Excalibur
Theatrical release poster by Bob Peak
Directed by	John Boorman
Produced by	John Boorman
Written by	Thomas Malory Rospo Pallenberg John Boorman
Starring	Nigel Terry Helen Mirren Nicol Williamson
Music by	Trevor Jones Carl Orff Richard Wagner
Cinematography	Alex Thomson
Editing by	John Merritt
Studio	Orion Pictures
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date(s)	April 10, 1981
Running time	Original cut 140 min. Edited cut 119 min.
Country	United States United Kingdom
Language	English
Gross revenue	$34,967,437

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

Contents 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 PG and R-rated versions 4 Production 4.1 Casting 4.2 Filming 4.3 Costumes 5 Adaptation 6 Soundtrack 7 Reception 8 Awards 9 Remake 10 See also 11 References 12 External links

[edit] Plot

This plot summary may be too long or overly detailed. Please help improve it by removing unnecessary details and making it more concise. (January 2009)

Uther Pendragon (Gabriel Byrne) is in battle against the Duke of Cornwall (Corin Redgrave), and reminds Merlin (Nicol Williamson) of his promise of the "Sword of Power", Excalibur to denote his kingship. Merlin retrieves the sword from the Lady of the Lake (Telsche Boorman) and gives it to Uther to unite the land. After Uther yields portions of "lands from here to the sea" Cornwall yields to Uther. Cornwall invites Uther to celebrate at his castle, where Uther meets and is enchanted by Cornwall's wife Igrayne. Cornwall is enraged and the truce is broken. The lustful Uther later lays siege to the Duke's castle.

Merlin, furious at Uther's recklessness, nevertheless agrees to use his magic to help Uther seduce Igrayne, on the condition that Uther relinquishes to Merlin whatever results from his lust. Merlin summons a dragon and transforms Uther into Cornwall, who rides into the castle. Meanwhile, Cornwall is killed during his assault and sensing her father's death, Igrayne's young daughter, Morgana awakes. Believing her husband has returned home, Igrayne (Katrine Boorman) makes love to an aggressive Uther while a devastated Morgana sees past Uther's disguise.

Igrayne gives birth to Arthur but Merlin arrives and takes the baby. Uther pursues Merlin but is ambushed by the remaining loyal Cornwall knights. He is mortally wounded but not before thrusting the sword into a large stone. Merlin exclaims that "he who draws the sword from the stone, he shall be king".

Years later, Sir Ector (Clive Swift) and his sons Kay (Niall O'Brien) and Arthur (Nigel Terry) attend a jousting tournament to win a chance to draw Excalibur from the stone. The best knights in the land gather to compete and Leondegrance (Patrick Stewart) is the victor but fails to pull the sword from the stone. Arthur, now Kay's squire, forgets Kay's sword in a tent and returns only to discover that it has been stolen. While pursuing the thief, Arthur stumbles by the stone in which Excalibur is embedded. Arthur draws it from the stone. The tournament crowd gathers around him. Merlin appears, revealing that Arthur is the son of Uther, hence rightful king.

Not all accept Arthur's kingship. As the knights argue, a confused Arthur flees into the forest pursuing Merlin. He later explains Arthur's destiny, telling the boy that he and the land are one. Overwhelmed, Arthur slips off into sleep. The next morning, Merlin tells him that his enemies are laying siege to the castle of one of Arthur's supporters, Leondegrance. Rallying the other knights loyal to him, Arthur leads a counter-assault and repels the attackers. The battle ends when Arthur asks for Sir Uryens' faith in Arthur's newfound kingship. Uryens is insulted at swearing faith to a squire. Arthur, realizing what he says is true, gives Excalibur to him to proclaim Arthur a knight. Tempted to take the sword for himself, Uryens hesitates, but after seeing Arthur's grace in victory, grants his request. Arthur later meets Leondegrance's daughter Guenevere (Cherie Lunghi), who narrowly avoids a kiss from Arthur, while she helps treat his wound.

Later, Arthur and his knights encounter a brilliant and self-proclaimed undefeated knight named Lancelot (Nicholas Clay). In search of a king worthy of his sword, Lancelot will allow none to pass a bridge until he is defeated in single combat. After besting all of Arthur's knights, Lancelot engages Arthur himself in a joust. An enraged Arthur refuses to accept Lancelot's victory and challenges Lancelot in a duel to the death. The battle brings them near a nearby lake. Lancelot is surprisingly fast and agile striking at will on the furious and unbalanced Arthur. Lying on the rocks in defeat, Arthur summons Excalibur's power. The "Sword of Power" hums with magic and cuts through Lancelot's spear, piercing his armour and knocking him unconscious, but breaking the tip of the sword. A devastated and shameful Arthur confesses to Merlin that in his rage he abused the sword's power to serve his own vanity. Arthur throws what is left of the sword into the lake but, upon his words of contrition, the Lady of the Lake shows herself and offers a restored Excalibur to the king. Realizing his error, Arthur quietly vows never to abuse the sword's power again. Lancelot awakens and, happy that he has finally been beaten, swears fealty to Arthur.

After a series of battles, Arthur and his knights unify the land. He decides to create a Round Table and builds his castle, Camelot. Arthur ultimately marries Guenevere but Lancelot, who escorts her to the wedding, falls deeply in love with her. Arthur's half-sister, Morgana (Helen Mirren), a budding sorceress, becomes apprenticed to Merlin in hopes of learning the Charm of Making from him. Time passes and Lancelot, the greatest of the knights, is often inexplicably absent from the Round Table, seeking refuge deep in the forest in order to brood. One day while sleeping in the forest, Lancelot encounters a peasant boy named Percival (Paul Geoffrey), who aspires to become a knight and impresses Lancelot with his resiliency. Lancelot guides him back to Camelot where Percival later becomes his squire.

Though Lancelot is the king's champion, his forbidden love for Guenevere keeps him away from Camelot. One evening, Sir Gawain (Liam Neeson), under the corruption of Morgana, openly accuses both knight and queen of adultery at the Round Table. Since he is king, Arthur decrees that he must be the judge and that Lancelot must defend Guenevere's honor in a duel against Gawain. In a nightmare duel with himself, Lancelot pierces himself with his own sword in order to purge himself of his love for Guenevere. As the crowd gather for the duel, Lancelot is nowhere to be seen. A disappointed Arthur looks upon all of his knights and not one volunteers to challenge Gawain, except the squire, Percival. In duress and to the shock of the crowd, Arthur hastily knights Percival. Lancelot finally arrives and despite his injuries, manages to defeat Gawain and have him withdraw his accusation. The duel is too much for Lancelot and he collapses, close to death. Arthur implores Merlin to bring him back, whatever the cost and so Merlin does, placing Guenevere's hand on Lancelot's heart, giving him will to live.

Ultimately, Guenevere realizes her love for Lancelot, and they ride out into the forest where the two consummate their love. A heartbroken Arthur, realizing the two people he loves most in the world have betrayed him, finds Guenevere and Lancelot asleep together in the forest. Meanwhile, Merlin guides Morgana, who is showing signs of hostility towards her half-brother Arthur, to his secret lair intending on luring her into a trap. In the forest, Arthur thrusts Excalibur between the sleeping couple and because of his magical link with the Dragon and Earth, Merlin is instantly impaled by the magical sword also. Seeing a weakened Merlin, Morgana seizes the opportunity to trap him in crystal with the Charm of Making. Morgana (like Uther when he deceived Igrayne) then takes the form of Guenevere and seduces Arthur into making love to her. She later bears a son named Mordred (Charley Boorman/Robert Addie) and protects him with magic so that no man-made weapon can kill him.

On awakening to the sight of Excalibur, Lancelot cries "the king without a sword, the land without a king" and flees in shame as Guenevere lies there weeping. Time passes and Arthur is struck by lightning while in prayer, causing the land to be stricken with famine and sickness. A broken Arthur sends his knights on a quest for the Holy Grail believing the land will prosper if it is found. More years pass and many knights die on the quest, while some are the walking dead; bewitched by Morgana to serve her and her son.

Stopping by a lake for water, Percival witnesses Mordred viciously murdering Uryens. With his dying breath, Uryens tells Percival that he is the last of the quest knights and that he must continue his search. After being captured by Mordred and Morgana, Percival manages to escape, but not before he dreams of obtaining the grail. Wandering aimlessly, Percival encounters a fat, bearded, and bitter Lancelot preaching to his followers of the failures of the kingdom. Recognizing Lancelot, Percival tries to tell him that he is still needed by Arthur, but with the help of his followers, Lancelot pushes Percival into a river. Rising out of the river, Percival, having lost his armor, has a vision of the Grail and a mysterious figure who asks "Who am I?" and "Have you found the secret that I have lost?" Percival 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 and takes it to Arthur. Arthur drinks from it and is revitalized.

Realizing that now is his time to truly be king, Arthur and his few remaining knights ride to war against Mordred and Morgana. The barren land blooms with life as they pass and is reborn with its King. Learning that Guenevere has joined a nunnery, Arthur pays a visit to her convent, where they reconcile. She reveals Excalibur to him, having kept it safe since the day she fled.

Most of the land's nobles have rallied to Mordred and Morgana. In despair, Arthur calls to Merlin and strikes a nearby stone henge in his frustration, unknowingly awakening the wizard from his enchanted slumber. Though still imprisoned in crystal, Merlin appears to Morgana in a dream and tricks her into calling the dragon and uttering the Charm of Making, creating a thick fog of the dragon's breath. Her magically-endowed youth dissolves, she grows old and grotesque, much to the dismay of her son Mordred, who strangles her in disgust.

With the help of Merlin, Arthur and his knights survive using Morgana's mist to their advantage to hide their small numbers, but are soon overwhelmed. Lancelot arrives and joins the fray, turning the tide of the battle. After disposing of the remaining enemies, Lancelot falls to the ground from the old wound that has never healed. Arthur and Lancelot reconcile, and Lancelot dies with Arthur's acknowledgment that he was the Round Table's greatest knight. A distraught Arthur turns to find Mordred ready to pierce his father with his spear. Percival offers to fight, but Arthur realizes Mordred was his sin and stands to face his son. Mordred lunges forward with his weapon and pierces Arthur, but the determined king pulls the spear, and his son, closer to him, whereupon he stabs Mordred with the enchanted Excalibur, killing him.

Knowing he is dying, Arthur commands Percival to throw Excalibur into a pool of calm water. He initially balks at the command, but eventually carries out the king's bidding and throws the sword into the pool where it is caught by the glimmering scale-clad hand of the Lady of the Lake. When Percival returns, he sees Arthur's body on a ship sailing away. The king is attended by three formally posed ladies clad in white, sailing into the setting sun toward the Isle of Avalon.

[edit] Cast

• Nigel Terry as King Arthur
• Helen Mirren as Morgana Le Fay
• Nicol Williamson as Merlin
• Nicholas Clay as Lancelot
• Cherie Lunghi as Guenevere
• Liam Neeson as Gawain
• Patrick Stewart as King Leondegrance
• Clive Swift as Sir Ector
• Gabriel Byrne as Uther Pendragon
• Robert Addie as Mordred
• Paul Geoffrey as Perceval

Even though he was 35 years old, Nigel Terry plays King Arthur from his teenage years to his ending as an aged monarch.

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."

[edit] PG and R-rated versions

The movie was originally put into theatrical release simultaneously in both its PG and R-rated formats in the USA.^{[citation needed]} The original R-rated cut is 140 minutes. Most home video versions are the R-rated one, but TV and movie channels show the PG version, making the movie 119 minutes. The R-rated version features about 21 more minutes of graphic sex and violence.

[edit] Production

John Boorman originally intended to film an adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien 's The Lord of the Rings and much of the imagery and set designs seen in Excalibur were created with that intention. He was, however, unable to secure the rights to the book.

[edit] Casting

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. This is stated by John Boorman himself in the audio commentary track of the Excalibur DVD.

[edit] Filming

Excalibur was filmed in Irish locations in County Wicklow, County 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.

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.

[edit] Costumes

The costumes were designed by Bob Ringwood. The armour was designed by Terry English, who also crafted the armor for the film Aliens. It is notable that the armor worn during the period before Arthur and the earlier part of his reign (the "Dark Ages") is dark and dull, primarily greyish tones of varying styles, reflecting the turmoil and strife of a divided land. Soon after Lancelot arrives and during the height of Arthur's reign, the Round Table knights adopt armor similar Lancelot's style of glossy, chrome-like platemail with the same type of helmet, representing a strong, united kingdom. When the kingdom decays and strife returns with the rebellion of Mordred, knights in the varied, dark armor return, as the ones who fight for Morgana and her son against Arthur. The final battle between Arthur and Mordred's forces highlights the contrast between the silver and dark armour. Although it may simply be a direct indicative of the conditions they faced, it is also of note that the knights on the quest for the grail also went from glittering armor to a dull, dirt-caked set over the years that they quested.

[edit] Adaptation

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. 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."^[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, a technology of the 15th century. 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 some versions of the legends they are separate. In the Morte d'Arthur, Sir Galahad, the illegitimate son of Lancelot and Elaine of Carbonek, is actually the Knight who is worthy of the Holy Grail. Boorman follows the earlier version of the tale as told by Chretien de Troyes, making Percival 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".

[edit] Soundtrack

The soundtrack is by Trevor Jones, with sound bites 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,^{[citation needed]} 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", a piece about the romance of Sir Tristram and Iseult, another pair of lovers from the Arthurian tales.
• The theme of Perceval and the Grail is the prelude to Wagner's "Parsifal".

[edit] Reception

Excalibur is rated at 86% on Rotten Tomatoes' Tomatometer, based on 21 reviews.^[3]

[edit] Awards

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

The film won the prize for Best Artistic Contribution at the 1981 Cannes Film Festival.^[4]

[edit] Remake

A remake is currently being developed at Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures. Bryan Singer has been attached to the project.^[5]

[edit] See also

• List of American films of 1981
• Excalibur, King Arthur's sword, the central symbol of kingship for Malory and the film.
• List of films based on Arthurian legend

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Excalibur at the Internet Movie Database
• Excalibur at Allmovie
• Excalibur at Rotten Tomatoes

v • d • e Films directed by John Boorman 1960s Catch Us If You Can (1965) · Point Blank (1967) · Hell in the Pacific (1968) 1970s Leo the Last (1970) · Deliverance (1972) · Zardoz (1974) · Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977) 1980s Excalibur (1981) · The Emerald Forest (1985) · Hope and Glory (1987) 1990s Where the Heart Is (1990) · I Dreamt I Woke Up (1991) · Two Nudes Bathing (1995) · Beyond Rangoon (1995) · The General (1998) 2000s The Tailor of Panama (2001) · In My Country (2004) · The Tiger's Tail (2006)