ABSTRACT
This chapter offers a broad overview of the cinematic portrayal of the medieval past, particularly by narrative-based, popular film culture. A lack of historical veracity often runs rampant in many medieval-set escapades and generally arouses panic and alarm. The filmed monastic space encompasses several dimensions or contexts. There are those films which seek to reconfigure a medieval narrative in which the monastery/nunnery plays a pivotal or significant supporting role. Cultural biography is a key area of academic discourse that finds a ready home in film culture, if not in all its rich complexity. The history of the cinematic interpretation of Beowulf is chronologically long but with comparatively few entries. The importance of communicating and understanding the medieval past is unexpectedly promoted in the serial-killer fable Seven, in which police research includes the library-based reading of several medieval texts to get a handle on the killer.
