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Nigel Terry gets a special gift in John Boorman's crazily OTT Arthurian epic Excalibur |
Director: John Boorman
Cast: Nigel Terry (King Arthur), Nicol Williamson (Merlin),
Helen Mirren (Morgana Le Fay), Nicholas Clay (Sir Lancelot), Cherie Lunghi
(Guenevere), Paul Geoffrey (Sir Perceval), Gabriel Byrne (King Uther
Pendragon), Corin Redgrave (Duke of Cornwall), Patrick Stewart (King Leondegrance),
Keith Buckley (Sir Uryens), Clive Swift (Sir Ector), Liam Neeson (Sir Gawain),
Robert Addie (Mordred), Niall O’Brien (Sir Kay), Ciarán Hinds (King Lot),
Charley Boorman (Young Mordred), Katrine Boorman (Igrayne)
John Boorman had wanted to make a film about King Arthur for
over a decade, but it only came into being after his plans for an adaptation of
The Lord of the Rings fell through
(the suits were convinced the film couldn’t be a hit – good call). So, with a
lot of prep work for Tolkien in place, Boorman moved a lot of his ideas for LOTR over to Excalibur. In doing so he created something probably truly unique –
a bonkers version of the Arthurian legend, so consistently Wagnerian (often
literally), high-falutin’ and overblown that it has a strange integrity in its
operatic silliness.
The film begins with Arthur’s conception, a result of King
Uther’s (Gabriel Byrne) lust for his ally’s wife, Igrayne (the director’s
daughter Katrine). Merlin (Nicol Williamson) agrees to magically disguise Uther
as Igrayne’s husband for one night, and in return spirits away the resulting child
to be reared ignorant of his heritage. Years later, with a leaderless kingdom
in chaos, Arthur (Nigel Terry) draws the magical sword Excalibur from the stone,
and proves himself as king. He marries Guenevere (Cherie Lunghi) and brings Sir
Lancelot (Nicholas Clay) to Camelot – oblivious of their love for each other.
Slowly this love destroys the peace of the land – encouraged by the schemes of
Arthur’s vengeful half-sister Morgana (Helen Mirren).
Excalibur is a
film set in a completely heightened middle-ages dreamworld, as if it’s a series
of drawings from an illustrated edition of King
Arthur brought to life. The design of the film is dialled up to eleven: the
armour the characters wear is ridiculously elaborate, shiny and eye catching.
The characters never seem to take it off: Uther even has sex wearing it (poor
Igrayne is completely naked – that can’t have been comfortable for her). Full
armour is worn at meals, wedding, social events, everything: at the same time
it’s brilliantly ineffective, punctured with ease by axes and spears.
The rest of the design of the film is equally overblown.
Camelot seems to have been literally made from silver and gold. Lancelot kips in
the forest and sleeps in the nude. Battle scenes are filmed on moody, misty
nights, with horses and knights riding with insane riskiness at each other.
Excalibur itself is almost impossibly shiny and unblemished and occasionally
glows green. Everything has a high-artistic feel to it, like a Romantic
painting. Nothing looks real – it uses a “rule of cool” aesthetic, anything
that looks good from anything approaching medievalism is used.
The acting itself follows this operatic style. Half the
dialogue is delivered shouting: Patrick Stewart in particular must have lost
his voice while filming this one. Filmed in Ireland (it practically kickstarted
the Irish film industry), many Irish actors got their first film break here,
not least Gabriel Byrne (a furiously lusty Uther), Liam Neeson (a drunken oafish
Gawain) and Ciarán Hinds (growling in the background). Each roars through their
dialogue, perhaps none more so than Corin Redgrave who screams his with such
flemmy passion it’s often hard to work out what exactly he’s saying.
There are quieter moments from the three leads, even if all
three of them don’t really have the charisma to impose themselves on sketchily
drawn characters. Cherie Lunghi adopts an odd, part-time Irish accent as a
bland Guenevere. Nicholas Clay is an upright Lancelot who simmers with guilt
but is just a wee bit dull. Nigel Terry’s performance as Arthur (from young
yokel to tortured king) gets better the more times I see it, but it lacks a
certain star quality. But then in Boorman’s design, these three characters are just
tools of fate rather than real characters – and the film has so much story to
cover it often has very little time for character development.
The real stars of this film are Nicol Williamson and Helen
Mirren. The two actors had a long-standing animosity – Boorman deliberately
cast them to get an extra spark out of their scenes. But both actors seize
their colourful characters – and have the time to add some depth to their
bombastic, larger-than-life moments. Mirren gets to express bitterness and fury
under simmering sexuality, as well as a genuine love for her son. Williamson is
fantastic: playful, half nutty professor, half vengeful force of mystic power,
he turns Merlin into an eccentric but somehow sinister old man. Williamson finds bizarro and unique line readings of even the simplest lines, stretching the material in the way only a really great actor can. He’s such an
electric and interesting character, that he makes a performance that’s
basically well over the top, hugely enjoyable and also even rather sweet.
As such, Williamson is perfect for Boorman’s overblown,
crazy film. The score uses Wagner and Carmina
Burana to great effect, and the closing moments are shot before a giant
blood red sky. Boorman’s shiny, colourful world effectively melts down in the
second half of the film into musty, moody greys: his concept of Arthur losing
his way and the kingdom disintegrating works extremely well, and means we get a
real sense of things falling apart. The Grail Quest is like a creepy fever
dream – with knights we have known dying in gruesome ways, freezing in chapels
or hanging in a tree with their corpses picked clean by crows (of course one crow
eats an eye!).
In many ways Excalibur
is a very silly film: it’s hard to believe it was made six years after Monty Python and the Holy Grail, as much of its design and action
is more than a little reminiscent of that film (it’s probably the only parody
you could argue was made before the film it best sends-up). You probably need
to see it at a certain age or enter into it with the right mindset for
something that walks a difficult line between fairy tale and earthy campness.
But I still love it.
Because Boorman really goes for it here. You know from the
early sequence of Uther and Igrayne having sex against a background of actual
fire, in full plate armour, intercut with a lingering death of Cornwall impaled
on a series of spears in Uther’s camp (his death and Uther’s climax are of
course cut together) what sort of film you are going to get. Everything is OTT.
The drama leaves nothing behind, and Boorman wisely removes any sense of
restraint from this telling of the legend. It looks gorgeous – even if dated
moments like the Lady of the Lake are more likely to raise sniggers than not –
and it really, really goes for it. Not many other films could get away with
something so over-the-top and bizarre: but this sort of does.
It just wouldn't get made these days. It's the dying embers of 70s excess and has more in common with Caligula & Flesh + Blood than a serious, noble grail quest. Magnificently overblown and masculine, everything is dialled up to 11. Which is how it should be.
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