David Thewlis, Ridley Scott, and My Grandma

I recently saw a kind of odd movie called "Kingdom of Heaven" directed by Ridley Scott. I found this film because I've been tracking David Thewlis, who played Professor Lupin in the Harry Potter series. This character set my mind a racing. Had I met up with a professorial werewolf in my thirties, maybe I wouldn't be the grumpy misanthrope I am today. Unfortunately, I heard Mr. Thewlis interviewed a couple of times, and for real he didn't sound all that smart. That aside, he blew me right out of the water with his largely improvised performance in Mike Leigh's "Naked". He's for real. Do not walk, run to see this movie. It is awesome.

So that led me to Ridley Scott's "Kingdom of Heaven" where Mr. Thewlis plays a  priest who unfortunately buys it about half way through the movie. I love Ridley Scott and will watch whatever kind of crap he wants to put up on the screen because of "Thelma and Louise," a movie that made me feel like someone was in my head pointing out how I might want to cash in my chips. "Kingdom of Heaven" is full of famous British actors. You can't blink your eyes without missing someone: "OMG, was that Ewan McGregor on that horse?" Orlando Bloom plays the blacksmith bastard son of Liam Neeson. He heads off on a crusade to the Holy Land with his dad and an inexplicably ecumenical attitude toward the Christians, Muslims, and Jews who are habitating on his baronial lands. After a lot of picturesque shots of the countryside, and huge battle scenes including flaming arrows and catapults he refuses to participate in oppression of non-Christians. He ends up back at his blacksmith shop, albeit with a hot ex-queen on his arm.

Speaking of the Crusades, at my granny's knee I was often told of the exploits of our ancestor, Sir James Douglas (The Black Douglas) who was a friend of the Scottish King, Robert the Bruce. (Robert was in Braveheart, if you need a reference.) Somehow I got the idea that the Bruce was killed in the Crusades, and Sir James cut his heart out of his body right on the battlefield and returned it to Scotland. Well, it turns out, according to more reliable sources, I had it backwards. Robert died in Scotland and James took his heart on the crusade as what one writer referred to as "a talisman." Another version is that the Bruce felt his sins would be forgiven if he participated in the Crusades, albeit posthumously. James was the one who was killed in the Holy Land. In his dying moments he tossed the heart to one of his companions, shouting "Onward braveheart, Douglas shall follow thee or die!" The heart went back to Scotland and was buried at a different location from the rest of the body. I'm not sure which version is more gruesome, but to this day, the descendants of the Black Douglas wear an image of the heart of the Bruce to represent the clan and scare the shit out of our enemies.