Use “The Adventures of Marco Polo” and “The Seventh Seal” along with readings from The History on Film Reader and the relevant lectures to discuss the topic below. Maximums length is 5 pages. Minimum acceptable length is “sufficient to say something significant and illustrate/demonstrate it with evidence.” The ideal length is normally quite close to the maximum length.
Topic: What did you learn about late medieval social and economic history from this unit of the course? What did you learn about twentieth-century views of medieval social and economic history? Can you suggest some explanations for the stark contrast between the optimistic merchant hero of the 1938 American film and the pessimistic knightly hero of the 1957 European film?