I must object to proposing the movie version of Eco's _Name of the Rose_
as useful for the eleventh-grader's project. The movie only perpetuates
the worst caricatures everyone else on the list has been trying to
overcome. Whether the novel itself is useful, I question--it certainly is
less useful than many of the secondary sources already suggested, but the
movie is certainly a caricature of the novel.
Generally I think high school students need to be aware that movies
(even more so than textbooks) must be taken with a large dose of salt.
They should not stand on their own but must be read (viewed) critically in
conjunction with other sources. Yes, movies are gripping, draw one's
attention into a subject, but an introduction to a subject that attracts
by virtue of caricature is worse than no introduction at all, in my
opinion. That's precisely how we ended up with the miserable caricatures
of the Middle Ages in contemporary textbooks--via the belles lettres work
of people like Voltaire in the 18thc and then the romantics in the 19thc
and then the Marxists and the other -isms of the 20thc.
None of us would use films in teaching medieval studies without a lot of
commentary and critical helps; for that reason, I think it unwise to
recommend them uncritically for a high school independent research paper.
Dennis Martin
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