Posted on 05/05/2005 5:28:45 PM PDT by Fred
www.catholicnewsagency.com
Scholars call new Crusade movie ‘rubbish’
Los Angeles, May. 04, 2005 (CNA) - With anticipation of English director Ridley Scott’s new film, Kingdom of Heaven steadily growing, the skepticism of many scholars of the middle ages is also growing.
Hollywood observers are predicting that the film will be one of the summer’s biggest blockbusters with a cost of over $150 million and an all-star cast including Orlando Bloom of Lord of the Rings fame.
A recent New York Times review said that Muslims in the film “are portrayed as bent on coexistence until Christian extremists ruin everything. And even when the Christians are defeated, the Muslims give them safe conduct to return to Europe.”
Robert Spencer, however, in a column in Front Page Magazine noted that the film, “is being touted as ‘a fascinating history lesson.’ Fascinating, maybe”, he said, “but only as evidence of the lengths to which modern Westerners are willing to go to delude themselves.”
One leading scholar, Professor Jonathan Riley-Smith, author of A Short History of the Crusades, called the movie “rubbish,” and pointed out that, “it’s not historically accurate at all.”
He said that Scott’s film “depicts the Muslims as sophisticated and civilized, and the Crusaders are all brutes and barbarians. It has nothing to do with reality.”
He also blasts one particular plot line saying, “there was never a confraternity of Muslims, Jews and Christians. That is utter nonsense.”
Likewise, Professor Jonathan Philips, who wrote The Fourth Crusade and the Sack of Constantinople, criticized the film’s representation of the Knights Templar, saying that portraying “the Templars as ‘baddies’ is only sustainable from the Muslim perspective, and ‘baddies’ is the wrong way to show it anyway. They are the biggest threat to the Muslims and many end up being killed because their sworn vocation is to defend the Holy Land.”
Spencer added in his column that Kingdom of Heaven takes no “notice of the historical realities of Christians and Jews who lived under Muslim rule.
“They were never treated as equals”, he said, “or accorded full rights as citizens, and always suffered under various forms of institutionalized discrimination and harassment.”
Despite firm criticism however, director Scott is convinced he’s portrayed all sides equally in the film.
“When you see the film, you see balance,” he said.
Copyright @ Catholic News Agency (http://www.catholicnewsagency.com)
This is what I was afraid of. I've looked forward to this film, with some reservation because nothing these days puts Christians in a good light. I never expected this particular film to be pro-Muslim, however.
And with that gayboy wimp Orlando Bloom miscast as the dashing hero battling the evil Christian crusaders, this should be the Golden Turkey of 2005. Right up there with the box office bombs of last year, the insufferable Alexander the Great and Troy.
About what I expected.
I wonder if they'll show the part where the crusaders captured a town and roasted the children for dinner?
over here! :-O
I expected as much when I first saw the movie pre-views. The movies sole purpose is to make me feel guilty and feel I should apologies for being what I am.
From Saint Thomas Aquinas
Summa Contra Gentiles
Book One: God
Chapter 6
[4]
On the other hand, those who founded sects committed to erroneous doctrines proceeded in a way that is opposite to this. The point is clear in the case of Mohammed. He seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasures to which the concupiscence of the flesh goads us.1 His teaching also contained precepts which were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free reign to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths which he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity. He did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly witness to divine inspiration; for a visible action which can be only divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of truth. On the contrary, Mohammed said that he was sent in the power of his arms---which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants.2 What is more, no wise men, men trained in things divine and human, believed in him from the beginning. Those who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Mohammed forced others to become his followers by the violence of his arms.3 What is more, no divine pronouncements on the part of preceding prophets offer him any witness. On the contrary, he perverts almost all the testimonies of the Old and New Testaments by making them into fabrications of his own, as can be seen by anyone who examines his teaching. It was therefore a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to read the Old and New Testaments, lest these books convict him of falsity.4 It is thus clear that those who placed any faith in his words believed foolishly.
1 72 virgins anyone?
2 Violence and Islam are hand in hand
3 Conversion by the sword.
4 Execution for even having a copy of the Bible.
The more things change the more things stay the same.
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