Hollywood Knights Arthurian Cinema and the Politics of Nostalgia

Hollywood Knights examines the role played by Hollywood films in America's appropriation of the medieval past in times of cultural crisis. It analyzes the Arthurian films produced during the red scare of the 1950s, the breakdown of traditional authority in the 1960s and '70s, the turn to the right in the 1980s, and the redemption of national and masculine authority in the 1990s, arguing that these films propose an idealized past--an American Camelot and a democratic chivalry--to solve the problems of a troubled present, ensure prosperity at home, and extend a beneficial American authority abroad. Movies discussed include The Knights of the Round Table, The Sword in the Stone, Camelot, the Star Wars and Indiana Jones trilogies, Excalibur , and The Fisher King .

Susan Aronstein is Associate Professor of English at the University of Wyoming. Her previous publications include articles on ChrTtien de Troyes, French Grail romances, medieval Welsh Arthurian narratives, medievalism in popular culture, and Arthurian film.