Never Seen It #332: A Knight's Tale

What a pair we make, huh? Both trying to hide who we are, both unable to do so. Your blog loves you. If I knew nothing else about you, that would be enough. But you also watch 500 movies you've never seen before when you should withdraw... and that is knightly, too.

A Knight's Tale

2001

Brian Helgeland

Thanks to all those who contributed their thoughts regarding A Knight's Tale!

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Sean G.

Ok this was not expected. I had soooo much fun with A Knight's Tale from start to finish. It was funny, thrilling, and romantic. Every character had emotional weight, and I think the music choices work. The camerawork and editing were dynamic, and the pace never felt slow.

An instant rewatchable movie forever. Also, why isn't Mark Addy in everything? 

4.25 pukes out of 5

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Sunny

They just don't make 'em like this anymore. Without thinking too hard about it, I think this is my second Heath Ledger movie. I remember this coming out back in the '00s, but wouldn't really have the opportunity or much of the drive. 

Somewhere around the second act, I realized what's working so well here is an adherence to classic structure in the script and main gang assembly: charismatic leader and merry fellows. To see it executed feels almost trite, yet, familiar and comforting. The action/humor/romance mix isn't perfect, but definitely good enough to carry the pacing for two hours and change. While the script was perfectly routine, the acting was better than it needed to be.

For a construction that's otherwise so uncontroversial and playing a big hand with Ledger, the choice to do the half-modern soundtrack is bizarre. Somewhere after the first Queen song and halfway into "Low Rider," I wondered if JMK was fuming at home or on the train. At some point both the filmmakers and the audience realize nothing's going to be quite right or "accurate" to medieval times, and that's just fine.

3.5/5

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Gary

People remember Heath Ledger for playing the Joker. Rightfully so. But Heath Ledger will always be William to me. 

A Knight's Tale is a movie about a lot of things. Most movies can't do that formula right. It's a comedy. It's a romance. It's a coming of age movie. It's a story of friendship, togetherness, and overcoming anything life throws at you.

Set in medieval times (more on that later), the story of three friends, which quickly becomes four, trying to merely survive the harshness of being a squire. The knight they serve dies in the very beginning of the movie, and it sets the tone for young William to do the impossible. Go from squire to Knight. 

In actuality though, they really just want to win these jousting matches to have enough coins to get drunk and eat. 

Here is where Medieval Times comes in. I never realized the primal urge I have to watch jousting matches. It must be in my blood somewhere. Something buried in my DNA from ancestors past. But there is just something about a gigantic goblet of beer and eating a turkey leg that really gets me in the zone. Unfortunately, Medieval Times only serves chicken. And while delicious, it's not quite exactly the same. But if you never been, and you enjoyed this movie even slightly, you absolutely have to go. 

Okay. Back to the movie. I was twelve when the came out. And I could recite the entire movie word-for-word at some point. The cast is truly perfect. I don't know how else to say that. I'm horrible with names, so I'm not even going to try and pretend I know them.

The soundtrack is OFF THE CHARTS. Absolutely every song is a banger. The settings, while subtle, are so well done. 

I mean even freaking Geoffrey Chaucer is in the movie. If that's not enough to get you in, you get to see his butt briefly if that's your thing. 

I truly could talk about this movie for hours for just how perfect it is. But who knows? Maybe it's just that twelve-year-old Gary, coming into his own, wanting to change his own stars. And needing this absurdly great movie to inspire and delight. 

But I can promise you this. You'll take something from A Knight's Tale. Because it has absolutely everything to offer. 

GRADE: 5 all the way!

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Joe

I love the idea of being able to choose who we are, and I think this idea was enough to propel A Knight's Tale from pretty good to very good. At first, I was ready to quip that most of the identity politics that happen throughout the story—a common man falsifies papers, he's revealed through the duplicitous villain's action because of that villain's cowardice, the Prince of England makes up some shit about ancient bloodlines and knights him anyway—are based on lies, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought that maybe that's the whole point. There can't be any lies when the power to be who we want to be exists within us. No one else can tell us who we are, so no one else can tell us that we're lying about who we are.

"You're a knight in your heart, but not on paper." I love the idea of being a "knight in your heart," because the very definition of "knight" is so open to interpretation. Count Adhemar is a knight, but he's a piece of shit who spends half the movie roaming the countryside with his army, raping and pillaging. William Thatcher is not a knight, but he personifies all the values that a knight is supposed to have: loyalty, bravery, empathy. There were noblemen who claimed that William was not a knight, and they were right but only technically (and then, thanks to the prince, not even technically). But this is A Knight's Tale, and so we are forced to consider the fact that William was who he wanted to be, and so that's who he was, and is.

The running bit about "changing your stars" was genuinely effecting for this reason. I believe that message, both that you can be anyone you want to be, and that no one else has the moral authority to tell you you're not. I am distracted now with thoughts of men and women like William who are attempting to change their stars by coming to America, and being told by hard-hearted men in masks that they do not belong here, and that they either need to leave or be blindfolded and thrown in a cage and separated from their family. Who's to say who is a citizen of this country? Who's to say that anyone should be denied the identity that someone else assigns them? I know that wasn't really the point of this 2001 comedy-drama, but it's what I'm thinking about afterward.

Other than the emotional theme of identity and all that, I'd say that it was a pretty lighthearted affair that we watched. Now, I know what you're expecting here, knowing me and knowing how much I hate Queen, so I'll give you what you want first: I fucking haaaaaate Queen's music, and I got a real fucking bad feeling when the peasants started stomping and clapping along to "We Will Rock You." But my concerns were allayed when I realized that this wasn't going to be completely soundtracked by music that I despise. And the anachronistic music's placement was interesting enough that I'm almost willing to forgive bookending the movie with Queen.

Because I just really appreciated how that lack of historical accuracy—or should I say, a blatant disregard for historical accuracy, based on the music alone—puts you at ease. It tells you, right from the beginning, that this isn't going to be one of those movies where the focus is on the setting. More serious films set in this era of European history would try really hard to make sure all the set pieces matched with what historians agree it really looked like and felt like, and then there would be quibbling about, well, this and that costume isn't completely accurate, the dance moves aren't necessarily agreed upon as having happened, the style of speech is too curtailed toward modern audiences for it to be accurate, and all that is fucking boooooooooooring. Way more fun to just have Heath Ledger out there grooving to David fucking Bowie.

I think this all gives you permission to take seriously or not seriously anything you want. Chaucer is here, and he's got a gambling addiction, but it's more haha he's naked funny. The rabbity woman from Breaking Bad's later seasons is here, and I assume she is a character with thoughts and feelings, but we get to just shrug and say haha woman blacksmith and sort of leave it at that. The whole romance angle with Jocelyn is not really something that ever landed for me, but that's okay, because, ya know, who's to say what love actually is? If we're saying that a knight is someone who wants to be a knight, then why can't we say that love is when two attractive people want to be in love? If that's what the movie is saying, perhaps because the plot and/or the core audience of pre-9/11 female teenagers requires it, then who am I to say otherwise? They are singing Queen. We don't need to take it too seriously.

Which is nice, up to a point. That point is that there is a core truth here, one about seizing one's own identity and crafting it as you see fit, which feels important to me. It feels like a movie of A Knight's Tale's ilk might not typically be fit to make. But this movie can be whatever it wants to be, just like we can. And I want to be the type of person who enjoys a film like this, who revels in the lighthearted joy of men smashing sticks into one another on horseback, and who manages to pull something profound from such a film anyway.

GRADE: 3.5 pukes out of 5

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GROUP AVERAGE GRADE: 4.06 pukes out of 5

My lords, my ladies, and everybody else here not sitting on a cushion: I'll see you in the comments.

(NEXT TIME: In about 199 years and 364 days, Sean E. takes us through Bicentennial Man.)