Excalibur

Excalibur

"Merlin lives in our dreams now.
He speaks to us from there."
- King Arthur in Excalibur

King Arthur, one of the most enduring heroes of literature had not fared so well on the big screen. It wasn't even until Knights of the Round Table (1953) more than a half century after the birth of cinema that any serious attempt was made to tell his story.

In one of the latest takes, director Guy Ritchie brings his cockney gangster aesthetic to the Arthur legend in King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword. The film has been nearly universally panned by critics with the editing and lack of narrative flow being the most frequent complaints: "sloppily edited" (Salon.com), "fast cuts and jagged pacing... a brutal, bleedin' mess" (Rolling Stone), "narrative logic has no purchase" Slate "scattershot edits and on-the-fly plot descriptions" (Toronto Star).
While there have been some successful comedic takes (notably A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court, and Monty Python and the Holy Grail), only one serious film truly stands out - director John Boorman's 1981 film Excalibur.

Excalibur co-written by Boorman and Rospo Pallenberg draws inspiration from Thomas Malory's 15th Century version of the tales, Le Morte d'Arthur. The film is a lavish production featuring the full contingent of knights always clad in exquisite plate mail armor, and outstanding location photography in Ireland. All set to a soundtrack of Wagnerian opera and other classical greats. It's almost impossible to sit still when Arthur rides into battle for the first time, to the rousing strains of Orff's O, Fortuna.

The entire cast is top notch, including Nigel Terry as Arthur, Nicholas Clay as Lancelot, and Cherie Lunghi as Guenevere, but the real show-stealer is Nicol Williamson who gives a uniquely charming take on the old wizard Merlin. The supporting cast is a phenomenal who's-who of then-unknown actors like Helen Mirren, Liam Neeson, Patrick Stewart, and Gabriel Byrne!

Surprisingly, reviews were very mixed at the time. Roger Ebert called it, "a mess", and "a record of the comings and goings of arbitrary, inconsistent, shadowy figures". The New York Times called it pretentious, and legendary film critic Pauline Kael called the dialogue "near-atrocious" and said, "Excalibur is all images flashing by... We miss the dramatic intensity that we expect the stories to have". In other words, editing and narrative flow were among the biggest complaints.

But what a difference time has made. Today Excalibur is widely regarded as a classic, and the definitive screen rendition of Arthurian myth. Review aggregating site Rotten Tomatoes give it an 82% "fresh" (favorable) rating. Compare that to fellow British director Guy Ritchie's King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword which has a mere 28% (A.K.A. "rotten") rating. Maybe one day, decades hence, King Arthur: The Legend of the Sword will be seen as a classic too, but somehow I doubt it.