MovieChat Forums > Tirante el Blanco (2006) Discussion > Tirant Lo Blanc vs. Don Quixote

Tirant Lo Blanc vs. Don Quixote

posted 19 years ago by osanjose
8 replies | jump to latest

I listened to Vicente Aranda in a radio show in Spain saying that Tirant Lo Blanc was a modern for its time Novel when Don Quixote was born already old in its time. Well it's his opinion. Mine is that he has to justify that a minor novel in the style of novels Cervantes wanted to ridicule with Don Quixote character is considered one of the classics of Catalan literature... Well the comparison now is simple , good movies with complex and deep plots or the ridiculous adventure movies of Vin Diesel, Jean Claude Van Damme, etc.

I don't want any kind of politics confrontation, but it's the true, and I think Aranda only shows this kind of contempt about EL Quixote as I think he is one that despises every single thing that existed in Spain before Franco died (El Quijote is one of those things)as belonging to that fascist dictatorship we all want to forget. It's so ridiculous as those that despised the music of Wagner because it was the favorite of Nazis...

I hope Aranda do a good entertaining adventure novel, anyway it would be easier to write an entertaining plot for an average audience with Tirant Lo Blanc than trying to resume in 90 minutes all the depth of a world classic as Don Quijote.

Oscar

[–] jdolz 19 years ago

You are wrong, Oscar. I should think than you haven't read any word of the Tirant lo Blanc novel, and I should think you don't know Don Quixote well. Why?, because the Tirant lo Blanc novel wasn't one of the novels that Cervantes wanted to riducule with Don Quixote, in fact in the chapter of Don Quixote when the books are fired, the Tirant lo Blanc novel is saved of burning as a symbol of Cervantes fascination for this novel. Read it please, and you will know why it is fascinating.

Don Quixote isn't easy to be sumarized in 90 minutes, but I say you that neither Tirant Lo Blanc. In fact it's larger than Don Quixote. The film will only reflect a part of the novel.

However, I'm with you in the fact that Don Quixote is another great spanish novel as Tirant lo Blanc is too.

[–] translatology 18 years ago

You're right. I think all readers would agree that Don Quixote is the greater novel, but Tirant is quite amazing too. Tirant is 'minor' only in the sense that it's little known, and that is partly due to its being written in what UNESCO politely calls a 'language of limited diffusion' (namely Valencian Catalan) instead of in Spanish. I'd never heard of it before I came to live in Valencia, despite the fact that there have been English translations available for 20 years now.

As for Aranda, he was probably not so much interested in putting down pre-Franco Spain (he would have to be a courageous iconoclast indeed to denigrate 'El Quijote' in Spain) as in pushing his film.

[–] raderof 18 years ago

you should write in spanish wuold be easy to understand

[–] translatology 18 years ago

I am Engish and I found the other postings perfectly easy to understand.

Incidentally, your own posting should read,
"You should write in Spanish. It would be easier to understand."

[–] xtratm 18 years ago

Cervantes in Don Quixote save of the fire this novel.... Only "Tirant lo blanch" is saved of the fire

[–] rmsouza 17 years ago

I must add that Cervantes call Tirant lo Blanc "the best book in the world". You will find the quotation in Part I, Chapter IV of Don Quijote. If you read Tirant along with Quijote you will discover how much influence Joanot Martorell's book had on Cervantes.

[–] vandreferreiramonteiro 17 years ago

Amadis of Gaula is saved too...

[–] ccmiller1492 14 years ago

I think the common themes of both "Quixote" and "Tirant" are the realization that the traditional concept of selfless virtue becomes an anacrhonistic comedy when seen in the context of modern expediency in cynical, complex power politics. In that sense, both Tirant and Quixote are satirical figures and the authors were ahead of their times in depicting this idea. Several centuries later, we have an even broader and entirely comical depiction in Voltaire's Candide. Of course, the greatest of these characters is Don Quixote as it has the greatest depth and scope in the obeservations of his character, and makes him more sympathetic.
The Tirant film succeeds in portraying this brilliantly, and I think it is misunderstood by most viewers who lack the literary education to perceive it.
It's not an "action" costume film, or a rom-com, it is far greater than either, it is, after all, a satire with humor and some subtlety.