In my lifetime there have been three major attempts to bring the Arthurian saga to the big screen: 1995’s First Knight (starring Sean Connery as Arthur), 2004’s King Arthur (Clive Owen), and 2017’s King Arthur: Legend of the Sword (Charlie Hunnam). Each failed to make a claim on the hearts of viewers. The most recent one was reckoned such a commercial disaster that Warner Brothers had to cancel plans for several sequels and an expanded Arthurian Cinematic Universe. As for smaller-budget attempts (Arthur and Merlin) and Tristan or Gawain legends (Tristan & Isolde, The Green Knight) and television series (The Mists of Avalon, Camelot), the pattern holds: none have proven terribly memorable.
Which prompts the question: Why do Arthurian movies and shows so often falter?
If there’s one adaptation that works as the definitive King Arthur movie it is John Boorman’s Excalibur (1981). I have a personal bond to this film: images from it became a part of my imagination when I was very young, without my knowing where they came from. They have haunted me for years. As a boy I must have wandered into the living room when my father was watching Excalibur and been taken aback by what I saw. When I finally watched the movie myself recently and again saw the images from my memory, it was like watching a dream.
The most pressing thing to be said about Excalibur is that the visuals go hard. They carry the movie—the costumes, sets, and backdrops, with an 80s-style neon glow and a dreamy Celtic haze. 80s medievalism is the fusion you never knew you needed. These visuals are complemented by an epic soundtrack with a fair amount of Wagner. All together, the aesthetics make the movie a true cinematic experience, a lesson in the wonder that this medium alone is capable of making you feel.
That’s not to say everything about the Excalibur works. It is deeply flawed. The script and the performances are uneven. Though several actors would go on to big things (Liam Neeson as Gawain, Gabriel Byrne as Uther Pendragon, Helen Mirren as Morgana le Fay, Ciarin Hinds as Lot, Patrick Stewart as Leodegrance), Nigel Terry as Arthur wasn’t up for the task of carrying the movie. He was a stage actor, and one can’t help but think that his overwrought eagerness probably plays better in front of a live auditorium than a camera. (A tragedy of Guy Ritchie’s misfire in 2017 is that Charlie Hunnam is everything you would want from Arthur—tall, boulder-shouldered, dignified, composed.)
It’s hard to frame the sprawling scope of the Arthurian story. Boorman’s film does admirably well in its attempt, focusing mostly on Arthur’s story rather than Lancelot’s. The film chronicles 1) his conception, 2) his rise as king, 3) his fall and that of his kingdom, 4) his idea of the Grail Quest, 5) his redemption/death. But still the story has holes. The illicit romance between Lancelot and Guinevere which tore the kingdom apart leaves something to be desired. It’s more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than anything, something that happens only after everyone has gotten worked up over it. Roger Ebert noted that the film is "a record of the comings and goings of arbitrary, inconsistent, shadowy figures who are not heroes but simply giants run amok.” That might be a little much, but he’s on to something.
But Ebert added, “Still, it's wonderful to look at.” And the movie has real moments. In the early battle over Arthur’s claim to the throne, the young king overcomes the rebellious Sir Uriens and holds his sword to the man’s throat, demanding to be recognized as rightful king. Uriens says he cannot possibly submit to someone who hasn’t even been knighted—a claim which Arthur finds reason in. So he asks to be knighted by Uriens himself, then and there. In a show of big magnanimity and trust, he hands his opponent his sword for the ceremony. Uriens is so struck by the gesture that he can’t help being won over.
Arthur’s redemption arc at the end is similarly moving. He remembers the long-gone Merlin, and he remembers what he should have been, and he dedicates his finally days to becoming that man. “Now once more, I must ride with my knights, to defend what was ... and the dream of what could be.”
And every scene with Morgana le Fay is compelling—not just because Helen Mirren was such a fetching young lady but because she pulls off the darkness of the character. Trouble follows closely when she walks into the scene.
Lessons
To return to the original question: Why do so few Arthurian adaptations work?
One reason has to be that the modern mind cannot comprehend anything dark age or medieval. Difficulties adapting Arthur are part of the larger difficulties of making any good medieval movie, period. Medieval ideals and commitments are alien to us, and there’s something inescapably false about attempts to impose our attitudes on them, to dress up contemporary temperaments in plate armor. Case in point: Liam Neeson, like a good boomer professor of comparative religions, waxes poetic about religious pluralism in the Holy Land in 2004’s Kingdom of Heaven. That’s not the kind of thing that got Crusaders excited! Audiences seem to sense the problem, even if they cannot articulate it. To its credit, Excalibur simply embraces the strangeness of that time.
Another problem might be the source material itself: Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, the definitive Arthurian text, is a sprawling work, a compilation of existing Arthuriana more than a single cohesive narrative. It holds together only with serious difficulty, or maybe not at all. When reading Malory, I am often perplexed, sometimes angered, by the author’s handling of the infidelity and the other Lancelot-related problems. I cannot claim to understand what Malory is trying to do.
Excalibur doesn’t come close to solving anything, but it does well simply by honoring the sources. One gets the impression that Boorman actually likes King Arthur. He does make a few minor changes—collapsing a few characters into composites—but stays true to the spirit. The result is a wholesomeness which stands in contrast to the “subversive” cynicism of The Green Knight or the questionable innovations of Guy Ritchie’s King Arthur. (I must confess I like Ritchie’s vision more than most, but perhaps it should have been its own original fantasy story, rather than one that borrows the name of King Arthur while dispensing with so much of his legend.)
There are lessons to be taken from this—not just for filmmakers but for everyone. 1) Vibes and aesthetics go a long way and help compensate for any number of problems. Some will take this as a defense of superficiality. But it’s not at all: it’s actually more superficial to deny that vibes and aesthetic matter and that they convey something important which escapes our words. There is more to reality than can be conveyed with facts and logic. 2) Respect for tradition, continuity, legend also goes a long way. This is especially true at a time when subversion—automatic thoughtless rebellion against anything time-honored—has been sung to the sky by a couple generations of teachers and pop culture luminaries. Once upon a time, great artists of the past understood that a veneration for the tradition is necessary, paradoxically, for creating something new and original.
Vibes and tradition are especially potent in combination. They might be the key to the future. Something to think about as we stand at the end of a stale and unregenerate time, in need of a bold vision. Boorman’s film, however flawed, shows a beautiful model of how that might be done.
The most faithful adaptation of Mallory is "Monty Python and the Holy Grail."
Or, at least the first half of Mallory. I haven't finished it. Maybe Mallory got serious later on, but the first half is about as silly as the Monty Python movie. Got a war coming? Have a lethal joust the day before!
See a knight on the road ahead? Must fight a duel or be named a coward. And if you win, the knights relatives will come after you for revenge. Only if you whack each other for a few hours and have a good bloodletting, can you be friends. Then, it's time for a few months of rest and good cheer, and a trip to Arthur's castle for Pentecost.
And the morals! Lancelot threatens to kill Tristram if he has sex WITH HIS OWN WIFE. He must be true to his adulterous romance with the Beale Isolde -- vs. his lawful wife the Emergency Backup Isolde.
Is Le Morte D'Arthur a coherent story or is it the transcript of a late Medieval role playing game played in prison to pass the years?
Camelot? also great backstory w JFK admin..