Heath Ledger, Mark Addy, Alan Tudyk and Paul Bettany in A Knight's Tale (2001)

French promotional postcard by Columbia Pictures, 2001. Photo: Heath Ledger, Mark Addy, Alan Tudyk and Paul Bettany in A Knight's Tale (Brian Helgeland, 2001). The French film title is Chevalier.

Heath Ledger played a man pretending to be a knight In A Knight's Tale (2001), written, co-produced and directed by Brian Helgeland. The swashbuckling comedy-drama is full of deliberate anachronisms: set in the 1370s, but with modern pop culture references and classic rock songs on the soundtrack.

Heath Ledger stars in A Knight's Tale as William Thatcher, a young squire with a gift for jousting. When his master, the old knight Sir Ector, suddenly dies. With one more pass, he could have won the tournament. Destitute, William wears Sir Ector's armour to impersonate him, taking the prize. William hits the road with his cohorts Roland (Mark Addy) and Wat (Alan Tudyk). On their journey, they stumble upon a homeless and naked Geoffrey Chaucer (Paul Bettany), a still unknown author who would eventually write 'The Canterbury Tales'. William, lacking an actual title, convinces Chaucer to forge genealogy documents that will pass him off as a knight. Thatcher then fakes his way into tournaments as 'Sir Ulrich von Liechtenstein' from Gelderland and sets out to prove himself a worthy knight. Eventually, he faces the dreaded Count Adhemar of Anjou (Rufus Sewell) and also woos the maiden Jocelyn (Shannyn Sossamon). Inspired by 'The Canterbury Tales', as well as the early life of William Marshall (later First Earl of Pembroke), A Knight's Tale is an eccentric cocktail of rock music, today's lingo and a story set in the middle ages. Baz Luhrmann pulled a similar trick with both Romeo & Juliet (1996). Songs like Queen's 'Rock You' and David Bowie's 'Golden Years' fit nicely in A Knight's Tale. Note also both The London Eye and The Eiffel Tower!

More than 20 years after the premiere, Brian Helgeland's approach still feels fresh, sassy and on point. The entire cast, who were relatively unknown at the time, made the film a masterpiece. The young Heath Ledger is excellent as the peasant who wants to be a knight. Ledger is surrounded by a good supporting cast of Rufus Sewell, Mark Addy, Shannyn Sossamon and James Purefoy. The show stealer is Paul Bettany, who went on to play Russell Crowe's friend in both A Beautiful Mind and Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World. Here he plays Geoffrey Chaucer, just at the dawn of his literary career. Director Brian Helgeland says in the DVD Special Edition's commentary that he had intended to show what Geoffrey Chaucer might have been doing that inspired him to write 'The Canterbury Tales' during the six months in which Chaucer seems to have gone missing in 1372. At the end of the film, Chaucer champions William's fame and writes his 'Knight's Tale'. Critic Roger Ebert loved the film: "It is possible, I suppose, to object when the audience at a 15th-century (sic) jousting match begins to sing Queen's 'We Will Rock You' and follows it with the wave. I laughed. I smiled, in fact, all through Brian Helgeland's A Knight's Tale (...) The movie has an innocence and charm that grow on you. It's a reminder of the days before films got so cynical and unrelentingly violent. A Knight's Tale is whimsical, silly and romantic."

Sources: Roger Ebert (RogerEbert.com), Wikipedia and IMDb.

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Taken on: March 4, 2024

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