Classic Literature and Cinema on Sky Arts - Myths and Legends

 

Narrated as usual by Mariella Frostrup, this episode about myths and legends started with the fact that before CGI, many directors took the challenge of bringing these films to life. The great warriors of legend was typified by Hercules and the first film in 1958 that starred Steve Reeves. We then see 1963's Jason and the Argonauts with those amazing warrior skeletons. Ray Harryhausen led the way with special effects and 1981's Clash of the Titans, his last film. We were told about the Roman poet Ovid and his Metamorphoses that includes 250 myths, from which many of these films found the characters.

The section on legends starts with King Arthur with the film from 1953 Knights of the Round Table. We also see a clip from 1981's Excalibur. It was Alfred Lord Tennyson's nineteenth century poems Idylls of the King that formed the basis of these movies. Sir Walter Scott's historical novels Ivanhoe from 1819 were hugely popular as was the film version in 1952. But it was one of the characters who made the biggest impact. The Adventures of Robin Hood from 1938 (a big colour movie) was a remake of 1922's silent movie with Douglas Fairbanks. 

One Thousand and One Nights contains a number of folk tales from the Middle East. It was only much later that the most famous stories found their way into books and then films. First we see 1924's The Thief of Bagdad and then the 1940 remake. It is Scheherazade who tells the stories including Aladdin and Ali Baba, whose 1940 film is the last we see of these. It was Ray Harryhausen who conceptualised The Seventh Voyage of Sinbad in 1958 with pioneering special effects and using colour for the first time. 

Chinese folk tales include the stories of Mulan and we see a clip from 1939's Mulan Joins the Army. Then the Disney animation was followed in 2009's Mulan, Rise of the Warrior. (The whole film on YouTube). One of the Germanic heroic legends is that of Beowulf that became the computer generated film of 2007. It includes a fire breathing dragon! Another ancient hero was Siegfried that was brought to the big screen by Fritz Lang's Die Nibelungen in 1924. Next up the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm. We see a clip from Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, the Disney animation.

The fairy tales of Hans Christian Anderson include The Little Mermaid, Frozen and The Red Shoes. When L. Frank Baum published his book The Wonderful Wizard of Oz in 1900, it was not until 1938 that Judy Garland appeared in the movie version, the highly successful The Wizard of Oz. The last part of this episode is devoted to the English writer JRR Tolkien. His The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings have become those blockbuster movies. More interesting were excerpts from an interview with the writer. Because this series is more about the literature that inspired film adaptations.