Excalibur
directed by John Boorman
starring Nigel Terry, Nicol Williamson, Helen Mirren
Arrow US
Rising from the failure of his planned adaptation of Lord of the Rings, John Boorman turned to King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table for his fantasy epic, Excalibur (1981). Eschewing both historical accuracy and family-friendly takes on the legends, Boorman instead opted for a dark and bombastic fantasy, heavy on graphic violence, sex, and nudity. The unconventional film struck a nerve and was a box office hit that only grew more admirers on cable and home video.
Although credited as an adaptation of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur, Excalibur actually cherry picks a vast array of Arthurian sources, including T.H. White’s The Once and Future King, The Waste Land by T.S. Eliot, Perceval, the Story of the Grail and Lancelot, Knight of the Cart by Chrétien de Troyes, as well as Boorman’s own imagination. This miasma of inspirations speaks to the difficulty of adapting Arthur to the screen, as there is no single definitive canon but a vast array of legends that often contradict each other. Boorman consolidates characters and events that help to streamline the story and works to correct contradictions between the various versions. With Boorman’s decision to cast any sense of historical accuracy or fealty to any single source, he managed to create a unique vision that is certain by design to both delight and enrage King Arthur fans.
The film is also daring in its attempt to tell the entire story of King Arthur, from his father all the way through the rise and fall of Camelot, the search for the Holy Grail, the battles with Morgan Le Fay in the Wastelands, and through to Arthur’s death and journey to Avalon — all in under two-and-a-half hours. There is zero opportunity for time wasting or hand holding in this film. Boorman expects his audience to be familiar with the Arthurian tales, so there is often little in the way of exposition, and it could easily get murky for the uninitiated. It is also a curiously paced and constructed film that really doesn’t build to any kind of major climax. There isn’t a particularly memorable final battle or grand moment. The story steadfastly refuses to adhere to tropes or standard conventions. It hits on many major points of Arthur’s tale, but never pretends that it addresses all of them. There are huge time gaps between scenes that could fill entire movies, but Excalibur actually feels more complete without these details, preferring to allow the half-remembered exploits of half-remembered knights ferment in the viewer’s imagination.
John Boorman filmed much of Excalibur on location in Ireland and populated its cast with at-the-time unheralded Irish and British stage actors like Helen Mirren, Liam Neeson, and Patrick Stewart. The lack of star power really helped ground the film. The grimy aesthetics, where everyone is encased in armor with faces caked in grime and blood, really didn’t lend itself to movie-star lighting, and the rough shooting conditions would have only been hampered by a temperamental leading man. The art direction and Oscar-nominated cinematography are the real stars of the film, creating a lived-in medieval fantasy world that remains unmatched some 45 years later.
Arrow Video’s 4K UHD of Excalibur pulsates with a rich palette of colors, brilliantly capturing Boorman’s vision of Camelot. The release also contains a trove of extras, including the notorious TV edit of the film, three audio commentaries, and song, with multiple documentaries, interviews, and video essays, all befitting a film as influential and beloved as Excalibur.
