Violence Examples Flashcards
The Seventh Seal
Brief Description
1957
Ingmar Bergman
Knight travelling home from a Crusade - squire - Jons - through “a land ravaged by the Black Death.” Knight i approached by Death, who he invites to play chess w/ him - if he wins, Death will not take him. Continues to seek for answers until game is done.
The Seventh Seal Example 1
The Flagellants
Flagellant movement: plague believed to be caused by sin, doing penance.
Outlawed by Clement VI October 1349.
Chronicon Henrici de Hervodia: “Using these whips they whipped their bare skin until their bodies were bruised and swollen and blood raised down, splattering the walls nearby”.
Hysterical emotionalism of response.
Unconvinced faces of Block,, Jons, mute girl: meaningless suffering, rather than a meaningful act of penance.
Skeptical AB: “God has sentenced us to punishment”
The Seventh Seal Example 2
The witch-burning
Did not happen at the same time as the black plague (late 15th c).
Watch 14 yr old Tyan burn.
Jons: “Who watches over that girl? Is it angels, or God, or the Devil, or just emptiness? Emptiness, my lord! look at her eyes, my lord. Her poor brain has just made the discovery. Emptiness under the moon.” “That poor little child, I can’t stand it!”
Meaningless brutality; 20th c existentialist thought.
The Seventh Seal 3
Other violence
Ultimate meaninglessness of religious violence / the Crusades. Implication by Jons when he runs into Raval - who we find plundering houses and trying to rape a young girl - convinced Block - good idea to crusade. “You send your heavenly venom to poison the knight.”
Chaos / brutality in world w/o state regulation - Jons is the closest we get to a regulating body.
Returning from war - post WW & individualism perspective
Joan of Arc
The Passion of Joan of Arc - Carl Theodor Dreyer (1928)
The Trial of Joan of Arc - Robert Bresson (1962)
Trial of Joan of Arc (d.1431) for heresy. French hero, siege of Orleans (1429), convicted of heresy and killed by the English who captured her (1431). Canonised 1920. Record of trial used (& second trial - 1456, nullification).
Joan of Arc Example 1
Joan of Arc as a Victim of Violence
Treatment at the hands of her English captors - focus on trial - cutting out siege of Orleans (1429) or involvement in Coronation of Charles VII.
Dreyer: tear-stained face - intense close-ups - abstraction - threat of torture, burning to death, camera on face as she dies. Institutional violence. Renee Jean Falconette - “inner, not outer” life - youth, innocence, saintliness, bewilderment. Evil clergy.
Nature of violence: “personal, direct, and visceral” - Brown.
Bresson: less intense - body disappears from stake - Florence Delay - not acting - clarity/fortitude of response.
Joan of Arc Example 2
Joan of Arc as a perpetrator of violence
Successful military commander - HYW (1337 - 1453). Larissa Taylor’s biography. Siege of Orleans, 1429. Turning point of war. Line from Orleans to Rheims to Dauphin to be crowned. Risk taking. Complicated b/c politics w/ Burgundy. Physical strength (Christine de Pizan).
Re-imagined - late 19th century - champion of the Third Republic - national warrior, libertator of France.
- Emmanuel Fremiet - statue of JofA (1874). Place de Pyramides (wounded during her attempt to take Paris). Armoured, on horse back, w/ standard.
- Modern day - National Front - Marine Le Pen.
Marie Warner: childishness, piety, lacks moral dilemmas / ambiguities.
Joan of Arc Example 3
Torture
Portrayal of J’s potential torture at the hands of her captors.
Dreyer: extended shot of various torture instruments.
Bresson: lying limply on the rack, calm & collected.
Context of Algiers War (1954-1962) - both countries involved access to torture - 1961 march on Paris - many died - depiction of torture in film restricted.
El Cid
El Cid (1961) Dir. Anthony Mann
Starring Charlton Heston
Life of Rodrigo Diaz (c.1043-1099) - Castilian soldier who rose to prominence in the court of King Sancho II of Castile (1065-72), & served under Sancho’s brother Alfonso VI of Leon-Castile (1065/72-1109) before he was exiled in 1081. Served Muslim taifa of Zaragoza, in/out of favour w/ Alfonso, conquers Muslim city of Valencia in 1094, rules until his death.
El Cid Example 1
Heroism of the Cid
Historici Roderici (MS 1230, c.1145) - Diaz honoured for military prowess / plundering success. “While he lived in this world… never was he defeated by any man.”
Anonymous Latin poem, 1147: Cid “the first” amongst warriors - expert displays of violence.
Indiscriminate: killed Muslims and Christians alike (Count Berenguer of Barcelona, ransomed, 1083; working for Muslim leader of Zaragoza).
In film:
- does not plunder
- always wins
- last restort
- only those who deserve it
- sacrifices love for Jimena “for Spain! Spain”
- gives up Valencia for his king, Alfonso.
Feeds Valencia when he is trying to starve them out.
El Cid Example 2
Cruelty of the Cid
Historici Roderici: attacking “the dominions of King Alfonso… Mostly savagely and mercilessly through all those regions did he lay waste with relentless, destructive, irreligious fire. He took huge booty, yet it was saddening… harsh and impious devastation…”
El Cid Example 3
Politicisation of the Cid
Mural post Civil War - Servicio Historico Militar - foreground Franco, in full suit of plate armour & white robe, holding broadsword, background Nationalist forces in 20th c uniforms - bearing modern weaponry - ass w/ heroic ideals of medieval past.
Big battle.
Use of Moons: General Franco - 80,000 Moroccan Muslims - Good Moors / Bad Moors, Good Christians / Bad Christians
Becket
Becket (1964) Jean Anouilh, "Becket or the Honour of God" (1959) Edward Anhalt Peter Glenville Chancellor 1155-1162 AB 1162-1170. Henry II (r.1154 -1189). Canonised 1173.
Becket Example 1
Becket’s martyrdom
Unusually violent nature of death
Lack of precedent:
- Charles the Good of Flanders, died in a church, 1128;
- King Cnut of Denmark (hagiographical narratives), 1086
- not clergymen
Reliquary caskets.
Film: bloodied, cut open, line of blood from his mouth.
Becket Example 2
Treatment of Women: Becket VS the King
Violence of an oppressor against another racial group and the church, with the arbitrary justification that he is the king.
Attempting to rape women / interested in doing so - including a sixteen-year-old peasant girl, who he refers to as “it”. Ethnic element where it did not exist; violence where it cannot be proven. Norman barons: warmongering, stupid, racist.
Becket: secretly refuses Henry’s gift of a peasant girl, and then gives the girl’s father. Girl brought to him later, she offers to take her clothes off, he says “what?”, she repeats, he laughs bitterly. In the play: “Of course”. Gwendolen.
