Professor David Peimer
Ivanhoe by Sir Walter Scott: The Book and the Film with Elizabeth Taylor
Summary
Sir Walter Scott’s “Ivanhoe”, both the 1819 book and the 1952 film, explores the conflict between the Saxons and the Normans. Professor David Peimer discusses Scott’s decision to make two Jewish characters central to the story and explores why these choices still resonate today.
Professor David Peimer
David Peimer is a professor of theatre and performance studies in the UK. He has taught at the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, and New York University (Global Division), and was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University. Born in South Africa, David has won numerous awards for playwriting and directing. He has written eleven plays and directed forty in places like South Africa, New York, Brussels, London, Berlin, Zulu Kingdom, Athens, and more. His writing has been published widely and he is the editor of Armed Response: Plays from South Africa (2009) and the interactive digital book Theatre in the Camps (2012). He is on the board of the Pinter Centre in London.
Great question. Great. I think he was torn between his poetic, imaginative and romantic idealism, and the cold reality of the law. And I think he understands that conflict in society between the need for romance and the need for the reality of law, romance in human nature and the reality. And it’s a conflict. It’s a tension rather.