1st Edition
Screening Roman Britain Film and Television between Myth and History
List of Figures ix Acknowledgements x 1 Forests, furs and Celtomania – introducing Roman Britain on screen 1 2 Trees and nightmares – Romano-British encounters on the eve of invasion 17 2.1 Tribes at war versus Pax Romana – the complex politics of collaboration and resistance in Britannia (2017–21) 22 2.2 Britannia’s druids as sages and savages 34 2.3 From multiculturalism to monotheism – the spectrum of religious ideas in Britannia 39 3 Freedom fighter or terrorist – Boudica as controversial British icon 53 3.1 Between mother and war leader – Boudica’s reluctant rise to fame in ITV’s Warrior Queen (1978) 62 3.2 British identity in the modern imagination in Boudica: Warrior Queen (2003) 72 3.3 The making of a (failed) heroine in Boudica: Rise of the Warrior Queen (2019) and Boudica: Queen of War (2023) 82 4 A tale of two parts – Roman Britain between assimilation and resistance 97 4.1 Settling the south – colonial discourses in Chelmsford 123 (1988–90) 104 4.2 The troubled northern frontier in Centurion (2010) 115 4.3 Friends and foes in The Eagle (2011) 130 5 Historicising the myth – Roman traces in Arthurian legends 149 5.1 The Roman Arthur or Pelagius against the Church of Rome in King Arthur (2004) 156 5.2 The last of the Romans – Arthurian ancestry in The Last Legion (2007) 171 5.3 Roman traces across Arthurian screens: Kaamelott (2004–9), Arthur & Merlin: Knights of Camelot (2020) and The Winter King (2023) 179 Epilogue: Roman history, myth and fictions in British screen culture 190 The cultural trajectory of Roman Britain in literature, film and television 195 Index 198
Biography
Sylvie Magerstädt is a senior lecturer in film studies at the University of Notre Dame Australia. Her work sits at the intersection of ancient history, philosophy and film studies, with a particular interest in mythology and culture.
Sylvie Magerstädt’s Screening Roman Britain: Film and Television between Myth and History takes the reader on a breathtaking journey to the jagged coasts and moss-covered forests of the mystical island kingdom – where we follow the cinematic footsteps of the ancient tribes, sage druids, and warrior queens from contemporary epic films and television series. Just as King Arthur pulled the sword from the stone, Magerstädt skillfully draws out the powerful multivalences of politics and heroism, religion and myth, gender and society embedded within the various screen adaptations of the vibrant Roman Britannic narrative and visual traditions. Screening Roman Britain offers scholars and students an authoritative and compelling new contribution to the growing field of onscreen classical reception studies.
Monica S. Cyrino, Professor of Classics, University of New Mexico USA
