In the USSR, films about Ancient Russia were presented, oddly enough, mainly in the form of fairy tale films. The director A. Ptushko’s works “Ilya Muromets”, “Ruslan and Lyudmila”, “Sadko” were shot with a real Hollywood scale, the crowd “Ilya” is probably the largest in the history of cinema.
Filmed later in the genre of "documentary films", the Middle Ages of Russia are most often shown in cuts from fairy tales.
One of the best works of S. Eisenstein “Alexander Nevsky” (1938) is a universally recognized classic of domestic and world cinema.
The Western European Middle Ages were shown to the Soviet audience in the films “The Ballad of the Valiant Knight Aivengo”, “The Adventures of Quentin Dorward ...”, based on the novels of Walter Scott.
Particularly noteworthy is the very interesting joint Norwegian-Soviet film by S. Rostotsky “And trees grow on stones” about the life and adventures of the Scandinavian Vikings.
The quality of contemporary Russian historical (and not only historical) cinema is poor. Films “Alexander. Battle of Neva ”(2008) and“ Yaroslav. A thousand years ago ”(2010) at best arouse the desire to revise the“ classics ”. This list indicates that in the domestic cinema of the last century films about the Middle Ages were created that did not carry a touch of fabulousness.
If the reader did not sleep at the lessons of history, or watched movies of the Soviet era, he knows that in fact the Middle Ages were not at all as scary and gloomy as they are mostly portrayed in modern cinema.
Western cinema - the middle ages as in a textbook
In the West, the best films about the Middle Ages are associated with the name of the great actor Charlton Heston. His work in the movie El Cid about the events of the Spanish Reconquista is worthy of admiration. The film “Lord of War” is also very good; it can be used to study the history of feudal relations in medieval Western Europe as a textbook. Full of drama, the image of Joan of Arc was created by Mila Jovovich in the film of the same name (1999). The events of the Crusades are well shown in the tapes “Arn. Knight Templar ”and“ Arn: The Kingdom at the End of the Road. ” The film "Kingdom of Heaven" (starring O. Bloom) is clearly underestimated by the audience. In general, good films about the Middle Ages in the West come out quite regularly and do not lose their popularity. The next “Robin Hood” (2010) does not claim to be an original plot, but works with the participation of Russell Crowe rarely go unnoticed. The Iron Knight (2011) has a very real historical foundation. James Purefoy very successfully "fit into the role" of the Knight Templar, brilliantly demonstrates the technique of owning a bastard sword.
Truth and fiction
Separately, it is worth mentioning numerous paintings that do not fit the category of "films about the Middle Ages" due to the lack of a historical basis. Often they are presented as historical, especially if there is clearly no “fantasy” component. This, for example, “The First Knight” (1995), “Tristan and Isolde” (2006), “The History of the Knight” (2001), etc. At the same time, the wonderful “fantasy” series “The Game” of thrones ”in terms of costumes, weapons, household items, as well as the intricacies of the plot and intrigue creates the real atmosphere of that time, and if it were not for the fantastic plot, it could well be relegated to the category of“ films about the Middle Ages ”.