Utopia and the Middle Ages in Popular Culture: A Reading of Ridley Scott’s Kingdom of Heaven
By Maria Bonet and John Style
Spaces of Utopia: An Electronic Journal, no. 5 (2007)
Introduction: Academic studies of utopia have tried to define their object of study in terms of either form or function, as Ruth Levitas suggests in the introductory chapter of The Concept of Utopia. When definition in terms of form is attempted, it governs, among other things, the subject-matter of the field, which tends to fall into two large categories: communal societies and utopian literature. While some academics have restricted their interest only to literary texts, cultural critics of other fields have nevertheless identified utopian elements within their areas of study. In our case, the film Kingdom of Heaven, directed by Ridley Scott and released by Twentieth-Century Fox in 2005, has its source in an original screenplay by the American author William Monahan. So, while we are discussing a cinematic narrative, as an object of study it is not far divorced from the literary texts academics of a more restrictive inclination have chosen to study until now.
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