"Robin Hood" movie

Main theme of the "Robin Hood" movie is concentrated around the event of no small importance for the English history – signing of the Great Charter or Magna Carta by the King John. This document limited the king’s power over his vassals. In order to understand its significance we should know that the British Empire, state with the ancient democratic traditions, has no constitution at all. That’s why recent words of a certain Russian liberal functionary, stating that in England the elections take place according to the constitution, were met with a sincere good-natured laughter. Indeed, what does the man who invented the automobile might need the instruction for? Leave these manuals to those who are willing to use this car.

Group of documents, which – at a stretch – may be referred to the principal laws of Great Britain, originates from the very Magna Carta. It has nothing revolutionary in it, though. From the legal point of view, the much-talked-about "Yaroslav’s Justice" which was in use in Russia for a long time then, was more "advanced" document of its period. English Magna Carta, however, became the sacred myth and the "foundation stone of liberty", whatever that word may mean. "Robin Hood" directed by Ridley Scott is the first – may it be the probing one – attempt to work with that myth.

In his vision Magna Carta is a document, the text, first of all. It is not a half-verbal agreement, based on traditions and representing the result of the years-long negotiations and mutual give-and-takes by the nobility and king himself. This is rather a text, written without any participation of these persons – by a simple mason, father of Robin Hood and a leader of the common folk. All the barons and the king have to do is to sign this text and go home. History turns into the theory of conspiracy.

In fact, main hero of all Scott's films (so loved by the Western audience) is the contemporary of ours – who, in an unknown way, fetched himself in the other period of time and discovers the events that take place around him. He shows the typical reactions of the white Anglo-Saxon man from the 90s. His position is strictly democratic and anti-clerical. He doesn’t understand the matters of nobility and sanctity, having preferred to cast them away in disgust.

In the "Robin Hood"a historian finds plenty discrepancies, blots and unlikely moments. However, we can not rob it of its grandour and attraction - attraction which made me with my PhD in History to browse Internet and printed encyclopedia in search for a more or less truthful facts about Robin Hood.
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