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Excalibur is a 1981 film which retells the legend of King Arthur. It was directed by John Boorman, and attracted positive reviews for its 'magical realist' tone, combining sorcery and mysticism with gritty and violent realism. Its unsentimental depiction of a 'fantasy' setting was an influence on many subsequent films and television series, most recently Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings. Indeed, Excalibur grew from Boorman's attempt to film Tolkien's trilogy; in the mid-1970s, Boorman had collaborated with film rights holder and producer Saul Zaentz to do a treatment of the Tolkien epic, but the project proved too expensive to finance at that time.
Excalibur stars Nigel Terry as King Arthur, Helen Mirren as his half-sister Morgana, Nicol Williamson as Merlin and Nicholas Clay as Lancelot. Liam Neeson, in one of his first film roles, plays Gawain, Patrick Stewart lends Shakespearean presence to a minor role as King Leodegrance. The motion picture is sometimes referred to as "The Boorman Family Project" since most members of the Boorman family starred in the picture. Igraine (Arthur's mother), the Lady of the Lake, Mordred as a boy, and the infant Arthur were played by Boorman's children.
To recast the Arthur legend as a myth of the cycle of birth, life and decay, familiar Arthurian sources, Malory's Morte d'Arthur and elements of the quest for the Grail, have been stripped of decorative or insignificant details— and also stripped of Malory's Christian piety— and seen through the lens of mythographers like Sir James Frazer and Jessie Weston's From Ritual to Romance. "The film has to do with mythical truth, not historical truth," Boorman remarked to a journalist during filming.
Merlin states the central theme:
- You will be the land,
- And the land will be you.
- If you fail, the land will perish;
- If you thrive, the land will blossom.
Alex Thomson's cinematography uses the gray skies, stone and bracken, waterfalls and tarns of its Irish locations in Wicklow, Tipperary, and County Kerry, cut sparely with the outstanding choreographed swordplay and Bob Ringwood's striking armour, whether rusted, bloodstained and mud-caked or polished to a deep shine.
The screenplay by Rospo Pallenberg with Martin Boorman, touches the heroic themes with directness:
- Any man that would be a Knight... and follow a King: follow me!
The soundtrack is by Trevor Jones, with sound bites and samples drawn from Orff's Carmina Burana and Wagnerian motifs, of fate (Ring) and fatal attraction (Tristan und Isolde).
See also
- Excalibur, King Arthur's sword, which becomes the film's central symbol of kingship.
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