Starring: Heath Ledger, Rufus Sewell
Director: Brian Helgeland
Rated: M15+
Heath Ledger stars in A Knight’s Tale SINCE The Jazz Singer, audiences have known how important the soundtrack is to ‘the talkies’.
We can, however, take the sound in the cinema for granted until it stops or is interrupted. These days sound design is so complex it can carry as much information as the picture on the screen. A Knight’s Tale is a lesson in the art of cinematic sound.
Set in the 13th century, William (Heath Ledger) is squire to a knight who dies straight after a joust. William hides this fact and secures the purse from the tournament by donning his master’s armour and contesting the remainder of the bout.
When William and his fellow squires come upon the down-on-his-luck and indebted Geoffrey Chaucer (Paul Bettany), they discover the now famous writer is able to forge patterns of heredity for William as Sir Ulrich von Liechtenstein of Gelderland. A jousting star is born. This unlikely quartet does the rounds of the European jousting fixtures and cleans up everything in sight. William’s only defeat comes at the hands of the evil Count Adhemar (Rufus Sewell), his rival for the hand of the beautiful courtier Jocelyn (Shannyn Sossamon). On arrival in London for the world championships Adhemar discovers William’s true identity and exposes him as a fraud. A final showdown ensues.
A Knight’s Tale gives a fun, modern makeover to a well-worn mediaeval story. Despite being meticulous with some of the re-creations in the set decoration and art design, director Brian Helgeland shows a blatant disregard for period conventions by fusing styles and forms.
The language is modern, the characters’ demeanours owe nothing to the 13th century, the costumes are more Dior than squire and the humour is contemporary. It is all good fun.
The soundtrack, however, delights the most. If ever you want to see how sound and music change the feel or message given in the pictures, this is the film to see.
At the first joust the mediaeval crowd sing “We will rock you” by Queen. When Sir Ulrich and his team arrive at London the soundtrack belts out Thin Lizzy’s “The boys are back in town”. In between these events the songs of David Bowie, Rare Earth and Bachman Turner Overdrive all get a run as well.
There are quotations of other films and a mediaeval take on sporting fixtures, spin doctoring and media manipulation. This all makes us smile and assures us there is an intelligent, post-modern sensibility in charge of this film.
Australia’s Heath Ledger is very good as William. He really has screen charisma. Paul Bettany’s Chaucer, Mark Addy’s Roland and Alan Tudyk’s Wat are all excellent. Sewell’s Adhemar, however, is a little too evil and Sossamon is very pretty to look at but is not the best actor I have ever seen.
The photography is outstanding, especially of the jousting competitions. In these realistic scenes wood jousting sticks are used which lessens the impact on the audience when they hit their human targets. This could easily have been a very gory film, but the studio wanted it to appeal to a large audience, hence it only has an M15+ rating.
The only problem is that A Knight’s Tale goes on too long. For all of the sound and light inventions, the story is very basic and so, after a while, all we wish is that the much anticipated showdown at the world championships would hurry up and get on screen and be gone.
