It's hard to quibble overmuch with the impossibly lush and rousing tone poem of the eyes and ears that's John Boorman's "Excalibur." It's one of the best pure fantasies ever to hit the big screen, a capable retelling of the Arthur legend and, at times, a thrilling piece of cinema one is eager to share with friends.
The problem is the story is too big to contain the film, even one as grand and epic in its reach (or overreach) as this. To focus more attention on a particular aspect might have left people wondering about the rest, but would have provided some needed plot discipline and encouraged the viewer to empathize with the characters rather than simply enjoy them. Even reading John Steinbeck's "Acts Of King Arthur And His Noble Knights," itself a radically compressed account of "Morte d'Arthur" by Sir Thomas Malory, is to get a sense of the many verdant nooks and crannies left unexplored by necessity in this film. Like the fact Merlin's fate is sealed not by Morgana, but Nyneve, another sorceress of decidedly different character than her rival Morgana. Or how Arthur's subjugation of his realm involves years of hard fighting and diplomacy with friends and enemies alike.
I could have done without the business of the Grail. It's a vital piece of the total Arthurian legend, mind, but it slows down things and calls attention to the shaky balancing act Boorman is purposely performing between the legend's pagan roots and its Christian dressings. I think Christianity is a vital part of the Camelot story, but Boorman sidesteps it effectively enough here I would have been content to let that part slip by. As it is, the Grail thing comes out of left field and distracts us too much from the main story just as it reaches its denouement.
But so much else is good about this film. The brooding, fog-choked moors imbued with the green light of renewal and hope, the clunky battles of armor-bedecked maniacs, the gorgeous bodices on fair maidens that seem to ache for the ripping, and the sense of wonderment and possibility around every corner, especially when Merlin's about. Sheer magic.
For those who only know Arthur from Bugs Bunny or Monty Python, this is a great place to start learning more. The film's best performance, as so many note here, is Nicol Williamson's Merlin. He growls his best lines in such a way to bestow them with both humor and authority, and uses his eyes the same way another necromancer would a wand. He's above the people who operate around them, he's not human at all, yet in a strange way he is, as Boorman and Williamson capture him.
The other actors are quite fine, though keeping track of them all seems more a function of traffic management than true directing. It's early days in the careers of Liam Neeson, Patrick Stewart, and Gabriel Byrne, and they give solid if not spine-tingling performances. Maybe they were less eager performers when they realized they had second billing to the likes of Nigel Terry, Cherie Lunghi, Paul Geoffrey, and the late Nicholas Clay. All four are good, by the way, and Lunghi particularly shines with her beauty and charm, but it's not a surprise none really developed major recognition beyond their roles here, at least on this side of the Atlantic. They are serviceable, at times brilliant, but never compelling.
Finally, Boorman is one of the most puzzling directors around, perhaps by design. What can you say about a director who has two of the worst films ever made on his résumé, "Zardoz" and "Exorcist II", and yet remains a compelling filmmaker over four decades? His visual sense is so unique, powerful, and uncompromising that he is forgiven faults that would sink the careers of lesser artists, or even just less headstrong ones. He's an impossible eccentric, and I get the feeling from watching him here and elsewhere that his dream project would involve having his immediate family strut up and down the screen stark naked for 90 minutes, but "Excalibur" shows the method behind the madness, and justifies the excess.
The problem is the story is too big to contain the film, even one as grand and epic in its reach (or overreach) as this. To focus more attention on a particular aspect might have left people wondering about the rest, but would have provided some needed plot discipline and encouraged the viewer to empathize with the characters rather than simply enjoy them. Even reading John Steinbeck's "Acts Of King Arthur And His Noble Knights," itself a radically compressed account of "Morte d'Arthur" by Sir Thomas Malory, is to get a sense of the many verdant nooks and crannies left unexplored by necessity in this film. Like the fact Merlin's fate is sealed not by Morgana, but Nyneve, another sorceress of decidedly different character than her rival Morgana. Or how Arthur's subjugation of his realm involves years of hard fighting and diplomacy with friends and enemies alike.
I could have done without the business of the Grail. It's a vital piece of the total Arthurian legend, mind, but it slows down things and calls attention to the shaky balancing act Boorman is purposely performing between the legend's pagan roots and its Christian dressings. I think Christianity is a vital part of the Camelot story, but Boorman sidesteps it effectively enough here I would have been content to let that part slip by. As it is, the Grail thing comes out of left field and distracts us too much from the main story just as it reaches its denouement.
But so much else is good about this film. The brooding, fog-choked moors imbued with the green light of renewal and hope, the clunky battles of armor-bedecked maniacs, the gorgeous bodices on fair maidens that seem to ache for the ripping, and the sense of wonderment and possibility around every corner, especially when Merlin's about. Sheer magic.
For those who only know Arthur from Bugs Bunny or Monty Python, this is a great place to start learning more. The film's best performance, as so many note here, is Nicol Williamson's Merlin. He growls his best lines in such a way to bestow them with both humor and authority, and uses his eyes the same way another necromancer would a wand. He's above the people who operate around them, he's not human at all, yet in a strange way he is, as Boorman and Williamson capture him.
The other actors are quite fine, though keeping track of them all seems more a function of traffic management than true directing. It's early days in the careers of Liam Neeson, Patrick Stewart, and Gabriel Byrne, and they give solid if not spine-tingling performances. Maybe they were less eager performers when they realized they had second billing to the likes of Nigel Terry, Cherie Lunghi, Paul Geoffrey, and the late Nicholas Clay. All four are good, by the way, and Lunghi particularly shines with her beauty and charm, but it's not a surprise none really developed major recognition beyond their roles here, at least on this side of the Atlantic. They are serviceable, at times brilliant, but never compelling.
Finally, Boorman is one of the most puzzling directors around, perhaps by design. What can you say about a director who has two of the worst films ever made on his résumé, "Zardoz" and "Exorcist II", and yet remains a compelling filmmaker over four decades? His visual sense is so unique, powerful, and uncompromising that he is forgiven faults that would sink the careers of lesser artists, or even just less headstrong ones. He's an impossible eccentric, and I get the feeling from watching him here and elsewhere that his dream project would involve having his immediate family strut up and down the screen stark naked for 90 minutes, but "Excalibur" shows the method behind the madness, and justifies the excess.