Talya Moore

Dr. Thomas Long

ENG 243-40

September 19, 2002

The "Faithfulness" of Excalibur

I really should not have been shocked that John Boorman’s 1981 film Excalibur should depart so radically from the classic text, Morte Darthur by Sir Thomas Malory, for which credit is given at the end of the film as being the literary inspiration. After all, Mr. Boorman, though he lives in Ireland (according to his website) is a successful big time movie director/producer, and everyone knows that violence and sex are the two primary marketing tools of visual entertainment.

But in reference to the part of the story dealing with Lancelot’s infatuation with Guinevere, to have Gawain take the place of Lancelot’s 14 accusers (in the Malory version) does not seem "faithful." Malory has 13 characters killed in his Accusation Scene, of the accusers leaving only Mordred to escape. Nor does the film’s love scene between Guinevere and Lancelot seem to truly represent Malory’s quasi-intimate scene between the two of them behind a locked, "queen’s chamber" door in front of the queen’s maidservants. To be sure these are simplifications of Malory’s narrative, and an argument could be made that they are modernizations: they don’t fit 15th century culture.

The four areas in the assigned reading of the Malory text held faithful by the movie are:

    1. Guinevere’s treachery and subsequent displacement to the convent;
    2. The connection Excalibur the sword has to magical forces;
    3. The "transporting" of the dying Arthur to Avalon on a Norse-traditioned small ship, with mourning female protectors;
    4. The emphasis on Lancelot as preeminent knight.

Though in the film Lancelot dies on the battlefield, reconciled to Arthur, in Malory he loses the will to live following Guinevere’s death. I think the references to the sword Excalibur in the movie are the primary reason the film’s website maintains that Boorman emphasized "faithfulness" to the Malory classic, which is probably read in most secondary schools in Britain, and is therefore an excellent marketing tool.

I thought the film Excalibur more resembled a 19th-century rendition of the King Arthur legends I tried to read in sixth grade, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, at which time to keep all the knights straight (Malory also has more knight-characters than the film) I tried to identify with Gawain, "the knight known for his honesty." This perspective of Gawain, and the film’s emphasis on Perceval (I don’t think the name even comes up in Malory, much less during Arthur’s death-struggle) are certainly a modernization. There is no mention of Bedivere in the film, though Malory gives him the crucial task of returning Excalibur to the Lady of the Lake.

Malory ends his tale with the correlated deaths of Guinevere and Lancelot, following even the transport of Arthur to Avalon. Excalibur the film has Lancelot dying as a fighting commoner, then Arthur falling, and Guinevere is left in the convent, although Arthur lies to dying Lancelot that she has returned to her place on the throne. In fact, Malory outdoes Arthur’s death with his concluding praise of the probably-introduced-to-the-legends-during-the-Norman-ascension Lancelot. This Lancelot modernization, displacing Gawain as knight preeminent, is maintained by the movie. In the movie, Guinevere is also modernized by having a greater presence and speaking role: she is given more to do in the movie. But again, where is Boorman getting his inspiration for dialogue and characters if not Malory? From more modern collections of the stories, although it seems that reference to Perceval may be from earlier (than Malory) Celtic tales (according to Professor Long’s lecture of September 17th, 2002).

This inclusion of Perceval’s search for the Holy Grail is the most fascinating part of the movie, I think, especially when he thinks he has almost found it while a noose is tightened around his throat. Yet he can’t hold the "finding" or vision and thus considers himself a failure. Throughout the whole film Wagner’s opera music from Parsifal and Tristan und Isolde is playing (with brief interludes of Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana), yet I suppose we still can’t call this broadening of the Holy Grail tradition to include Germanic supernatural folklore a modernization, but must recognize it as a back-tracking anachronism from the Celts. I suppose it could be said that the film is faithful to Malory’s vision of Morgana and Mordred as the "bad guys" even here.

But this faithfulness is more in tone than in specifics; for example, in Malory Arthur doesn’t pierce Mordred’s armor with Excalibur, as in the film, but with an ordinary spear. In fact, the film reverses the roles of the two, with Arthur "thrusting" himself up the spear which is piercing Mordred to be within reach of Mordred. Perhaps the screenplay writer saw balance in his rendition of breaking Excalibur upon Mordred’s body. Nevertheless, it is an original modernization. Thus, a broken Excalibur is returned to the Lady of the Lake. She’s fixed it once (according to the film) and now takes back her magical connection to the throne of England.

Guinevere’s holding on to the sword (keeping it under her mattress) at the convent, following her discovery with her lover Lancelot of its being thrust into the earth between them, is another original "modernization" which seems faithful only to the screenplay symbolism and form.

I think that, to make the film Excalibur more faithful to Malory’s Morte Darthur:

1. The character of Bedivere should have been more developed;

2. The conspiracy against Guinevere and Lancelot should have been included. The acquisition of armor from the slaying of Sir Colgravance of Gore and subsequent demonstration of Lancelot’s superiority – to the points of their deaths – over 12 more of Arthur’s knights is much more exciting than Gawain’s supposed drunken accusation and subsequent submission on the jousting-field;

3. Morgana’s role should have been diminished, as consistent with Malory’s treatment of her;

4. The death of Guinevere and Lancelot should be included, as at the end of Malory.

In conclusion, I find the claim on the Excalibur website that the film is faithful to Malory’s collection of stories about Arthur to be specious. I think the numerous departures from the narrative leaving one looking for 15th-century "tone" of Malory’s tales about knights is an expression of such "faithlessness." The film does have aspects to the characters and plot that are consistent with Malory, but are also consistent with other collections of the Arthurian legends. On the other hand, the film Excalibur is well-balanced and doesn’t show excessive exaggeration or modernization. It is probably the most common (/mainstream) experience of the Arthurian tradition of our time, and for all my criticisms, I admit it is fine cinema.

Works Cited

Boorman, John, dir. Excalibur. Orion Pictures, 1981.

"Excalibur." Dandalf the Dragon Home Page. <http://dandalf.com/dandalf/excalibur.html> 3, 19 September 2002.

"John Boorman." Internet Movie Database (IMDb). IMDb, 2002. <http://us.imdb.com/Name?Boorman,+John> 3 September 2002.

Malory, Sir Thomas. Morte Darthur in M.H. Abrams (General Editor), et al. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, 7th Edition, Volume 1. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2000.