EXCALIBUR (FILM)

'''Excalibur''' is a 1981 film which retells the legend of King Arthur. It grossed USD$34,967,437 and was the 18th most successful film of that year.

Contents

Cast and crew

Plot

Production

Adaptation

Quotations

Soundtrack

Awards

See also

References

External links

Cast and crew

''Excalibur'' was directed by John Boorman and stars Nigel Terry (King Arthur), Helen Mirren (Arthur's half-sister Morgana), Nicol Williamson (Merlin), Nicholas Clay (Lancelot) and Cherie Lunghi (Guenevere). Even though he was 35 years old, Nigel Terry plays King Arthur from his teenage years to his ending as an aged monarch. The film also features some noted actors in early screen roles. Liam Neeson plays Gawain, Patrick Stewart plays King Leondegrance, and Gabriel Byrne plays Uther Pendragon. Several members of the Boorman family also appeared in the picture. Igrayne (Arthur's mother), the Lady of the Lake, Mordred as a boy, and the infant Arthur were all played by Boorman's children. Because of the number of Boormans involved with the film, it is sometimes called "The Boorman Family Project."
''Excalibur'' was filmed in Irish locations in Wicklow, Tipperary, and County Kerry. The costumes were designed by Bob Ringwood. The armour was designed by Terry English. The screenplay is by Rospo Pallenberg with John Boorman. The soundtrack is by Trevor Jones, with sound bytes and samples drawn from Orff's ''Carmina Burana'' and Wagnerian motifs, of fate (''Ring'') and fatal attraction (''Tristan und Isolde''). A portion of the ''Siegfried Funeral March'' from ''Götterdämmerung'' was used as the main theme music of the film over the opening and closing credits.

Plot

It is a dark age and the land is without a true king. Two great lords, Uther Pendragon and the Duke of Cornwall, fight for dominance. Uther is aided by the shadowy enchanter Merlin, who gives him Excalibur, the "sword of power", which he takes from a female hand rising from a lake. Merlin arranges a truce between the two rivals, where Cornwall yields to Uther, who is proclaimed king. The peace lasts only a short time, as Uther develops a mad lust for Igrayne, Cornwall's wife. Uther is soon besieging Cornwall's castle to get at Igrayne.
Merlin uses his magic to aid Uther's desires - after Uther swears that "what issues" from his lust would be Merlin's. Uther, magically given Cornwall's appearance, enters the castle and beds Igrayne. Meanwhile, Cornwall attacks Uther's camp and is killed in battle.
After Cornwall's death, Uther takes Igrayne and Cornwall's other possessions. Igrayne bears him a son, Arthur. Merlin arrives to press his claim to the boy, however. Uther, regretting his oath, pursues Merlin into the forest, but is ambushed. He is mortally wounded, but before he dies he thrusts Excalibur into a rock. "He who draws the sword from the stone, he shall be king" Merlin exclaims.

Some years later, Sir Ector and his sons Kay and Arthur go to a tournament in that forest, where the winner gets a shot at pulling Excalibur out of the rock. Arthur, much to the amazement of the various Knights present, pulls Excalibur out of the rock accidentally (and can put it back in). Sir Ector reveals that he adopted him at Merlin's bidding. Merlin suddenly appears and tells Arthur of his true parentage, and that he is King.
Arthur is acclaimed by some as their true King; however, many jealous nobles such as Lot and Uryens reject him. Arthur comes to the aid of Leondegrance, whose castle is under siege by the rebels. He wins the respect and fealty of all of them in combat. At the victory celebration, he meets Guenevere, Leondegrance's daughter, whom he marries.
Some years later, Arthur meets and fights a duel with Lancelot, "the best knight in Christendom." Angry at being unable to win against the knight, Arthur unfairly uses Excalibur's power to defeat Lancelot, and much to the astonishment and chagrin of both Arthur and Merlin the magic sword breaks in half upon impact with Lancelot's armor-clad torso. Merlin loudly proclaims, "You have broken that which could not BE broken!" Arthur then realizes the full import of this event and contritely flings the broken sword into a nearby pool. Excalibur is then magically restored and returned to him after he further repents of his actions against the unconscious Lancelot. Lancelot, upon awakening, knows only that he has been bested and becomes Arthur's closest friend and supporter.

Eventually, Arthur finally unifies the land under his rule. He institutes the fellowship of the Round Table and builds Camelot, his castle. Morgana, Arthur's half-sister, shows herself to be a budding sorceress.
Perceval, a peasant boy whose name translates as "fool", manages to impress Lancelot with his sincerity and is taken to Camelot to be Lancelot's squire. Things are not going well in Camelot, however. Morgana is sowing the seeds of discontent, while Lancelot and Guenevere secretly develop feelings for each other. Sir Gawain eventually accuses Guenevere and Lancelot (in absentia) of harboring a mutual attraction. Lancelot must defend her honor but has injured himself in a nightmare and does not arrive. At first, nobody volunteers to fight the awesome Gawain in his place. Percival, ever the Fool for God, then offers to fight the much larger, stronger, battle-hardened, fully-armored Gawain. Arthur, in apparent desperation, immediately knights him. Just as Percival and Gawain are squaring off, however, Lancelot shows up and just manages to defeat Gawain, who then decides he'd rather live than stand on principle and recants his accusation. Percival is allowed to retain his back-door knighthood even though he hadn't actually engaged in battle. But Lancelot is still troubled in his heart and the old self-inflicted wound will never fully heal.
Ultimately, Lancelot and Guenevere consummate their lust, and Arthur catches them in the forest, in each other's arms asleep. He almost kills the two lovers, but instead drives Excalibur into the ground between them and leaves. Just as this is happening, however, Merlin was about to consign Morgana to Oblivion immediately after teaching her the Charm of Making. Because of Merlin's mystical ties to the land the sword momentarily skewers him when Arthur imbeds it in the ground and weakens him at the worst possible moment: when Morgana is able to turn the tables on him and use her ill-gotten powers to encase Merlin in crystal and later to trick Arthur into making love to her. The offspring of this union is the evil Mordred. Lancelot eventually awakens and flees in shame and self-loathing, and Guenevere breaks down completely and soon after surrenders herself to a nunnery.
After these horrific events, a broken Arthur sends his knights on a quest for the Grail, which will make him and the land whole again. Meanwhile England suffers failed harvests and despair is everywhere. Years pass. Many knights die on the quest; others Morgana bewitches, to serve her and her son.

After many adventures and a near-fatal run-in with Mordred and Morgana, it is Sir Percival who finally wins the Grail. He does this in a vision achieved through extreme suffering and torment and what some today would categorize as a near-death experience in which he steps into the Grail Castle completely bereft of his armor and correctly answers the questions of a mysterious figure perched upon high. "WHO AM I?" booms the voice, to which Percival responds, "You are my lord, King Arthur."..... "WHAT IS MY SECRET?"....."You and the land are One!".....and then, abruptly, we see Percival, still unclad as before, urging a disspirited Arthur to drink from the cup and be revitalized. Arthur immediately snaps out of his decade-long swoon and quietly proclaims, "I never knew how empty was my soul, until it was filled". He and his remaining knights ride to war against Mordred and Morgana. As they ride, the long-barren land bursts into life; it is reborn with its King.
Arthur goes to Guenevere's convent, where they are reconciled. Guenevere then gives Arthur Excalibur, which she has kept safe all these years. Reunited with his sword of power, Arthur and his army ride towards the battlefield and the day of reckoning. They find out that almost all of the nobles of the land have rallied to Mordred and Morgana.
On the eve of the battle Arthur slams his mailed fist into an ancient monolith while calling out Merlin's name in despair. Because of the ancient stone's physical and mystical connection to the land the reverberations from the impact are enough to rouse Merlin from his enchanted slumber. Even though still enclosed in Morgana's crystal prison Merlin is able to assist Arthur. He comes to the King in a dream and gives words of encouragement. Merlin also is able to trick the sleeping Morgana into uttering the 'Charm of Making' which she had stolen from him. In summoning the dragon's breath she creates a thick fog and suffers the unfortunate side-effect of losing her magically-maintained youth and beauty. Mordred kills her in disgust with his bare hands as the now-haggard sorceress tries to embrace him.

The day of destiny comes. Arthur uses the fog to hide his much smaller army and is able to spread confusion among his foes who now lack the support and magic of Morgana. A prematurely aged Lancelot returns to fight with Arthur and fells many an opponent before he himself expires. "Come, father, let us embrace at last," says Mordred with dripping irony as he runs Arthur through with a very long spear. Arthur actually walks himself along the remaining section of the spear and fatally wounds Mordred through his enchanted armor with the even greater magical power of Excalibur.
As Arthur lays dying, he asks Perceval to throw Excalibur in a pool of calm water. Arthur tells him that someday, another king will come, and Excalibur will rise again. As Perceval finally discards the sword, the hand clad in samite catches it and takes it under. When Perceval returns, Arthur is gone. Gazing from a distance, he sees Arthur lying in a small sailboat, attended by three formally posed ladies clad in white, which sails majestically into the setting sun.

Production

John Boorman cast Nicol Williamson and Helen Mirren opposite each other as Merlin and Morgana, knowing that the two were at the time on less than friendly terms, due to personal issues that arose during a production of ''Macbeth'' seven years earlier. Boorman felt that the tension on set would come through in the actors' performances. The early critical battle scene around a castle, in which Arthur is made a knight by Uryens, while kneeling in a moat, was filmed in Cahir Castle, in Cahir County Tipperary, Ireland . It is a genuine Norman castle, one of the best preserved anywhere and the moat is the River Suir which flows around the castle. Easily visited, you can still park your car in the car park from where the filming was done. The original cut of the film was three hours long. Among scenes that were lost was a scene of Lancelot rescuing Guinevere from a forest bandit. According to director John Boorman, the love scene between Lancelot and Guinevere in the forest was filmed on a very cold night, but Nicholas Clay and Cherie Lunghi did the scene in the nude anyway.

Adaptation

The film is primarily an adaptation of Malory's ''Morte d'Arthur'' (1485). In order to recast the Arthurian legends as an allegory of the cycle of birth, life and decay, the text was stripped of decorative or insignificant details, as well as of Malory's Christian piety. The resulting film is reminiscent of mythographic works such as Sir James Frazer's ''The Golden Bough'' and Jessie Weston's ''From Ritual to Romance''; Arthur is presented as the "Wounded King" whose realm becomes a wasteland to be reborn thanks to the Grail, and may be compared to the Fisher (or Sinner) King, whose land also became a wasteland, and was also healed by Perceval. Notably, the Grail is not the Christian "Holy Grail"; rather, it may be inspired by magic cauldrons in Celtic pagan myths. "The film has to do with ''mythical'' truth, not historical truth," Boorman remarked to a journalist during filming.^[1][2]
In keeping with this approach, the film is intentionally ahistorical.¹ For example, the opening titles state the setting to be the Dark Ages, even though the knights wear full plate armor, which was invented much later. Saddles were used on the horses during all film sequences, and saddles were also invented much later. Knights, knighthood and the code of chivalry also did not exist during the period. Furthermore, Britain is never mentioned by name, only as "the land".
In addition to Malory, the writers incorporated elements from other Arthurian stories, sometimes altering them. For example, the sword between the sleeping lovers' bodies comes from the tales of Tristan and Iseult; the knight who returns Excalibur to the water is changed from Bedivere to Perceval; and Morgause and Morgan Le Fay are merged. The sword Excalibur and the Sword in the Stone are presented as the same thing; in the legends they are separate. In the legend of Arthur, Sir Galahad, the illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine of Carbonek, is actually the Knight who is worthy of the Holy Grail. Boorman's version of the tale leaves Galahad out completely.
Some new elements were added, such as Uther wielding Excalibur before Arthur (repeated in ''Merlin''), Merlin's 'Charm of Making' (written in Old Irish), and the concept of the world as "the dragon".

Quotations

Merlin states the film's central theme, reflecting an ancient Celtic belief about kingship:
:"You will be the land,
:And the land will be you.
:If you fail, the land will perish;
:As you thrive, the land will blossom."
Later, he states the allegory of the Dragon:
:MERLIN: The dragon! A beast of such power that if you were to see it whole and all complete in a single glance, it would burn you to cinders.
:ARTHUR: Where is it?
:MERLIN: It is everywhere; it is everything. Its scales glisten in the bark of trees, its roar is heard in the wind, and its forked tongue strikes like — like — ''[Lightning strikes]'' Whoa! Like lightning! Yes, that's it!
Later, he touches on the conflict between Christianity and polytheism:
: "The One God comes to drive out the many gods. The spirits of wood and stream grow silent. But that's the way of things. It's time for men and their ways."
Pallenberg and Boorman's screenplay touches on the heroic themes with directness. As Arthur declares:
: "Any man who would be a knight and follow a King, follow me!"

Soundtrack

★ Carl Orff's "O Fortuna" is used regularly during the dramatic and violent scenes of the movie. In part because of Excalibur, its imitations, and parodies; the movement has become an archetype for melodrama.

★ The theme between Lancelot and Guinevere is in fact the prelude to Richard Wagner's opera, "Tristan und Isolde".

★ The theme of Perceval and the Grail is the prelude to Wagner's "Parsifal".

★ The Main Title music is "Funeral" from "Twilight of the Gods", also by Wagner.

Awards

Alex Thomson, the film's cinematographer, was nominated for Best Cinematography at the 1982 Academy Awards, but lost to Vittorio Storaro for ''Reds''.

See also

★ Excalibur, King Arthur's sword, the central symbol of kingship for Malory and the film.

★ List of films based on Arthurian legend

References

1. JOHN BOORMAN IN INTERVIEW
2. The Quest for the Hollywood Grail John Boorman’s Excalibur, and the Mythic Development of the Arthurian Legend ''(sic)''

External links

★

★ Darren Withers, "The Quest for the Hollywood Grail" analyzes Boorman's ''Excalibur''

★ Michael Everson's analysis of Merlin's "Charm of Making"

★ Boorman and Pallenberg's plans for an adaptation of ''The Lord of the Rings'' from the 'theonering.com' message board, a Tolkien fan site.

★ Discussion on ''Excalibur's mythology

★ Harlan, Kennedy. "JOHN BOORMAN IN INTERVIEW". Originally published in ''American Film'' magazine, March 1981.

★ A review and photos