The American Dark Ages and the Terrorist Witch in Season of the Witch

Authors

  • Tom Vercruysse Institute for media studies, University of Leuven

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2013.70

Keywords:

Season of the Witch, medieval film, The Seventh Seal, medieval witchcraft, the crusades, Hollywood Arthuriana

Abstract

In this article we argue that Season of the Witch (Sena, 2011) is not to be analyzed according to its faithfulness to the known historical sources, but only by understanding medievalist codes, traditions and (filmic) intertextuality. When read from this perspective, Season of the Witch tried to create new meaning by combining a dominant interpretation of Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, European traditions on representing medieval witchcraft, contemporary perspectives on the crusades and Susan Aronstein’s concept of “Hollywood Arthuriana”. However, as this demands a lot of medievalist capital to fully understand, Season of the Witch in the end may have lost its coherence for the audience.

Author Biography

Tom Vercruysse, Institute for media studies, University of Leuven

Tom Vercruysse is a Ph.D. Fellow of the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO), affiliated with the Institute for Media Studies of the KU Leuven (Belgium).

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Published

2013-06-04

How to Cite

Vercruysse, T. (2013). The American Dark Ages and the Terrorist Witch in Season of the Witch. CINEJ Cinema Journal, 2(2), 51–65. https://doi.org/10.5195/cinej.2013.70

Issue

Vol. 2 No. 2 (2013): Spring 2013

Section

Articles

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