Excalibur (film)

Excalibur is a 1981 epic medieval fantasy film directed, co-written and produced by John Boorman, that retells the legend of King Arthur and the knights of the Round Table, based loosely on the 15th-century Arthurian romance Le Morte d'Arthur by Thomas Malory. It stars Nigel Terry as Arthur, Nicol Williamson as Merlin, Nicholas Clay as Lancelot, Cherie Lunghi as Guenevere, Helen Mirren as Morgana, Liam Neeson as Gawain, Gabriel Byrne as Uther and Patrick Stewart as Leondegrance. The film is named after the legendary sword of King Arthur that features prominently in Arthurian literature. The film's soundtrack features the music of Richard Wagner and Carl Orff, along with an original score by Trevor Jones.
Boorman's Excalibur began development as an unproduced adaptation of The Lord of the Rings. The film was shot entirely on location in Ireland and at Ardmore Studios, employing Irish actors and crew. It has been acknowledged for its importance to the Irish filmmaking industry and for helping launch the film and acting careers of a number of Irish and British actors, including Liam Neeson, Patrick Stewart, Gabriel Byrne and Ciarán Hinds.
Reviewers praised Excalibur's visual style. It won the award for Best Artistic Contribution at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival, and received an Oscar nomination for Best Cinematography and a BAFTA nomination for Best Costume Design. It grossed $35 million in the United States and Canada on a budget of $11 million.
In the Dark Ages, the sorcerer Merlin retrieves the magical sword Excalibur from the Lady of the Lake for Uther Pendragon, who is declared king. In exchange for their future child, Merlin helps Uther seduce Igrayne, the Duke of Cornwall's wife, while the Duke dies in battle. Igrayne gives birth to Arthur, and Merlin takes the boy. Ambushed by the Duke's men, a dying Uther thrusts Excalibur into a stone, as Merlin declares that he who pulls the sword from the stone shall be king.
Merlin entrusts Ector to raise Arthur, who becomes squire to Ector's son Kay. As a young man, Arthur pulls Excalibur from the stone, proving he is Uther's rightful heir. Leodegrance pledges his allegiance to Arthur, but they are opposed by knights who dispute Arthur's kingship as a bastard. Defending Leondegrance's castle and his daughter Guenevere, Arthur defeats Uryens, whom he compels to knight him and swear fealty. Smitten with Guenevere, Arthur ignores Merlin's warning that she will one day fall in love with someone else.
Years later, the undefeated knight Lancelot almost bests Arthur, who calls upon the power of Excalibur to defeat Lancelot, breaking the sword. The Lady of the Lake restores the sword to a remorseful Arthur, and Lancelot swears allegiance to him. Unifying the land, Arthur and his knights create the Round Table and the castle Camelot. Secretly infatuated with each other, Lancelot escorts Guenevere to her wedding to Arthur, declaring that his loyalty to the king outweighs his love for her. Arthur's half-sister Morgana reveals to Merlin that she is a sorceress, and Lancelot brings Perceval, who hopes to become a knight, to Camelot.
Influenced by Morgana, Gawain drunkenly accuses Guenevere of betraying the king, and a duel over her innocence is set. Resolved to uphold the law as an impartial judge, Arthur cannot defend Guenevere's honor himself. When no champion will fight for the queen, Perceval steps forward, but Lancelot arrives and defeats Gawain, sparing his life. Retreating to the forest, Lancelot is followed by a deeply moved Guenevere, and they make love. Merlin confirms this to Arthur, who thrusts Excalibur into the ground between the sleeping lovers. Merlin's magical link to the land impales him on the sword, as Morgana traps him and steals his Charm of Making.
Taking Guenevere's form, Morgana seduces Arthur and gives birth to a son, Mordred, infecting the land with famine and sickness. Struck by a magical bolt of lightning, a weakened Arthur sends his knights to search for the Holy Grail, hoping to restore the land and himself. Many knights die on their quest or are bewitched into Morgana's service, but Perceval resists her attacks. Mordred reaches adulthood and demands Arthur's crown, vowing to take Camelot by force. Unable to save Uryens from Mordred, Perceval is attacked by Lancelot, who has renounced his knighthood.
Nearly drowned, Perceval is transported to the Grail and proves himself worthy, bringing the Grail to Arthur. He drinks from the Grail and is revitalised along with the land, calling upon Kay to rally their remaining forces against Mordred. Arthur finds Guenevere at a convent, and they reconcile before she gives him back Excalibur. At Stonehenge, Arthur's love liberates Merlin and they share a final conversation. Merlin tricks Morgana into speaking the Charm of Making, exhausting her powers and enveloping the battlefield in mist. Mordred discovers his mother's aged, true self and murders her in disgust.
Arthur and his men battle Mordred's forces, using the mist in their favour. Lancelot comes to Arthur's aid, reconciling with his friend and dying a true knight. Arthur kills Mordred but is mortally wounded, and commands Perceval to throw Excalibur into the water, knowing the sword will rise again for a worthy king. The Lady of the Lake catches the sword and disappears, and Perceval watches as Arthur is carried away on a ship toward Avalon.
Credits from the AFI Catalog of Feature Films.
John Boorman had planned a film adaptation of the Merlin legend as early as 1969, but when submitting the three-hour script written with Rospo Pallenberg to United Artists, they rejected it deeming it too costly and offered him J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings instead. Boorman was allowed to shop the script elsewhere, but no studio would commit to it. Returning to his original idea of the Merlin legend, Boorman was eventually able to secure deals that would help him do Excalibur. Much of the imagery and set designs were created with his The Lord of the Rings project in mind.
Rospo Pallenberg and John Boorman wrote the screenplay, which is primarily an adaptation of Malory's Morte d'Arthur (1469–70) recasting the Arthurian legends as an allegory of the cycle of birth, life, decay, and restoration, by stripping the text of decorative or insignificant details. 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. "The film has to do with mythical truth, not historical truth," Boorman remarked to a journalist during filming. The Christian symbolism revolves around the Grail, perhaps most strongly in the baptismal imagery of Perceval finally achieving the Grail quest. "That's what my story is about: the coming of Christian man and the disappearance of the old religions which are represented by Merlin. The forces of superstition and magic are swallowed up into the unconscious."
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 into one character. The sword Excalibur and the Sword in the Stone are presented as the same thing; in some versions of the legends, they are separate. In Le Morte d'Arthur, Sir Galahad, the illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine of Corbenic, is the Knight who is worthy of the Holy Grail. Boorman follows the earlier version of the tale as told by Chrétien de Troyes, making Perceval the grail winner. 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" (probably inspired by the dragon omen seen in Geoffrey of Monmouth's account of Merlin's life).
According to linguist Michael Everson, the "Charm of Making" that Merlin speaks to invoke the dragon is an invention, there being no attested source for the charm. Everson reconstructs the text as Old Irish. The phonetic transcription of the charm as spoken in the film is Celtic pronunciation: [aˈnaːl naθˈrax, uːrθ vaːs beˈθʌd, doxˈjeːl ˈdjenveː]. Although the pronunciation in the film has little relation to how the text would actually be pronounced in Irish, the most likely interpretation of the spoken words, as Old Irish text is:
In modern English, this can be translated as:
As early as 1974, Boorman had considered casting Max von Sydow, Sean Connery, or Lee Marvin as Merlin. However, the film's comparatively low budget precluded such marquee casting. Boorman considered casting Klaus Kinski as Merlin, before choosing Nicol Williamson.
Boorman cast Williamson and Helen Mirren opposite each other as Merlin and Morgana, knowing that the two were on less than friendly terms due to personal issues that arose during a production of Macbeth seven years earlier. Boorman verified this on the Excalibur DVD commentary, saying he felt that the tension on the set would come through in the actors' performances.
Even though he was 35 years old, Nigel Terry plays King Arthur from his teenage years to his ending as an aged monarch. Excalibur was Terry's first leading role in a feature film, he was mainly a stage and television actor. For the role, Terry adopted a West Country accent, in order to reflect the mythological Arthur's association with Cornwall.
The rest of the cast were also relative unknowns, and for several it was their film debut or otherwise very early in their careers. As the film was shot in Ireland, many Irish actors appeared in the film, including Gabriel Byrne (in only his second film role), Liam Neeson (his third), and Ciarán Hinds (his very first).
Several members of the Boorman family appear in the cast: his daughter Katrine played Igraine, Arthur's mother, and his son Charley portrayed Mordred as a boy. Because of the number of Boormans involved with the film, it is sometimes called "The Boorman Family Project".
During filming, Liam Neeson and Helen Mirren became romantically involved, and lived together for several years thereafter.
Excalibur was filmed in 1980 on-location in County Wicklow, County Tipperary, and County Kerry, with the interiors shot at Ardmore Studios. The costumes were designed by Bob Ringwood. The armor was designed by Terry English.
An early critical battle scene at 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, the Republic of Ireland, a well-preserved Irish castle. The castle's moat is the River Suir which flows around it. The fight with Lancelot was filmed at Powerscourt Estate's waterfall. Other locations included Wicklow Head as the backdrop to the battle over Tintagel, the Kerry coast as the place from which Arthur sails to Avalon, and a place called Childers Wood near Roundwood, County Wicklow, where Arthur comes on Excalibur in the stone. At the time, John Boorman was living just a few miles down the road, at Annamoe. According to Boorman, the love scene between Lancelot and Guenevere in the forest was filmed on a very cold night, but Nicholas Clay and Cherie Lunghi performed the scene nude anyway.
The opening battle sequence had to be remounted twice, when a fault in the light meter led the first two attempts to come out underexposed. The original director of photography, Tony Pierce-Roberts, suffered a nervous breakdown and was replaced by Alex Thomson. Heavy rainfall meant shooting was frequently delayed.
Classical music excerpts by Richard Wagner ("Siegfried's Funeral March", "Prelude to Parsifal", "Prelude to Tristan and Isolde") and Carl Orff ("O Fortuna") feature prominently in the film. The original underscore was written by Trevor Jones, the South African composer's first score for a major feature film. The score was performed by the London Philharmonic Orchestra.
Critic Thomas Glorieux noted "here the classical music was given the opportunity to shine through most of the important scenes, while giving Jones the underscore to tie it all together."
According to Boorman, the film was originally three hours long; among the scenes that were deleted from the finished film, but featured in one of the promotional trailers, was a sequence where Lancelot rescued Guenevere from a forest bandit.
The film opened in the United States on 10 April 1981 and in London on 2 July 1981, before opening nationwide in the United Kingdom on 5 July 1981. The film was initially released in the United States with an R rating. Distributors later announced a 119 minute PG-rated version, with less graphic sex and violence, but it was not widely released. When first released in the United Kingdom, the film was classified as an "AA" by the BBFC, restricting it to those aged 14 and over. In 1982, the BBFC replaced the "AA" certificate with the higher age-specific "15", which was applied to Excalibur when released on home video. When Excalibur first premiered on HBO in 1982, the R-rated version was shown in the evening and the PG-rated version was shown during the daytime, following the then-current rule of HBO only showing R-rated films during the evening hours.
Excalibur was the number one film in the United States during its opening weekend, eventually grossing $34,967,437 in the United States and Canada, ranking as the 18th highest-grossing film of the year. On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, it holds a 72% score based on 93 reviews, with an average rating of 7.0/10. On Metacritic, it has a weighted average score of 56 out of 100 based on reviews from 10 critics.
Roger Ebert called it both a "wondrous vision" and "a mess". Elaborating further, Ebert wrote that the film was "a record of the comings and goings of arbitrary, inconsistent, shadowy figures who are not heroes but simply giants run amok. Still, it's wonderful to look at". Vincent Canby wrote that while Boorman took Arthurian myths seriously, "he has used them with a pretentiousness that obscures his vision." In her review in The New Yorker, Pauline Kael wrote that the film had its own "crazy integrity", adding that the imagery was "impassioned" with a "hypnotic quality". According to her, the dialogue was "near-atrocious". She concluded by writing that "Excalibur is all images flashing by... We miss the dramatic intensity that we expect the stories to have, but there's always something to look at".
Others have praised the entire film, with Variety calling it "a near-perfect blend of action, romance, fantasy and philosophy". Sean Axmaker of Parallax View wrote "John Boorman's magnificent and magical Excalibur is, to my mind, the greatest and the richest screen incarnation of the oft-told tale." In a later review upon the film's DVD release, Salon's David Lazarus noted the film's contribution to the fantasy genre, stating that it was "a lush retelling of the King Arthur legend that sets a high-water mark among sword-and-sorcery movies". A study by Jean-Marc Elsholz demonstrates how closely the film Excalibur was inspired by the Arthurian romance tradition and its intersections with medieval theories of light, most particularly in the aesthetic/visual narrative of Boorman's film rather than in its plot alone.
Christopher John reviewed Excalibur in Ares Magazine #9 and commented that "Excalibur is a shockingly large film and an incredibly intricate and fascinating piece of cinema. It is a fine prologue for the spate of fantasy films waiting in the wings for release this year." The film featured many actors early in their careers who later became very well-known, including Helen Mirren, Patrick Stewart, Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne, and Ciarán Hinds. For his performance as Merlin, Nicol Williamson received widespread acclaim. The Times in 1981 wrote: "The actors are led by Williamson's witty and perceptive Merlin, missed every time he's offscreen".
The comedic 1989 teaser trailer for Leatherface: The Texas Chainsaw Massacre III directly parodies the lady of the lake scene from Excalibur.
In 2009, filmmaker Zack Snyder said Excalibur was his favorite film, calling it "the perfect meeting of movies and mythology".
The 2018 adaptation of science fiction novel Ready Player One features the charm of making as an activation code.
During the shooting of the 2023 film Irati, inspired by Basque mythology and several medieval films including Excalibur, the crew nicknamed it Euskalibur, after euskal, ("Basque-language").
Neil Jordan directed a 1981 documentary on the making of Excalibur, entitled The Making of Excalibur: Myth Into Movie. In 2013 another documentary entitled Behind the Sword in the Stone was released featuring interviews with director Boorman and many of the cast, such as Terry, Mirren, Stewart, Neeson, Byrne, Lunghi, and Charley Boorman. Distribution rights were later acquired by PBS International, and the title was changed to Excalibur: Behind the Movie. As of June 2020, this documentary was made available in the United States through various online streaming services.