Excalibur
The legendary story of King Arthur and his Round Table Knights Of Camelot has always made for various kinds of fodder when it comes to the different versions and interpretations of the story, ranging from a Broadway musical / movie (Camelot), an hilarious all time Undisputed Comedy Classic (Monty Python And The Holy Grail), a riotously bad May / December romantic movie (First Knight), a more modern, updated take that tried oh so hard to be gritty and realistic in the style of Braveheart (King Arthur), and even a Disney animated feature geared towards little kids (The Sword In The Stone). What all these different versions and many others had in common with each other was the fact that NONE of them were ever truly faithful to Sir Thomas Mallory’s original texts about Arthur written in the 1400s, which were the first known writings about the real life historical figure that was King Arthur, and possibly the most accurate even with some of the fantastical details of the story reflecting the fact that whole huge chunks of world history up until the 1500s are known to be VERY sketchy in literal detail, with Arthur himself (said to have an actual burial site with Guenevere at a church somewhere in England) considered to be a BIG deal among European occultist types who maintain that the kindly, considerate ruler of the stories was actually the world’s first known Antichrist in the vein of Napoleon and Hitler (legend even has it that Adolf, a known student of the Black Arts, actually DID come to possess the actual Excalibur Sword as part of his collecting of fabled artifacts, The Ark Of The Covenant notwithstanding), that of a monstrous, despotic figure who held an iron rule before the rise of The Windsors and who really sought out the Holy Grail not to restore peace and harmony to his kingdom, but to immortalize himself in order to be thought of as a living god before finally being brought down (and bringing down himself) his even more demonic son Mordred, the bastard, incestuous creation as a result of his mating with his own sister. The fact that Mallory (himself a known scavenger, thief, murderer, and rapist who died in prison) rewrote him to be an ultra Christian good guy (to cover the truth no doubt) who harbored such things as principles, ideals, and morals which along with his larger than life persona is probably what made Arthur so appealingly open to so many different forms of interpretation, but to this day still, the most definitive film adaptation of Mallory’s actual work remains this 1981 release from director John Boorman, usually thought of as a problematic talent at best coming up here with undoubtedly his greatest piece of work. It’s obvious that besides this type of material being perfectly suited to him, that Boorman was also by far the SMARTEST of any filmmaker to adapt a piece on Arthur, recognizing enough the sheer evil underneath the legend to pepper this ornate, epic film with plenty of sly references to the dark nature of the real life man while dressing it up to have it appear to the naked eye as if Arthur was engaged in a constant battle between good and evil within himself while also clearly showing that his actual father (the also real life Uther Pendragon) was an irredeemably twisted ogre of a man in his own right. While the film features an amazing pedigree of acting talent in the supporting ranks (Gabriel Byrne, Patrick Stewart, Liam Neeson, Corin Redgrave), the performances in the leading roles are pretty much hit or miss, depending on the actor. Nigel Terry in the all important role of Arthur himself goes flat on us at times in the early going, but is rather impressive in the later stages of the film as the older, more broken down incarnation of Arthur; Future Oscar winner Helen Mirren as his satanic, witchcraft practicing sister manages successfully to bring on both the sexy and the sinister, as those more familiar with her somewhat matronly screen image in recent years tend to forget just how beautiful and sultry she really truly was back in her salad days; Nicholas Clay as Lancelot is a fascinating contradiction, as he maintains a straight face while also seeming stiff and wooden with much of the character’s dialogue, yet the actor himself also carries quite a magnetic presence about him, which is eerily prescient when it comes to putting Lancelot across as a possibly supernatural being in his own right who was sent to be Camelot’s greatest champion even while being seemingly (and sadly) destined to eventually betray his best friend Arthur; Cherie Lunghi as Guenevere delivers possibly the weakest performance out of the whole bunch, smiling a lot to show her virtuous nature yet failing to convince the viewer about what’s supposed to make her so particularly appealing, especially with the smoking hot Mirren always lurking nearby; Paul Geoffrey as Perceval is certainly the most underrated performance on hand here, coming into the story as it is pretty late in the game and allowing us to watch his character grow and mature perhaps even better than Terry does as Arthur and ultimately coming to be almost the hero of the film that saves his King’s bacon, with him being the one who has to face true evil alone and survives, eventually finding The Grail itself and awakening Arthur from his depressed stupor; Robert Addie is absolutely positively the definition of creepy as the depraved Mordred (with Boorman’s son Charley playing the character as a boy), managing to make our skin crawl just enough with limited screen time in order to make the final confrontation have some real meaning; and Nicol Williamson (arguably the greatest actor to ever live that most people have probably never even heard of due to his reportedly eccentric performing methods) completely steals the show as the mystical, magical Merlin, doing so mainly by making this enigmatic character come across as being totally unpredictable and unconventional in nature, easily establishing himself as being both the best portrayal of this character EVER and also a possible case where Williamson might very well have done his homework on the character by utilizing some alleged details (never mentioned in the movie here) about Merlin that many have claimed (keeping in mind that Merlin and all of his powers are believed to have been REAL by many people and for whom entire books on spellcasting supposedy written by him can be found in many occult bookstores), up to and including the idea that Merlin actually moved BACKWARDS through time, making his past our future and our future his past, which not only enhanced his innate ability to predict the future (which conceivably could be altered if people only heeded his warnings), but also (if it is true that he is immortal and always has been around one way or the other), it means that he already has lived through OUR modern era before going on to deal with Arthur and probably wasn’t all that impressed with it, but Williamson’s distinctly cool voice and style of delivery make him alone worth the price of admission. Late in the film, Boorman makes the direct case that Arthur was possibly a sort of tormented Messiah figure in direct formation with God’s wishes, even as he comes to know and accept that his eventual fate is to die in combat against his own bastard son with the clear realization that he will then become a legendary figure in doing so, and while it’s a nice departure from the truth to justify the telling of the story (who would want to watch Evil vs Evil?), it’s even more satisfying to see Boorman still manage to get the little subtle clues in there while also expertly making use of classical music, Oscar nominated cinematography, surprisingly gory violence and a major emotional payoff at the end with the return to the ranks of the equally tormented Lancelot to help tear some shit up with his fellow Knights once again, thus raising the bar on any cinematic retelling of the Arthurian legend to untold heights that most likely will never be reached again in our lifetimes…
9/10