Wizardry and Magic in the Film World

Hi, everybody! Today I am going to talk about the influence of wizardry in the film world. In this case, I am not going to use a website or any reference in order to talk about this topic because I want to give my opinion based on what I have seen about this topic. First of all and as we already know, movies are now considered as a form of art and it is also a way to entertain communities from all over the world and there is a huge list about topics that can be used to make a movie: from humoristic topics to topics that can be related to horror, but now is just going to be focused on the fantasy genre.

Several post ago, I talked about the influence of wizardry in literature and it can be said that this is also can be seen in the film world. There are a lot of movies that are related to witches and wizards, the kind of movies that use mythical or fantastic creatures, but even there are movies that are not entirely related to wizardry and they only have fantastic events and objects. Taking in consideration all said above, it can be said that wizardry is huge topic in which any person can make very innovative and interesting stories by using elements about magic. Harry Potter film series is an excellent example of it because, since the first movie was released, it became pretty famous and we can see this because this first movie gained $974.8million dollars (according to Daily Mail) but also we need to admit that the fame that this phenomenon obtained was also and mainly due to the books who had amazing sales and, according to Forbes, placed J.K. Rowling as the second richest woman in the world.

Wizardry, fantasy, magic… they are very important topics nowadays inside the film world. What makes them so interesting is the use of fantastic or non-real events and now technology allows the directors to create spectacular special effects to reproduce or give live to these non-real aspects, catching the attention of the society. Now, if you are interested in watching fantastic movies, you can try watching the next ones:

• Harry Potter Films (wizardry).
• The Illusionist (contains the use of magic).
• Bewitched (uses a combination of wizardry, magic and comedy).
• The Lord of the Rings (has fantastic creatures).
• The Wizard of Oz (magic and adventure).

                And there are more! Well, that is everything for today. I hope you to enjoy this topic (: See you next week!

Works Cited

IGN FilmForce. "Top 25 Fantasy Movies of All-Time." n.d. IGN Movies. 26 October 2011 <http://movies.ign.com/articles/667/667848p5.html>.

Daily Mail. "Final Harry Potter film conjures a record-breaking $170m at U.S. box office on debut weekend." 17 July 2011. Mail Online. 26 October 2011 <http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2015596/Harry-Potter-Deathly-Hallows-Part-2-hits-92-1m-US-box-offices-1st-DAY.html>.

Goldman, Lea and Kiri Blakeley. "The 20 Richest Women In Entertainment." 18 January 2007. Forbes. 26 October 2011 <http://www.forbes.com/2007/01/17/richest-women-entertainment-tech-media-cz_lg_richwomen07_0118womenstars_lander.html>.

Skokie. "Movies and Television Shows about Magic and Magicians ." 2011. Skokie Public Library. 26 October 2011 <http://www.skokie.lib.il.us/s_audiovisual/av_lists/av_ls_Movies/magic.asp>.

Wizardry, Magic,and Fantasy in the Medieval Age

Hi, readers! Today I’m going to talk about wizardry and magic in the Medieval Age but first of all, I’m going to talk about “Merlin, the magician”. Maybe some of you know about this character from the King Arthur’s story or from the Disney movie “The Sword in the Stone” but, the real fact is that there is no evidence that this character existed. It is said that Geoffrey of Monmouth, who was a Welsh cleric, was the man who created Merlin when he wrote “Historia Regum Britanniae” and it is also said that Merlin’s character came from Myrddin, a bard that was mentioned in several welsh poems (castles.me.uk). Merlin is known as the magician or wizard that protects to the king Arthur and the Holy Grail, which is the cup that can cure illness and saved Arthur from death. It is said that there was a time when Great Britain started to fall in anarchy when there the collapse of the Roman Empire was taking place so, Anglo-Saxons from Denmark and Germany tried to invade the UK but Merlin was the one who stopped this (grahamphillips.net).

With the information that I showed above, we can see that the topics related to wizardry and magic during the Medieval Ages was very important. The presence of possible wizards is not just the evidence of this relevance, also during this period the society started to create legends about extraordinary creatures, for example: dragons. All this mixture of castles, wizards, dragons, kings, and knights or this combination between real facts and fiction make this period unique and different from others, that’s why I invite you to find more about this period (: If you have doubts or if you want an special topic for the next post, leave a comment and I will investigate about it. See you next week!

*For more information, watch works cited (:

Works Cited

Alchin, L.K. "Merlin the Wizard." 20 July 2005. Castles. 20 October 2011 <http://www.castles.me.uk/merlin-the-wizard.htm>.

Philips, Graham. "Merlin - The Man behind the Myth." n.d. The Official Graham Phillips Website. 20 October 2011 <http://www.grahamphillips.net/Merlin/merlin2.htm>.

 

 *Image from grahamphillips.net