Lancelot's Use Of Chivalry In First Knight

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First Knight is a adventure-romance film that was styled like a classic Hollywood film. With this film, the creators wanted to create an interpretation of the King Arthur story, but not one that is trying to be incredibly faithful to its source material. It wants to take the melodrama and the grand scale of the Arthurian lore and adapt it for a modern audience. The scale of the film's larger conflicts (kingdom versus kingdom), along with the love triangle and the Errol Flynn-style of the films action, lends itself to taking place in the Middle Ages. The romanticism that many people associate with the Middle Ages fits perfectly with the kind of action that the filmmakers wanted to film (the classic Hollywood swift swordplay that was popularized …show more content…
In this film, chivalry is never explicitly mentioned but there is sense of loyalty and brotherhood among the knights in this film. During Lancelot's knighting, he is required to recite a pledge to Arthur and the rest of the knights where he proclaims, "Brother to brother, yours in life and death". This sense of togetherness and bonding among the knights in this film is what makes the betrayal of Lancelot so treasonous. This treatment of chivalry is not entirely inaccurate because chivalry, as defined by Niguel Saul, included these ideals and was not an explicit code of ethics. However, I felt like it was not essential to the plot. The betrayal of Lancelot and the final battle sequence would have been equally as effective if Lancelot never made that pledge. Arthur embodies chivalry in his actions and it is made apparent from the beginning of the film that Lancelot is not as chivalrous as he is. Arthur's genuine kindness towards Lancelot is enough to establish the tragedy of the story and the pledge of chivalry only serves as an explanation for why Arthur sends both Guinevere and Lancelot to public court for treason. Since that court session is interrupted by Prince Malagant, that whole conflict is rendered pointless because it is not resolved by anything that relates to directly to …show more content…
The large age gap between King Arthur and Guinevere in this film is fairly exclusive to this film and has no historical basis for it. It is also highly unlikely, given how directly involved in battles Arthur would have been and the amount of diseases and lack of medical care there would have been around the time this film takes place, that he would have lived to be as old as he is in this film. While his age is not explicitly stated in the film, it safe to say that he is at least in his 50's, which is much older than the average age of most people in the Middle Ages (even amongst royalty). While Guinevere's age is closer to how old she is in most of the Arthurian mythology, it creates an age gap that sticks out in the film. There are also major aesthetic inaccuracies within the film. Guinevere's outfits are consistently form-fitting, much more so than would be particularly common around this time period. Mortimer points out in his book that people of higher classes could get away with wearing more revealing and form fitting outfits than other people, but almost every outfit Guinevere wears in the film is pretty form fitting and accents her curves even in non-formal settings. It is unlikely that would have been the case around the time this film takes place. The smaller, handheld crossbows are too advanced for the time period that this film takes place. If this film is taking place during the fictional
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