Revising History through Film
Nowadays, I am wary of movies with a historical theme or historical background. Oliver Stone came out with a movie about Alexander the Great that attempted to portray Alexander as a homosexual.
Some fictional work set in the 1800’s or early American historical periods attempts to “write back” into history the cultural depravity of today. I once saw a film about serial murder and gross immorality with a feminist main character. It was set in the 1600’s and the protagonists were Puritans.
Another film with an attempt at revising the history of The Crusades is “Kingdom of Heaven” directed by Ridley Scott. The following link discusses its historical distortions: Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven: Propaganda Film?
Dan Brown’s book, “The DaVinci Code” is being made into a movie with its blasphemous portrayal of Jesus Christ.
With the current allegations of the homosexuals that Abraham Lincoln was gay, it wouldn’t be far fetched to surmise that some Hollywood filmmaker is busy at work with another such historical revisionist movie touching on the life of Abraham Lincoln.
Some fictional work set in the 1800’s or early American historical periods attempts to “write back” into history the cultural depravity of today. I once saw a film about serial murder and gross immorality with a feminist main character. It was set in the 1600’s and the protagonists were Puritans.
Another film with an attempt at revising the history of The Crusades is “Kingdom of Heaven” directed by Ridley Scott. The following link discusses its historical distortions: Ridley Scott's Kingdom of Heaven: Propaganda Film?
Dan Brown’s book, “The DaVinci Code” is being made into a movie with its blasphemous portrayal of Jesus Christ.
With the current allegations of the homosexuals that Abraham Lincoln was gay, it wouldn’t be far fetched to surmise that some Hollywood filmmaker is busy at work with another such historical revisionist movie touching on the life of Abraham Lincoln.
posted at 11:57 AM PermaLink
1 Comments:
I have not seen "Kingdom of Heaven" yet so I cannot speak to its historical accuracy. However I do think the article you linked to is pretty much wrong. The Templars, and more specifically the then Grand Master of the Templars Girard de Ridfort, was directly responsible for both the invasion of Saladin as well as the Crusader's disasterous defeat at the Horns of Hattin. It was de Ridfort who led the stupendously stupid attack of a few hundred templar knights against seven thousand Muslim cavalry at the Springs of Cresson which began the war. Even though those Muslim's, under the command of Salladin's son, were passing through the territory of Count Raymond of Tripoli under treaty and had his full permission to do so. Furthermore, Raymond had sent messengers to de Ridfort telling him of the Muslim's presence specifically so that a confrontation could be avoided. The battle resulted in the death of all ninety templars who fought in it with the exception of de Ridfort and two others. The only thing it accomplished was to start a war the Kingdom of Jerusalem could not win. Later when Raymond counseled the king not to advance across the desert and attack Saladin, de Ridfort interceded again and convinced the king to adopt a disasterous course of action. And finnally, when the Crusader army was camped at the springs of Sephoria, twenty miles away from Raymond's home city of Tiberias which his wife was defending against Saladin's army. Raymond again counseled king Guy against making the doomed march across the desert which would only weaken the men and make them a prime target for Saladin. Instead if they stayed encamped at Sephoria, Saladin would not be able to field his army for long in the desert and would eventually be forced to withdraw. Raymond told the counsel that, as a Christian he would rather lose his own city and his family than lose the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Yet again, however, de Ridfort prevailed and convinced Guy to move his army out into the desert. Saladin easily blocked their progress just before they reached the Sea of Gallillea near Hattin where the exhausted and thirst crazed Crusader army was destroyed.
It is difficult to characterize either side as "good" or "bad" within the context of the Crusades. Both parties committed previously unknown forms of cruelty and yet there exists within both outstanding examples of morality as well. It's hard to make judgements against whole countries, but easier to make them about the individual's who led them. While the leper king, Baldwin IV was a good, though shortlived, king who preserved his realm through wise treaties with Saladin. His successor, Guy of Lusignan, was a usserper as Raymond of Tripoli was supposed to have been regent of the realm until a new king was chosen following the death of Baldwin IV 's nephew also named Baldwin. Moreover he was so indecisive that the first time he met Saladin in battle he couldn't be goaded into combat and the second time he was bullied into disasterous decisions by de Ridfort and the other hawkish nobles.
Historically there was a Bailan of Ibelin, upon which the movie is based, who defended Jerusalem after the Horns of Hattin. Because so many had fallen in that battle, or been made prisoner, he was chosen by the people to defend them along with only two other knights in the entire city! When Saladin managed to breach the walls Bailan negotiated the ransom of the enitre population, to which Saladin agreed. Bailan emptied the entire treasury to pay for most of Jerusalem's people to go free while the patriarch Heraclius paid only the ten-dinar ransom for himself and a few servants and rode off with a treasure of silver plating and rugs past hundreds too poor to buy their was out of slavery. Saladin, by contrast, allowed his brother to purchase the freedom of a thousand Christian captives. While he himself allowed all the aged, both women and men, to go free. He also allowed for all the women who had been freed that their husbands and fathers be freed as well. Furthermore, once Jerusalem had been taken Saladin invited the Jews and Orthodox Christians to remain in the city where the Crusaders had forced them to attend Roman Catholic services given in languages they didn't even understand.
As for this being "Osama bin Laden's history" I don't think anything could be farther from the truth. To say that, in general, Muslim culture was far more sophisticated and "modern" than Western Europe not saying that this bin-ladeninzes history. In fact it is exactly the opposite, bin-laden would probably want to see Muslim history as a progression of extremism which never adopted new ideas from other cultures, which never tolerated other religions, and was always pious in the extreme. When in reality it was far from this, instead under Saladin Muslim society tolerated many other religions, as well as adopted new ideas from any culture that could offer them as opposed to Christian Europe at the time which looked upon most new ideas as heresy. The only reason we even know of Aristotle to day is because Muslim scholars (traditionally refering to him as "the master") copied and preserved his works which were burned by the Catholic church as heresy. What we see now is a commplete reversal of this, in which Europe began leaning more and more towards greater tolerance and aceptance of foreign ideas while most of the Muslim world has turned inward and rejects all non-believers and their ideas as well.
In history there are very seldom simply "good guys" and "bad guys". The Crusaders certainly weren't very nice; when Ascalon fell during the first crusade nearly every citizen was butchered, as well as was the case when Jerusalem fell. Even those Jews who fled to their synagogues thinking they would be spared were murdered. The succesive Muslim armies could be equally brutal, even those under Saladin. While all of these were surpassed, ultimately, by the ruthlessness of the Mongols of the Golden Horde who annihilatted entire cities simply because they would not immediately surrendur.
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