The Knights Templar in Popular Culture by Patrick Masters

Author:Patrick Masters [Masters, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781476681979
Publisher: McFarland
Published: 2022-02-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 3

The Mythical Quest

From Fictional Medieval Origins to Conspiracy Narrative

The part of the Templar urtext that this chapter is examining is the grail guardian archetype, which is adapted and reused as part of the reoccurring Templar narrative. The chapter aims to identify how the concept of the thematic Templar quest narrative has evolved over the centuries to include two aspects: the quest of the knight and the quest to follow in the Templars’ footsteps. Both parts incorporate the structural elements of a quest narrative as established in myth, as well as incorporating supernatural and fantastical elements. The case studies selected are the ­low-budget cult film Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Gilliam & Jones, 1975) and the ­action-adventure blockbuster Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (Spielberg, 1989), which show the quest of the knight. The ­21st-century Hollywood conspiracy films The Da Vinci Code (Howard, 2006) and National Treasure (Turteltaub, 2004) show the quest to follow in the Templars’ footsteps.

These case studies have been selected because they demonstrate my concept of the Templar urtext and also show how the quest narrative has evolved over the centuries. This chapter aims to understand why these films incorporate, adapt, and evolve the grail guardian archetype of the Templar urtext. By examining the grail guardian archetype, this chapter explores how these different texts build on the Templar urtext and expand the popular perceptions of the Templar phenomenon in popular culture. The methodology to approach this will include textual analysis of the case studies but also an analysis of the producer’s influences and intentions. The chapter will draw on interviews and production sources to understand creative decisions, complemented with academic sources used to highlight how the Templar narrative has evolved.

The chapter will firstly examine the concept of the quest as a story itself. This study will be done by approaching the structuralist concepts of Joseph Campbell alongside Norris J. Lacy’s work on the MacGuffin. These concepts provide the ideal starting point for analysis as they focus on Arthurian myth and are concepts clearly referenced in the work of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg. After introducing the quest as a story structure, the chapter then examines the quest of the knight. This aspect of the Knights Templar quest narrative is a formulaic tool used by filmmakers to retell the grail narrative and further cement the Templar narrative within popular culture. The chapter examines the Templars’ first appearance in popular culture in Wolfram von Eschenbach’s ­13th-century poem Parzival to provide context for the appearance of the quest of the knight. However, to explain this aspect of the quest narrative, this chapter will not be analyzing conventional Arthurian grail myths as case studies but instead using Monty Python and the Holy Grail and blockbuster Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade as they are synonymous with the Holy Grail. These film texts offer a different depiction than the traditional grail stories. To demonstrate how story producers incorporate aspects of the Templar quest narrative within their variation of the grail story, I will draw upon Donald L.

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