1981
If I could organize my thoughts better, this would have posted back when we saw Camelot at Lincoln Center, since we saw the movie first. However, that level of mental planning is never going to happen in my life, outside of a Disney World vacation.
I still believe this movie does the best job in all media of combining all the Arthurian legends into one cohesive tale. Even Mallory and White have contradictions in them. The trouble with that combining is it can make this version seem definitive. When Rosa referenced it during the play to ask what happens next, I was able to quote a line from the show, which has become something I use often when we're watching movies or shows together,
"I am acting upon the same information you possess."
The film achieves its consistency with A LOT of shortcuts to present a dramatic and coherent story with a somewhat uplifting ending to marginally offset the tragedy. Combining the Sword of Kings with Excalibur and adding the break and replace scene with Lancelot smoothed that confusing bit out nicely. But while combining Morgan Le Fay and Morgause is common, adding Nimue in the mix took it a step further. The streamlining increases as the story progresses, reducing the entire Orkeny clan to just Morgan and Mordred, and leaving out the several messes required to bring Galahad into the mix.
Mallory ignores the inconsistencies and throws out multiple tales. While White's books are an easier and more fun read, to tie everything together the stories constantly go off the rails in goofy and insane directions. Sword in the Stone is a close adaptation in tone and content, and if anything is less ridiculous than the source material. I'm kind of amazed no one has done a faithfully adapted, farcical TV series of the whole saga based on White's version.
We initially watched Excalibur quite a while ago. There wasn't an on going commentary, because it is a fantastically good film, and Anabelle was into it almost the whole time. She had been looking for something with knights and fantasy. I mentioned it a couple times and she decided to try it out.
At one point she yelled, "This is the greatest movie I've ever seen in my life!"
When I pointed out that I had mentioned it was good many times she responded with,
"You didn't tell me there was jousting in it!
You should have led with that!"
A big reason she enjoyed it is she went through a King Arthur and Camelot phase when younger.
One day I got a call from her in college, pointing out the fact that, growing up with me, she naturally figured this was a normal phase every kid went through.
The class read a version of Gawain and the Green Knight, and when she brought up Morgan Le Fay and Mordred in class, no one else knew who they were. Then she and the professor had a nice long conversation about Arthurian legends. In the original stories, Gawain is Mordred's half-brother, but that bit about the Orkney Clan gets left out a lot.
Excalibur also has an amazing soundtrack. It was one I often complained about being unavailable, having only a limited pressing when it first came out. Luckily, when my sister found the weird collectibles website that had the Buckaroo Banzai soundtrack, I ended up on their mailing list. They released the Excalibur CD recently! Hurray!
One weird bit is the original music not written by Wagner or Orff was by Trevor Jones of Labyrinth and The Dark Crystal soundtrack fame. Without the visuals, many of the songs, including the one for Igraine's lusty dance, sound like they're performed by Podlings.
Not like that's a bad thing.
After our current Harryhausen infused foray into fantasy, Anabelle selected Excalibur to watch again one evening. (Possibly because when she was at college, I mentioned planning to watch it again. She said we shouldn't wait for her, but we never got around to it.)
One of the joys of this film is how incredibly over the top everyone plays it.
Honestly, every single cast member makes Tom Baker's Sinbad performance look sedate and restrained.
She did amend her review to say that it is a "snoozefest" once the Grail Hunt begins.
And now that's she's older, and more mature, we both made a bunch of "Sir Urine" jokes.
I realized something new while watching it this time as well.
(Outside of the fact that a night of way-hey-hey in full armor looks like a bad idea,
which I re-notice every time.)
and then be totally ignored.
At some point, this has become my job description at work.
After thirty years at my company, I hung this up in my cubicle to give people warning.
3 comments:
I saw this in the theater as a kid with my parents. It was very exciting and confusing. Parents later regretted it but not for the nudity and blood. My sister and I kept on trying to sing the main theme, which as you know, is not an English.
Darn it. I am not anonymous!
We did do a bit of fast forwarding when Anabelle was younger on this one.
The main theme is highly singable, and has likely gone through many versions.
My first "R" movie was 2 years later. Dad was a huge Python fan and he took Jesse and I to see Meaning of Life. I may have gone through all of puberty that day.
thanx for sharing.
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