Nigel Terry, Cherie Lunghi, Nicol Williamson, Helen Mirren. Dir. John Boorman, Orion, 1981
Merlin, in two distinct senses, is my first Gandalf. In the larger sense of literary archetype, I began my love of epic fantasy with Arthurian legend. Merlin, that enigmatic, wily enchanter who advised Arthur, formed the template for all such characters I would both love & fear, especially Tolkien's Gandalf. In a more literal way, I spent much of summer 1977 listening to actor Nichol Williamson, who essays a definitive Merlin in Boorman's EXCALIBUR, read & perform an early audiobook of Tolkien's THE HOBBIT, wherein he voiced my first encounter with Gandalf the Grey. Given this, I hope my predisposition toward Williamson's casting in the former can be understood. Since his subsequent performance went on to set the standard by which all subsequent iterations are judged - and found wanting - I don't think I've much to worry me.
That Boorman's 1981 sword&sorcery epic has gone on to be the definitive screen version of the Arthur mythos makes one of the screen's great triumphs. John Boorman wanted to film a live-action version of LORD OF THE RINGS. He locked in a screenplay, cast actors, scouted locations, even built sets (Leondegrance's castle in the early going was constructed for LOTR.) Then Orion got cold feet, slashed the budget, shut down production, & left Boorman scrambling to make a movie at all. From that wreckage, he seized upon his boyhood love of Arthurian legend & EXCALIBUR was born.
A simple, effective measure of how well EXCALIBUR works: at the time the historical Arcturus managed to unify Great Britain's warring tribes into a cohesive whole, the British lived in huts, not castles, & dressed like the film's young Sir Percival, not in mirrorshine armor. Historical accuracy never troubles this picture, and it never matters. It looks how we want Arthurian legend to look, and feels as we want it to - romantic, mysterious, & messy.
For me, maybe THE moment that set(s) EXCALIBUR apart from most epic fantasy comes when young Nigel Terry, as Arthur the squire, draws the sword from the Stone. It's a simple, almost casual tug, shot from below to emphasize his physical stature, accompanied by a dramatic orchestral swell. No CGI. No massed choirs. No allstar histrionics. He plucks EXCALIBUR from its mooring & transforms before our eyes from young bumbler to England's savior. An exquisitely understated moment of filmmaking as powerful as Peter Jackson at his most grand.
Not enough space exists in this blog to praise - or mourn - Nigel Terry's Arthur. In a film featuring the US debuts of Gabriel Byrne, Liam Neeson, Patrick Stewart, & Cieran Hinds, Terry carries the story on his performance, moving from callow teenager to a weary broken savior with some strategic hair dye & a performance for the ages. It's the kind of first part that puts the world on notice: I have arrived. Because good deeds seldom go unpunished, Terry spent the rest of his career on the UK stage in relative obscurity. His Guinnevere, Cherie Lunghi, fared no better. Lancelot's Nicolas Clay, a veteran British character actor, also spent a career in smaller TV parts, still best remembered for Boorman's film.
Williamson fared little better after delivering an Oscar-worthy turn as the not-always-kindly enchanter, but his career decline owes to alcoholism & a reputation as impossible to work with. Infamously, he & Mirren, vets of Polansky's doomed MACBETH adaptation, loathed & blamed one another's work for the film's disastrous reception. Their scenes together as Merlin & Arthur's scheming sister, Morgana exemplify all the cliches of clashing egos creating great art.
It's sometimes difficult watching EXCALIBUR, and not because I can recite it line for line. As I watched this shining-yet-flawed messianic figure, THE British archetype of mythic hero, a woman named Truss succeeded Boris Johnson as England's Prime Minister. At a time when Brexit, a pandemic, & war on the Continent appear poised to dump most middle class Brits into the sea, Ms. Truss's idea to avert the crisis involves slashing corporate taxes on the backs of the same, sea-bound middle class. In my country, a reality-tv star, sexual predator, & thief of classified US documents, who presided over an attempted coup, gears up to run for office AGAIN, paying no apparent consequence. If ever we needed a selfless, ferocious, semi-divine warrior-poet to charge in with a magic sword, we do now. Right?
Well...I could make an argument that God-directed, mystically-enabled white guys with bigger weapons & lofty speeches kind of brought us the era of Truss, Trump, Orban, & Putin. All these flashing phallic symbols & homoerotic chestbeating haven't gotten us back to Camelot yet. And, given that Guinnevere/Morgana define women's aspirations at the time, should we be in a hurry to get there?
Fuck it. Who gives a shit? When Arthur & his knights raise their swords to the stars as they celebrate victory at Badin Hill, and the Wagnerian score swells, it's bravura movie- and mythmaking. When Percival throws Excalibur into the sea & the Wagner swells once more as a feminine, mailclad hand rises to receive it, Liz Truss & TFG & Vlad the Blackmailer got nothing on the Lady of the Lake, on Arthur Rex, the once & future king. Watching EXCALIBUR without some awareness of today would be deranged, surely, but letting today eclipse my willingness to wonder, to yearn, & to dream a better king will yet return, would let today win, and John Boorman's magnum opus lose. I'd as soon eat fried vomit as let the bastards win. EXCALIBUR - as good for what ails you in 2022 as 1981.
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