Not as far as I can remember. Even if this was taken from legend, it would be an unfortunate place for this movie to decide to value period accuracy above all else.
In The Knight of the Cart Guinevere does behave unreasonably, but not in the same way as Jocelyn. She gets upset that Lancelot even briefly hesitated to do something that would have been considered disgraceful (ride in the sort of cart used for transporting prisoners) while on his way to rescue her from Maleagant.
Guinevere in The Knight of the Cart absolutely does do exactly the same thing:
You’re both right, I had completely forgotten that part. Although looking at the story now, I wouldn’t say it’s exactly the same thing. It is very close, but Guinevere first tells Lancelot to do his worst, then tells him to do his best. She does not, at least in the translation I’m looking at, tell him to win, although of course Lancelot’s best is in fact good enough to make him clearly the greatest fighter at the tournament.
Anyway, like I said before, the behavior of the love interest was not the place for this movie to suddenly decide to be totally faithful to a period literary work. I’m not sure that even medieval readers were meant to find Guinevere’s behavior sympathetic, and having Jocelyn behave much the same way just made her seem horrible and unlikable to a lot of modern viewers – especially compared to Kate.
Yeah, the princess (who was never actually called one) was a terrible match. The one weak point of the film.
Was she a princess? I just figured she was your (relatively typical) lady of relatively high social station.
She certainly did not seem to be the daughter of a King/Queen, but I believe titles equivalent to “prince” and “princess” have been used more loosely in some languages like German to refer to the children of noblemen. So she could be a princess in that sense.
Well, she was originally to wed Prince Adamar D’ AssWipe, so she was of some ‘nobility’ - and I also believe that her decision to ignore that and go after William FakeRoyal was her ‘changing her stars’.
But I still preferred the BlackSmith.
Adhemar was a Count.
I thought it was a fun little movie. Screw realism - I get enough of that in life.
Indeed, the only prince in the entire film was Edward the Black Prince, going incognito as Sir Thomas Colville.
Trivia: Ms. Sossamon used to play drums for the rock band Warpaint. If you watch their videos on YouTube, the bass player for the band reminds me a bit of Shannyn.
Well, I liked the lady, or, “the fox,” as William called her. “Yes, William, with the pigs.”
We really liked the movie. Saw it when it played in Bangkok. I recall Ebert liking it okay, giving it three stars.
Meh. The Princess was young, and had certain expectations (unrealistic or not) of “True Love”. I didn’t feel her demands made her a bad person, but merely one not thinking clearly.
I wonder how attractive a knight like Ledger would really have been? Bad teeth, severe BO, etc.? People probably ceased to be very beautiful, once they hit 30 or so.
*Large Man with Dead Body: Who’s that then?
**The Dead Collector: **I dunno, must be a king.
Large Man with Dead Body: Why?
The Dead Collector: He hasn’t got shit all over him. *
Shannyn Sossamon’s character was never referred to as a princess. Nor was she ever addressed as “Lady Jocelyn” so she most likely wasn’t the daughter of anyone particularly important, either.
Was “Jocelyn” even used as a female name back in those times? I could have sworn it was a man’s name (and had a female version that was something like Joceleine) until fairly recently.
I saw it not long after it was released and enjoyed it. Not a masterpiece, but good fun. Paul Bettany is good in an early role, and Mark Addy, who played Ledger’s plump friend, recently played the king in Game of Thrones on HBO.
http://www.hotflick.net/flicks/2001_A_Knight_s_Tale/2001_A_Knights_Tale_213.jpg
AH! I knew he looked familiar!