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Excalibur
Directed by	John Boorman
Produced by	John Boorman
Written by	John Boorman, Rospo Pallenberg
Starring	Nigel Terry, Nicol Williamson, Helen Mirren, Gabriel Byrne
Distributed by	Warner Brothers
Release date(s)	April 10, 1981 (USA)
Running time	140 min.
Language	English
IMDb profile

Excalibur is a 1981 film which retells the legend of King Arthur. It grossed USD$34,967,437 and was the 18th most successful film of that year.

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast and crew 3 Production 3.1 Casting 3.2 Filming 3.3 Costumes 4 Adaptation 5 Quotations 6 Soundtrack 7 Awards 8 See also 9 References 10 External links

Uther Pendragon defeats the Duke of Cornwall with the help of Merlin and Excalibur. They make a truce and Cornwall yields to Uther, who is proclaimed king. However, Uther lusts for Cornwall's wife Igrayne and breaks the truce, laying siege to Cornwall's castle.

Merlin uses his magic so Uther can consummate his lust for Igrayne, on the condition that Uther will relinquish to Merlin whatever results from his lust. Magically disguised as Cornwall, Uther beds Igrayne. Meanwhile, the real Duke of Cornwall is killed while attacking Uther's camp.

Igrayne bears Uther a son, Arthur. Merlin takes the boy. Uther pursues but is killed in ambush in the forest. Before he dies, he thrusts Excalibur into a rock, and Merlin exclaims that "he who draws the sword from the stone, he shall be king."

Years later, Sir Ector and his sons Kay and Arthur go a tournament to win the chance to draw Excalibur from the stone. As Kay's squire, Arther forgets Kay's sword in the tent only to discover that it has been stolen. While looking for a replacement, Arthur draws the sword from the stone and presents it to Kay. When Arthur and Kay are discovered at the stone, Kay reveals that it was Arthur who pulled the sword from the stone and thus Arthur becomes King.

Not all accept Arthur's kingship, but his victory against the rebels laying siege to the castle of Leondegrance earns him the respect and fealty of all in combat. Arthur marries Leondegrance's daughter Guenevere.

Years later, Arthur defeats the undefeated knight Lancelot by unfairly using Excalibur's power. The blade, thought to be indestructible, is broken in half. Arthur admits his wrongdoing and speaks his repentance to the unconscious Lancelot, and the blade is restored. Lancelot awakens and, thinking he has been bested, becomes Arthur's closest friend and supporter.

Arthur unifies the land, institutes the fellowship of the Round Table, and builds Camelot, his castle. His half-sister Morgana, a budding sorceress, becomes apprenticed to Merlin, and a peasant boy named Perceval becomes Lancelot's squire.

Lancelot and Guenevere feel a mutual attraction, and Lancelot stays away from Camelot. Sir Gawain openly accuses them at the round table. Lancelot must fight him to defend Guenevere's honor, but he is injured in a nightmare by a shadow of himself. When Lancelot does not arrive for the duel, Perceval is hastily knighted so he can fight for Guenevere. Lancelot arrives just in time, and Perceval does not have to fight. Lancelot manages to defeat Gawain despite his injury, and Gawain recants his accusation.

Ultimately, Lancelot and Guenevere consummate their lust, and Arthur later finds them asleep together in the forest. Meanwhile, Merlin teaches Morgana the Charm of Making. Arthur is seen thrusting Excalibur toward the sleeping couple, and Merlin is momentarily impaled by the sword because of his magical link with it. Morgana takes advantage of his weakness to trap him in crystal with the Charm of Making, then tricks Arthur into making love to her, and bears a son, Mordred.

On awakening, Lancelot sees Excalibur and flees in shame and self-loathing, knowing Arthur saw him with Guenevere. Awakening alone, Guenevere realizes what has happened and surrenders herself to a nunnery.

After these horrific events, the land is stricken with famine and sickness, and a broken Arthur sends his knights on a quest for the Grail, which will heal him and the land. Years pass and many knights die on the quest, while others are bewitched by Morgana to serve her and her son.

In the end, Perceval is the only knight left to search for the Grail. Narrowly escaping death at the hands of Mordred and Morgana, he has a vision of the Grail and a mysterious figure who asks "who am I?" and "what is my secret?" After further hardship Perceval realizes that the figure is King Arthur, and his secret is that he and the land are one. Answering the riddle, he attains the Grail. Arthur drinks from it and is revitalized.

Arthur and his few remaining knights ride to war against Mordred and Morgana. The barren land blooms with life as they pass, reborn with its King. He goes to Guenevere's convent, where they are reconciled. She returns Excalibur to him, having kept it safe since the day she fled.

Most of the land's nobles have rallied to Mordred and Morgana. Arthur calls to Merlin in despair and unwittingly awakens him from his enchanted slumber when he strikes a monolith with his armored fist. Though still imprisoned in Morgana's crystal, Merlin appears to her in dream and tricks her into uttering the Charm of Making, creating a thick fog. Her magically-endowed youth dissolves and she becomes a hag. She tries to embrace Mordred, who strangles her to death in disgust.

Arthur and his small army survive by hiding in the fog, but they are soon overwhelmed. A grey-haired, bearded Lancelot joins the fray and turns the tide of the battle, taking mortal wounds. Still hoping to defeat Arthur and become king, Mordred runs Arthur through with his spear, but Arthur presses forward and pierces Mordred's enchanted armor with Excalibur, killing him.

At Arthur's behest, Perceval throws Excalibur in a pool of calm water, where it is caught by the Lady of the Lake. When Perceval returns, he sees Arthur's body on a ship, attended by three formally posed ladies clad in white, sailing into the setting sun toward the Isle of Avalon.

• Nigel Terry ... King Arthur: Even though he was 35 years old, Nigel Terry plays King Arthur from his teenage years to his ending as an aged monarch.
• Helen Mirren ... Arthur's half-sister and sorceress Morgana
• Nicol Williamson ... Merlin)
• Nicholas Clay ... Lancelot
• Cherie Lunghi ... Guenevere

The film also features some noted actors in early screen roles:

• Liam Neeson ... Gawain,
• Patrick Stewart ... King Leondegrance,
• Clive Swift ... Sir Ector,
• Gabriel Byrne ... Uther Pendragon.

Several members of the Boorman family also appeared in the picture. Igrayne (Arthur's mother), the Lady of the Lake, Mordred as a boy, and the infant Arthur were all played by Boorman's children. Because of the number of Boormans involved with the film, it is sometimes called "The Boorman Family Project."

John Boorman cast Nicol Williamson and Helen Mirren opposite each other as Merlin and Morgana, knowing that the two were at the time on less than friendly terms, due to personal issues that arose during a production of Macbeth seven years earlier. Boorman felt that the tension on set would come through in the actors' performances.^{[citation needed]}

Excalibur was filmed in Irish locations in Wicklow, Tipperary, and County Kerry. The early critical battle scene around a castle, in which Arthur is made a knight by Uryens, while kneeling in a moat, was filmed in Cahir Castle, in Cahir County Tipperary, Ireland . It is a genuine Norman castle, one of the best preserved anywhere and the moat is the River Suir which flows around the castle. Easily visited, you can still park your car in the car park from where the filming was done.

The original cut of the film was three hours long. Following a reduction in length, several shots were lost, among them a scene of Lancelot rescuing Guinevere from a forest bandit.

According to director John Boorman, the love scene between Lancelot and Guinevere in the forest was filmed on a very cold night, but Nicholas Clay and Cherie Lunghi did the scene in the nude anyway.

The costumes were designed by Bob Ringwood. The armour was designed by Terry English.

The screenplay was written by Rospo Pallenberg with assistance from John Boorman.

The film is primarily an adaptation of Malory's Morte d'Arthur (1485). In order to recast the Arthurian legends as an allegory of the cycle of birth, life and decay, the text was stripped of decorative or insignificant details, as well as of Malory's Christian piety. The resulting film is reminiscent of mythographic works such as Sir James Frazer's The Golden Bough and Jessie Weston's From Ritual to Romance; Arthur is presented as the "Wounded King" whose realm becomes a wasteland to be reborn thanks to the Grail, and may be compared to the Fisher (or Sinner) King, whose land also became a wasteland, and was also healed by Perceval. Notably, the Grail is not the Christian "Holy Grail"; rather, it may be inspired by magic cauldrons in Celtic pagan myths. "The film has to do with mythical truth, not historical truth," Boorman remarked to a journalist during filming.^[1][2]

In keeping with this approach, the film is intentionally ahistorical.^[1] For example, the opening titles state the setting to be the Dark Ages, even though the knights wear full plate armor, which was invented much later. Saddles were used on the horses during all film sequences, and saddles were also invented much later. Knights, knighthood and the code of chivalry also did not exist during the period. Furthermore, Britain is never mentioned by name, only as "the land".

In addition to Malory, the writers incorporated elements from other Arthurian stories, sometimes altering them. For example, the sword between the sleeping lovers' bodies comes from the tales of Tristan and Iseult; the knight who returns Excalibur to the water is changed from Bedivere to Perceval; and Morgause and Morgan Le Fay are merged. The sword Excalibur and the Sword in the Stone are presented as the same thing; in the legends they are separate. In the legend of Arthur, Sir Galahad, the illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine of Carbonek, is actually the Knight who is worthy of the Holy Grail. Boorman's version of the tale leaves Galahad out completely.

Some new elements were added, such as Uther wielding Excalibur before Arthur (repeated in Merlin), Merlin's 'Charm of Making' (written in Old Irish), and the concept of the world as "the dragon".

Merlin states the film's central theme, reflecting an ancient Celtic belief about kingship:

"You will be the land,

And the land will be you.

If you fail, the land will perish;

As you thrive, the land will blossom."

Later, he states the allegory of the Dragon:

MERLIN: The dragon! A beast of such power that if you were to see it whole and all complete in a single glance, it would burn you to cinders.

ARTHUR: Where is it?

MERLIN: It is everywhere; it is everything. Its scales glisten in the bark of trees, its roar is heard in the wind, and its forked tongue strikes like — like — [Lightning strikes] Whoa! Like lightning! Yes, that's it!

Later, he touches on the conflict between Christianity and polytheism:

"The One God comes to drive out the many gods. The spirits of wood and stream grow silent. But that's the way of things. It's time for men and their ways."

Pallenberg and Boorman's screenplay touches on the heroic themes with directness. As Arthur declares:

"Any man who would be a knight and follow a King, follow me!"

The soundtrack is by Trevor Jones, with sound bytes and samples drawn from Orff's Carmina Burana and Wagnerian motifs, of fate (Ring) and fatal attraction (Tristan und Isolde). A portion of the Siegfried Funeral March from Götterdämmerung was used as the main theme music of the film over the opening and closing credits.

• Carl Orff's "O Fortuna" is used regularly during the dramatic and violent scenes of the movie. In part because of Excalibur, its imitations, and parodies; the movement has become an archetype for melodrama.
• The theme between Lancelot and Guinevere is in fact the prelude to Richard Wagner's opera, "Tristan und Isolde".
• The theme of Perceval and the Grail is the prelude to Wagner's "Parsifal".
• The Main Title music is "Funeral" from "Twilight of the Gods", also by Wagner.

Alex Thomson, the film's cinematographer, was nominated for Best Cinematography at the 1982 Academy Awards, but lost to Vittorio Storaro for Reds.

• Excalibur, King Arthur's sword, the central symbol of kingship for Malory and the film.
• List of films based on Arthurian legend

• Excalibur at the Internet Movie Database
• Darren Withers, "The Quest for the Hollywood Grail" analyzes Boorman's Excalibur
• Michael Everson's analysis of Merlin's "Charm of Making"
• Boorman and Pallenberg's plans for an adaptation of The Lord of the Rings from the theonering.com message board, a Tolkien fan site.
• Discussion on Excalibur's mythology
• Harlan, Kennedy. "JOHN BOORMAN IN INTERVIEW". Originally published in American Film magazine, March 1981.
• A review and photos