Crusades

Crusades
by Alan Ereira, David Wallace

List Price: ~~$39.95~~
Our Price: $35.99
You Save: $3.96 (10%)
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
Buy Used: from $15.68 (click here)
Category: DVD
See more DVD details

Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada

DVD details

Actor: Anthony Smee, Marcello Marascalchi, Robin Sebastian, Steve Purbrick, Terry Jones
Director: Alan Ereira, David Wallace
Brand: A&E
Writer: Terry Jones
Cinematographer: David South
Producer: Alan Ereira
Writer: Alan Ereira
Producer: David Wallace
Producer: Laurence Rees
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo
Format: Box set, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Picture Format: 1.33:1
Running Time: 200 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2002-01-02
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: A&E Home Video

DVD Reviews of Crusades

DVD Review: Funny and Informative Documentary
Summary: 5 Stars

This documentary is funny and informative about the Crusades. The narrator (Terry Jones) and his team took a journey following the same path taken earlier by the Crusaders. This documentary shows brutality, horrors, and massacres committed by Crusaders against fellow Christians and against Muslims in Palestine. It is a good documentary telling the story of the crusaders in a non-boring style.

DVD Review: Crusades - Review from the other side
Summary: 4 Stars

Nice introduction to this history block. Good use of the the opposing (Islamic) sides views. Nice use of technology and side cultural notes. Disagree with some of his comments; I am not apologist for the pure mercenary members of the Crusades or methods but I see the political side of his view of history. His views are well known about the Global War on Terror from his editorials in the Guardian. He like many Muslims are still hung on the Crusades and use it as an excuse for their presnt actions.

DVD Review: A Mythic History of the Crusades
Summary: 1 Stars

Terry Jones's The Crusades is everything that a good documentary should not be. In brief, it is filled with misrepresentations and factual errors, and it perpetuates myths that were discredited long ago--in some cases several generations ago. The video program is based largely on a superficial and somewhat erroneous reading of Steven Runciman's three-volume history of the crusades, which was revolutionary when it appeared over a half century ago but which has been superceded and even discredited, in part, by what has been an almost tidal wave of crusade scholarship over the past 30 years or more.

The worst part of the video program is its treatment of the Fourth Crusade (2002-2004). Put bluntly, Jones gets the story woefully wrong to the point that anyone who views this section of the program uncritically will come away totally misinformed. But even before we reach the early thirteenth century, errors abound. One gets the impression that Jones is not really interested in sober history. Rather, he is content with cheap jokes. When he has to choose between a supposedly funny line or scene or a more prosaic historical fact, he invariably chooses the former.

It is a shame that buffoonery is allowed to trump history. The complex, multilayered story of the crusades is fascinating in its tragedy and even darkly humorous in its ironies. Unfortunately, Jones's attempt at burlesque has led only to distortion.

Actually, I used to have my students in an upper-division, university-level course on the crusades view this program outside of class and to write reviews of it. Their reviews were, on the whole, even more damning than this review.

DVD Review: Holy Hell
Summary: 5 Stars

Since seeing this back in the 90's there has not really been a better way to show biggest holy mess in time itself.

Terry Jones is a class act at taking us though those dark years. Along with France & England and others we see our great knights & local folk take up arms and ride off or walk to destroy all. Really in the end it was mass murder in a scale unseen. Eating babies and drinking horse blood are just some of the tales of wow.

The fine details I leave to Mr Jones to tell you but as history goes it's a must know.

DVD Review: Warfare Goes Pythonesque
Summary: 4 Stars

Bringing in Terry Jones to take a look at the Crusades was a bit of good casting. Jones' quirky humour, pleasant presentation skills and somewhat humorous outlook on things make this an informative and entertaining DVD.

Some have accused the series of being "anti-Church" or biased against the Europeans to an unnecessary degree. Let's face it, the church and Europe probably deserves some bagging over its actions concerning the Crusades. Also, considering that the series uses some very well-respected experts in the field, the accusations are not entirely well-founded. Yes, most of the Crusaders were violent people and more than a little superstitious. Also, while good at warfare, they still lost. The reasons for losing were possibly the disastrous political decisions the leaders made at times, among other things.

Along with the interviews with different experts, the re-enactments of some of the aspects of the Crusades made for some interesting and entertaining viewing. There is also some presence of the primary sources, quotes from people who were there and saw what was happening, (albeit with the characteristic "miraculous element").

The documentary is well presented, accurate from what I have read and know of the Crusades themselves, (I am not an expert, however), and very enjoyable to watch. It is not all that detailed, but serves well as an easy introduction to an intriguing period in history.

Description of Crusades

One of historys most epic adventures the crusades began as a holy mission to liberate jerusalem and became the largest mass migration in european history. When they ended 200 years later the crusades had created a mythology of knights & left a legacy of distrust between east & west that still shapes our world toda Studio: A&e Home Video Release Date: 01/02/2002 Run time: 200 minutes Rating: Nr

Of all the wars waged in the name of God, none has ever matched the arrogance and conceit of the Christian Crusades. For nearly two centuries (1095-1291), this medieval "holy war" variously raged, sometimes so spiritually misshapen by rapaciousness, murder, and political greed that to think it all had to do with Christian faith is absurd. And really, there is no one better to dramatize such a theater of holy war than Wales-born Terry Jones, host of The Discovery Channel's Ancient Inventions and an accomplished medievalist. Best known for his absurdist contributions to all things Monty Python--he was a founding member of Monty Python's Flying Circus and cowriter of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, Life of Brian, and Monty Python's The Meaning of Life, among others--Jones wields an uncanny ability to explain the methodologies and madness of the Crusades while not failing us his sense of humor.

Jones wrote the scripts for each 50-minute presentation in the four volumes of The Crusades, which originally aired on The History Channel. His narration is not without an occasional sardonic air, almost of the roll-your-eyes type, which not only lends a skeptical perspective to a frequently misunderstood era in Western Europe, but also quite frequently editorializes the events that occurred between Pope Urban II's call for liberation of Jerusalem from the "infidels" of Islam and the embarrassing moment when officers of the fourth Crusade are conned out of its divine calling by the Venetians. While Jones's reconnaissance is sometimes oversimplified by casually not mentioning several Crusade sorties after the fourth (there were several, but by the 13th century they had become redolent of ennui and misguided commercial adventure), the technical ingenuity of the production and Jones's use of anecdote backed by academicians and preserved eyewitness accounts cinches a viewer's interest. Medieval "siege machines" are re-created to test their mettle against legends of famous battles, Jones dons real 11th- and 12th-century armor to demonstrate the outlandish appearance of Crusaders in the lands of Mohammed, mosaics come to life with body-painted characters of medieval fable, and computer graphics are deployed to re-create the interior of the great cathedral at Cluny.

All these elements are contrasted with intermezzos of contemporary European and Middle Eastern society and a moving original soundtrack to make The Crusades a thoroughly engaging documentary of the bloodletting of medieval Christian conquests and the ultimate result of Islamic fanaticism born from its crimson tide. In Jones's own words at the end of Volume IV: "It took 200 years for the Crusaders to create [this] Muslim fanaticism. It was the exact imitation of Christian intolerance." To understand the effects of the Crusades is to understand much of today's religious geography, and Mr. Jones and company can fairly lay claim to having helped set the record straight. --Jamie Friddle

General DVDs

DVD Video

Bestsellers in General DVDs

Man on Wire
Release date: 2008-12-09; DVD
Best price: $13.37
Price in other shops: ~~$26.98~~

Blue Planet: Seas of Life (Special Edition)
Warner Brothers; Release date: 2007-10-02; DVD
Best price: $17.59
Price in other shops: ~~$59.98~~

Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed
Release date: 2008-10-21; DVD
Best price: $8.44
Price in other shops: ~~$26.99~~

Planet Earth & The Blue Planet Seas of Life (Special Collector's Edition)
Planet; Release date: 2007-10-02; DVD
Best price: $52.97
Price in other shops: ~~$119.98~~

The Beales of Grey Gardens - Criterion Collection
Image Entertainment; Release date: 2006-12-05; DVD
Best price: $13.60
Price in other shops: ~~$19.95~~

A Haunting in Connecticut
Release date: 2008-09-30; DVD
Best price: $3.53
Price in other shops: ~~$6.99~~

Grey Gardens - Criterion Collection
Image Entertainment; Release date: 2001-08-14; DVD
Best price: $25.20
Price in other shops: ~~$39.95~~

Religulous
Lions Gate; Release date: 2009-02-17; DVD
Best price: $10.20
Price in other shops: ~~$29.95~~

The BBC Natural History Collection featuring Planet Earth (Planet Earth/ The Blue Planet: Seas of Life Special Edition/ Life of Mammals/ Life of Birds)
Warner Brothers; Release date: 2008-04-01; DVD
Best price: $85.99
Price in other shops: ~~$199.92~~

Planet Earth - The Complete BBC Series
Warner Brothers; Release date: 2007-04-24; DVD
Best price: $19.49
Price in other shops: ~~$79.98~~

Similar DVDs, VHS Video, Audio CDs

Michael Palin - New Europe
Warner Brothers; Release date: 2008-03-11; DVD
Best price: $33.50
Price in other shops: ~~$49.98~~

Terry Jones's War on the War on Terror: Observations and Denunciations by a Founding Member of Monty Python (Nation Books)
by Terry Jones
Nation Books; Published: 2004-12-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.44
Price in other shops: ~~$12.95~~

Who Murdered Chaucer?: A Medieval Mystery
by Terry Jones, Robert Yeager, Alan Fletcher, Juliette Dor, Terry Dolan
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 2006-06-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.71
Price in other shops: ~~$19.95~~

Chaucer & the Canterbury Tales
Release date: 2009-03-31; DVD
Best price: $11.62
Price in other shops: ~~$19.95~~

The Dark Ages (The History Channel )
A&E; Release date: 2007-05-29; DVD
Best price: $11.10
Price in other shops: ~~$24.95~~

The Story of 1
Release date: 2006-05-21; DVD
Best price: $17.37
Price in other shops: ~~$29.98~~

The History Channel Presents The Crusades - Crescent & The Cross
A&E; Release date: 2005-12-26; DVD
Best price: $9.15
Price in other shops: ~~$19.95~~

Terry Jones' Barbarians: An Alternative Roman History
by Terry Jones, Alan Ereira
BBC Books; Published: 2007-11-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.86
Price in other shops: ~~$16.95~~

Terry Jones' Medieval Lives
by Terry Jones
BBC Books; Published: 2005-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.70
Price in other shops: ~~$14.95~~