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Middelboe Chronicles, Part 73: The Boy Who Had No Story

By on September 21, 2019 2

And now we come, at last, to the final installment of the Middelboe Chronicles – appropriately enough, a story about stories: The Boy Who Had No Story (“Animated Tales of the World,” 2003, from Ireland) – and, incidentally, the third story in a row posted here to deal with (inter alia) Noah’s Ark.

Of the 75 Middelboeverse episodes I’ve been able to identify, I’ve now posted 73 here – omitting only Moby Dick and Twelfth Night, which seem to be unavailable online.

And while we’re on the subject of animated adaptations of Irish legends, I want to put in a plug for the remarkably beautiful movie The Secret of Kells (a French-Irish-Belgian production, not part of the variously Welsh-Russian-Spanish-Hungarian Middelboeverse, but clearly a worthy rival thereunto):

Our revels now are ended. (But be of good cheer, the SciFi SongFest continues through Hallowe’en.)

Middelboe Chronicles, Part 72: Creation and the Flood

By on September 20, 2019 0

From Chaucer’s parody of Noah’s Ark (in the Miller’s Tale) to the original, here’s Creation and the Flood (“Testament: The Bible in Animation,” 1996), featuring the story of Noah’s Ark but with Genesis 1-3 shoehorned in too, as well as the fall of Lucifer (here identified with both Satan and the serpent of Eden, despite the flimsiness of any biblical basis for that traditional three-way identification):

Incidentally, I’ve seen many visual representations of the Noah’s Ark story, but I have yet to see any that acknowledges the fairly important deviation from popular conceptions that’s implied by Genesis 7:2-3.

Middelboe Chronicles, Part 70: Canterbury Tales – Arriving at Canterbury

By on September 18, 2019 0

“Arriving at Canterbury” (1998), the second of three installments from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, adapts the Merchant’s Tale, the Pardoner’s Tale, and the Franklin’s Tale.

The Pardoner’s Tale was one of the inspirations for The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

The Franklin’s Tale is an interesting case of a courtly-love relationship surviving into marriage, contrary to the standard Laws of Love that supposedly make the two relations incompatible. (I’ll be blogging about this soon.)

At 18:54, we see a canopy with the emblem “À MON SEUL DÉSIR” writ thereon, the which doth signify a tapestry of great fame, as may be seen below (or in the Musée Cluny in Paris):

Middelboe Chronicles, Part 69: Canterbury Tales – Leaving London

By on September 17, 2019 0

The first of three sets of adaptations of episodes from Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales. This installment, “Leaving London” (1998), adapts the Nun’s Priest’s Tale, the Knight’s Tale, and the Wife of Bath’s Tale.

Casting note: Sean Bean’s in this one – and his character doesn’t die!

Middelboe Chronicles, Part 68: John Henry, the Steel Driving Man

By on September 16, 2019 0

Like Don Quixote against the windmills, John Henry, the Steel Driving Man (“Animated Tales of the World,” 2002) pits his strength against impersonal machinery and comes to grief – though in this case Henry has a more altruistic end than in most versions of the story, and he achieves that end.

This is another particularly beautiful animation.

And we’re now in the final stretch of the Middelboe Chronicles ….

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