medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
There are several points to be made.
1. That Gibson should chose a modern ecclesiastical pronunciation (even
"after consideration of all the alternatives") gives an insight into his
motivation.
2. One should not confuse the reasons for "artistic" choices, with the post
hoc rationalisations of those choices.
3. The Eastern Roman Empire was administered in Greek. Those 'Roman'
soldiers would have been Greek-speaking.
4. An awful lot is known about the pronunciation of Latin. The standard
work is Allen's "Vox Latina".
5. There is a contradiction between employing Aramaic to produce alienation
and Latin to give aural "familiarity". I appreciate that the film was
produced for those to whom a foreign-language film with subtitles would be a
novelty, which might well explain why it was produced as a standard horror
film, with the tropes and clichés of the genre.
6. In this context it is perhaps unwise to mention the word "kitsch".
7. The reference to "medieval passion devotion" is sufficiently vague to
make it unclear as to how, if at all, this might relate to medieval drama,
and the context and language employed for that.
8. The reference to 15th-century art rather overlooks the interest that
Andrea Mantegna, for example, had in archaeological accuracy.
John Briggs
**********************************************************************
To join the list, send the message: join medieval-religion YOUR NAME
to: [log in to unmask]
To send a message to the list, address it to:
[log in to unmask]
To leave the list, send the message: leave medieval-religion
to: [log in to unmask]
In order to report problems or to contact the list's owners, write to:
[log in to unmask]
For further information, visit our web site:
http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/medieval-religion.html
|