Monday, August 26, 2013

Uses of literality

An essayist writes:
I have just recently watched the film 1995 film Braveheart directed by and starring Mel Gibson. The main thing that I noticed about the film was not the art or architecture, but the lack there of. In ancient Roman times, there was some kind of Roman architecture almost everywhere. Everywhere you looked, you could see some sort of statue or temple. However, in the film Braveheart there are hardly any. 
Since the people were spending all of their time fighting, they had very little time to work on art. Braveheart does not focus on art and architecture, but you can tell very easily how much the arts had diminished after the fall of the Roman Empire. No great works of architecture and literally no sculpture. During the time of William Wallace, the arts were not nearly as important as survival. The film shows the camps of English soldiers crammed into little groups of tents that are poorly organized. The little architecture in the film Braveheart is very meager and dull, nothing like Roman architecture. In Roman times, the Roman soldiers would build entire cities where they camped. In England and Scotland during the time of William Wallace, the people were constantly fighting a war for something, either to gain more land, or to keep what is theirs. This just goes to show how the arts went down hill after the fall of Rome. During Roman times, the Romans were not constantly worried about being overtaken by their enemies, so they had plenty of time to work on their architectural wonders.
You can buy the rest of this essay on Internet.




Belle and Sebastian


No comments: