilled archer and swordsman. Traditionally depicted as being dressed in Lincoln green, he is often portrayed as "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor" alongside his band of "Merry Men".  Robin Hood became a popular folk figure in the medieval period, and continues to be widely represented in modern literature, films and television.

Robin Hood is a 2010 British-American epic adventure film based on the Robin Hood legend, directed by Ridley Scott and starring Russell Crowe and Cate Blanchett.¹  It was released in over 50 countries in the second week of May 2010, just as I was beginning my retirement at the age of 65 on two old-age pensions.  This adventure film was the opening film at the 2010 Cannes Film Festival.

Part 2:

Readers with the interest can access all sorts of sources on the internet to find out a wealth of detail regarding this film. The historicity, that is, the existence and life-narrative of Robin Hood has been debated for centuries. Modern academic opinion maintains that the legend is based in part on a historical person, although there is considerable scholarly debate as to his actual identity.  A difficulty with any such historical research is compounded by the fact that "Robert" was, in medieval England, a very common given name, and "Robin", was its very common diminutive, especially in the 13th century.

I don't want to delve into the intricacies associated with either the film or the historical person. I leave that to readers who are also keen movie-goers, as I say, to excavate the accuracy and inaccuracy of the film, how much money it grossed, and some of the reviews now available.  -Ron Price with thanks to ¹Channel 7 TV, 8:30, 9 December 2014.

Part 3:

I am interested here in exploring my study of the Middle Ages during my 70 year lifespan. I have written extensively on my website at this link: http://www.ronpriceepoch.com/HISTORY-medieval.html, and readers can access several dozen pages of my commentary on that period of history.  

Until my first two years at university, 1963 to 1965,  in Ontario I took no courses in, did no study of,  the period known as the Middle Ages.  I took one course in the first year of an arts degree, and one in my second year, while studying history and philosophy, courses that covered some part of that period in history.  In my years of being a teacher and tutor, a lecturer and adult educator, from 1967 to 2005, I often read about what I always found to be a complex period in history.  But, then, I have found that the more I know about a period in history, the more complex it gets.

Part 4: 

Historical period drama is a film genre in which stories are based upon historical events and famous people. Some historical dramas are docudramas which attempt an accurate portrayal of a historical event or biography.  Of course, it is only accurate to the degree that the available historical research will allow. Other historical dramas are fictionalized tales that are based on an actual person and their deeds, such as Braveheart, which is loosely based on the 13th-century knight William Wallace's fight for Scotland's independence.

There are now dozens of films and docudramas beginning, arguably, in 1937 with Scipio Africanus: The Defeat of Hannibal. Those involving the Middle Ages include: Alexander Nevsky in 1938; Theodora, Slave Empress in 1954, The Raid of the Aegean in 1946, The Life and Death of King John in 1951, and several others.  For more on this genre go to Wikipedia.

Part 5:

I remember well being thrown

information by the truckload

as I went through those first

two years of university back

in those calamitous years of

the 1960s..I remember, too,

those little stories of Robin

Hood on our TV before my

parents sold it to save me

from being inundated by

trivia as the world tried to

forget the terrors of those

war years, the holocaust,

the A-bomb, & at the same

time drown us all in simple,

superficial proprieties, far

removed from genitalia.¹

Then rock-'n' roll woke us

up from our day-dream of

Mr Clean, luxury without

stress, Negroes, Indians &

all those Hollywood's icons.

Those docudramas in cinema

would have helped my teaching

of history; beginning about the

time my parents met in the late

1930s, and at the same time as

the Baha'i community launched

its 1st systematic teaching Plans,

they help to bring history alive to

the millions who find it a very dry

graveyard of distant information!!

¹ D.T. Miller and M. Nowak, The Fifties: The Way We Really Were, Doubleday & Co. Ltd., N.Y., 1977, p. 302.

Ron Price

10/12/'14.