The Círculo de Bellas Artes in Madrid is holding the cycle Light and Shadow, Representations of the Middle Ages in Film until 30 December.
The presence of the Middle Ages in our collective imagination has cinema as one of its greatest expressions. This relationship goes back, in fact, to the dawn of the creation of the seventh art, as shown by the successive works produced at the end of the 19th century around the figure of the medieval French martyr Joan of Arc (Alfred Clark, Joan of Arc/Burning of Joan of Arc, 1895; Georges Hatot, Éxecution de Jeanne d’Arc, 1898; Georges Méliès, Jeanne d’Arc, 1900).
As well as being ancient, this theme has been transversal to the most diverse film genres, to different film industries, and to directors with very different interests who, at one or more moments in their careers, have wanted to dive into the medieval past.
The title alludes to the Middle Ages as a historical period and as an imaginary construction in its various interpretations, those more idealistic/romantic (the “Light”) or those with a more negative/grotesque vision of the medieval past (the “Shadow”).
The films to be screened in this cycle are The Passion of Joan of Arc, by Carl Thedor Dreyer (in the photo); Alexander Nevsky, by Sergei Eisenstein; The Secret of the Book of Kells, by Tomm Moore; The Vikings, by Richard Fleischer; The Assassin, by Hsiao-Hsien Hou; Return to Aztlán, by Juan Mora Catlett; The Million Ryo Pot, by Yamanaka Sadao, and When We Were Witches, by Nietzchka Keene.
This cycle is organised by the Universidade NOVA de Lisboa, the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, the Filmoteca Española, the Consejería de Cultura of the Portuguese Embassy in Madrid, the Cinemateca Portuguesa-Museu do Cinema, the Instituto Confucio de Madrid, the Fundación Japón, the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México and the Círculo de Bellas Artes.
