Knight's Tale Anachronism

743 Words3 Pages
In the movie A Knight’s Tale, which is based in a time period around 1370, there are many songs, actions and visuals that did not exist until a much later date. These anachronisms detract from the plot due to the irrelevance of them. One example of an anachronism that takes from the plot in the movie is, Kate, a blacksmith that William meets, uses the Bessemer process to make him new armor. The process she used which makes steel stronger and lighter, was not discovered until around 1856. This takes away from the plot because with that armor William could move faster and more freely than his competition, which makes the jousts unrealistic for the time period. Music is also a very widely used anachronism in the movie and it is used from scene…show more content…
Although the music was put into the movie most likely to relate Medieval England to more modern times it does detract from the plot. In the introduction scene to the movie the song from the early 1970’s, “We Will Rock You” plays at a joust where everybody in the stands is standing up and clapping to the music. Another example of an anachronistic scene in the movie is the banquet that William attends. In this scene Adhemar asks William to show everyone a dance from his country, William improvises with Jocelyn and creates a dance from the David Bowie song “Golden Years”. Other songs in the movie that are clearly not from the 1370’s include “The Boys Are Back in Town” by Thin Lizzy and “We Are the Champions” by Queen. The use of music from the 1970’s and 1980’s takes away from the plot because it causes the viewers of the movie to not fully comprehend the time period in which the movie is…show more content…
An example of an anachronistic action in the movie is the banquet once again. Not only is the song from a much later date but the dance that William and Jocelyn perform is also from the late 1900’s; In fact a large majority of the dances seen in the movie are from the same time period as the music. The language for the most part is fairly relevant to the movie plot, but there are a few inserts of modern slang. For example William and Jocelyn get into an argument, Jocelyn says "Better a silly girl with a flower than a silly boy with a horse and a stick," wills friend takes offence to this and says to her “it’s called a lance…hello”. The language Wills friend uses in that scene is not relevant to the plot
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