Excalibur

John Boorman’s Excalibur (1981) was one of those “happy accident” movies for me when I first saw it in 1981. I had no real interest in seeing it at the time, but I had ill-advisedly signed up for a college course in musical appreciation—a notion that came to an abrupt end when I realized I was going to be appreciating Haydn’s “Surprise” Symphony. But rather than explain that I was dropping the class to persons who would not be pleased, I went out dutifully every Tuesday night for several weeks—to the movies. And since Boorman’s take on the story of King Arthur and his cohorts was done in pure Wagnerian scale—with a lot of Wagner on the soundtrack—it also served to enhance my musical appreciation. And glad I am that I went, since this turned out to be one of my favorite films of the year, and far and away my favorite of this type of film. (And, yes, I include Peter Jackson’sLord of the Rings films in that assessment.) Oh, it may have a few problems—not the least of which is that it sometimes gets perilously close to self-parody—but it’s one of the most stunning-looking films ever made, and in tackling the material head-on, it achieves a boldness of purpose that imbues the overall film with something at once truly mythic and surprisingly moving. After years of absurdly stoic, bizarrely clean and dramatically inert movies about knights bold and damsels fair, Boorman finally gives us one that feels grounded in sweaty, suffering humanity, a less bombastic take on magic and a true sense of being born of the British Isles. I’ll take some imperfections for that.

Seeing the film again in a newly remasterred Blu-ray version reminded me of what an incredible visual experience the film is. (It’s the season to bitch about Oscar slights. Look no further than not giving Alex Thomson the award for cinematography on this.) When the film was being made, there was a certain amount of bafflement in some quarters over Boorman’s insistence on placing green gels over many of the lights for the forest scenes, but when you see the film’s glowing greens it makes perfect sense, especially within the context of the film.The film presents the Earth and the things that grow out of it as virtually characters in their own rights—certainly as living things. In fact, the film’s concept of “the dragon” (one that annoyed some) was that the Earth is the dragon, not some gigantic separate beast. Merlin (Nicol Williamson) himself expresses that the film is taking place in a world not far removed from when “bird and beast and flower were one with man.” In fact, the film takes place—again as said by Merlin—when such a magical time is giving way to the time of man.

Boorman’s decision to present the film in terms of Wagner’s operas affords it a unity it might not otherwise have—and anyway, there are certainly connections between the Arthurian legends and the ones in Wagner. Certainly treating Lancelot (Nicolas Clay) and Guenevere (Cherie Lunghi) as Tristan and Isolde is reasonable enough, since that story predated the Arthurian tales and influenced them. In a way, it’s all part of Boorman’s apparent to desire to create a work that is at once sweeping and mythical, yet earthy and real in a way that previous films had never been. Whether Messrs. Malory and Wagner would agree with the approach is another matter. Then again, you could always show them Richard Thorpe’s Knights of the Round Table (1954). That would almost certainly shut them up.

The whole thing was a risky proposition—and it didn’t pan out for everybody. There are still those who are cheesed over an allegorical dragon rather than the fire-breathing special effects sort. When the much lesser Dragonslayer opened a few months later, some critics compared Excalibur unfavorably to it because “it at least has dragons.” Oh well, what can you do with the literal-minded? Much more risky, however, was the very fact that Excalibur took itself seriously and wasn’t a simple adventure, which was very much at odds with the tenor of the early ‘80s and its generally Lucas-Spielberg vibe. Booorman and company are offering something quite different.

The Asheville Film Society will screen Excalibur Tuesday, April 14, at 8 p.m. in Theater Six at The Carolina Asheville and will be hosted by Xpress movie critics Ken Hanke and Justin Souther.