Works Cited Bradley, Marion Zimmer, zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA The Mists of Avalon (New York: Ballantine . Books, 1982) Fuog, Karin E. C., 'Imprisoned in the Phallic Oak: Marion Zimmer Bradley and Merlin's Seductress', Quondam et Futurus: A Journal of Arthurian Interpretations, 1 (Spring, 1991), pp. 73-88 Gordon-Wise, Barbara Ann, The Reclamation of a Queen: Guinevere in Modern Fantasy (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1991) The Arthurian Legend in the Cinema: M yth zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFED or History? SANDRA GORGIEVSKI Tracing the trajectory of the oral, then literary myth of King Arthur _ initiated by Geoffrey of Monmouth with his Historia Regum Britanniae (1136) - entails travelling through the distorting mirrors of history, which reflect the various modes of thought and imagination specific to each period of time, cultural era or individual. It also involves a complex voyage through forms and genres, each of which retains its own codes and dynamic principles. This particularity does not preclude influence, exchange, borrowing or competition among the multiple settings of the myth, which include romances, poems, ivories, tapestries, stained-glass windows, paintings, operas, plays, novels, comic books, cartoons, films and more. Indeed, all these variations feed on one another and are enriched by the reflections of former centuries or decades, which recali the time when Arthurian literature flourished, yielding a canvas of very intricate patterns. This process bears witness to the anonymous and 'creative virtue' of myth, l which lends itself to metamorphosis from one formal system to another, sometimes losing its own identity in the process. This paper will focus on a single syncretic form, the cinema, which blends images, sounds and narrative continuity into a homogeneous whole. My intention is not to survey the entire cinematic production linked in any way whatsoever to the Arthurian legend in order to label it 'historical film', 'epic' or 'fantasy'; least of all do I wish to tackle the thorny problem of Arthur's historicity and the transformation of an allegedly historical hero of the sixth century into a legendary, then mythical one.? Rather, what interests me is the deep-rooted and universal fascination which this legend in particular (and the Middle Ages in general) holds even today, as reflected in its diverse representations on the screen. Except 1 See Mircea Eliade, 'La vertu créatrice du mythe.', in Eranos-Jarbuch, 25 (1965), pp. 59-85. 2 On the transformation of history into myth, see Mircea Eliade, Le mythe de I' éternel retour (Paris: Gallimard, 1969-92), pp. 48--64. See also H. M. and N. K. Chadwick, 'Myth is the last - not the first - stage in the development of a hero', in The Growth of Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932-40), iii. p. 762. 152 - for some films indebted to it but transposed into a different historical setting (the contemporary world or even science fiction), the Matter of Britain has always been associated with the Middle Ages.. a historical period defined in terms of imagination rather than by strict historical landmarks. Its two major mm references in the English-speaking world are Excalibur zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA by the British director John Boorman (1981) and Knights of the Round Table by the American Richard Thorpe (1953). Although both screenplays claim to be based on Sir Thomas Malory's Le Marte D'Arthur, the films represent two divergent perspectives, and must be examined in the broader context of their historical and cinematic framework. The degree to which each is contaminated by other myths (whether medieval or contemporary) must then be assessed. Cinematic frameworks as frames of mind When we consider the way the Matter of Britain was and is still perceived and represented in popular imagination, and more specifically on the screen, we see that it is inseparable from the appearance of the Middle Ages in the history of the cinema. Thus, we become aware that our perception is influenced, indeed conditioned, by a prior series of representations. The screenplay of Thorpe's Knights of the Round Table draws prominently on Malory's text, so that the narrative discourse follows rather closely the rise and fall of the Arthurian world and illustrates its major themes and characters. Yet it actually lies within the framework of a particular, well-defined, even rigid genre: the swashbuckling film of the Hollywood tradition. Significantly, Richard Thorpe directed two other 'medieval' swashbucklers - Ivanhoe (1952) and Quentin Durward (1955) - with the same actor in the title roles, Robert Taylor, who also features as Lancelot in Knights of the Round Table, thus completing a famous trilogy produced by Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM) in the early fifties. Together they offer a Hollywood portrayal of the Middle Ages which relies more on nineteenth-century interpretations of the worlds of romance than on the medieval romances themselves. A close look at the history of the genre is enlightening. The swashbuckling film brought to life in the American imagination the heroic dreams and romantic fancies at the heart of nineteenth-century England. Indeed, its thematic origins can be traced back to the age of Romanticism, with its fantastic imagination and mysticism, its taste for chivalry (Malory was reprinted three times between 1816 and 1817), its exaltation of the past in the form of ancient myths and legends and its fondness for historical novels. Alexander Dumas's and Walter Scott's tales of gallantry and heroism were influenced by chronicles and romances but also by popular ballads, folk-tales and legends. They thus reactivated collective archetypes and laid out the motives to be found in melodramas and modern medieval 1:'i4 _ "'0 zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUT '-''',,,e..,,a.u ''''-40 .,,, "'''~ epics, and, much later, in westerns. Ironically, this movement, which was initiated against the formalism of the Enlightenment, turned out to develop its own formalism of rules and rituals in swashbuckling novels and plays. At the turn of the century, with the appearance of the silent screen, a whole imagery was set up in the USA which lasted until the sixties. Its mainstays were gorgeous costumes, lavishly designed stunts, spectacular group sequences, codified, stereotyped actions and easily recognisable characters devoid of psychological depth and individuality, as if to compensate for lack of sound. Between 1910 and 1930 four Arthurian films were produced, three on Robin Hood and two on Ivanhoe, examples of the 'medieval' genre, and designated as such regardless of the historical period concerned.s Other escapist figures and heroes replaced them until the great Arthurian revival in the fifties. This time, because of the crisis in Hollywood provoked by the McCarthyist witch-hunt in the film industry, it was in England that MGM produced its trilogy with Richard Thorpe and Universal and Columbia shot low-budget swashbucklers. They advertised their films as an attempt to restore to England its own cultural heritage. They had drastically remodelled this past, contrary to the Arthurian literary production of the time, which was more indebted to the medieval literary tradition than to any Hollywood imagery. Four Arthurian films were shot, only three on the Robin Hood legend, and three historical films - about Richard the Lionheart, Richard III and Joan of Arc. In the meantime the growth of television as mass entertainment encouraged the British to shoot cheap, black-and-white, pocket-sized versions of the great originals, which they exported to the USA.4 But the portrayal of the Middle Ages in these adaptations, aimed at a particular public, remained the same, albeit suffused with touches of exotic, 'true British' elements. The most striking characteristic of these films is the dazzling swordplay of the central hero, enhanced by a selection of stars who often ended up being typecast in the role (Robert Taylor is a perfect example). The hero belongs to the knightly class or, in the case. of Robin Hood, climbs the social ladder and exhibits better morals than the upper class does, as a testimony to the values of the democratic era. Such heroic values are embodied in the chivalric code, as illustrated by Malory's deñnítìon:> (the king) charged them never to do outrageousity nor murder, and always to flee treason; also, by no means to be cruel, but to give mercy unto him 3 See filmography by Jaques Durand, 'La chevalerie à l'écran', in Cinémathèque 22. L' avant-scène Cinéma, 221 (février 1979), p, 39. 4 The British tried to impose their own TV star system; for instance, their Ivanhoe was played by Roger Moore (The Saint, James Bond). 5 The chosen reference here is the Caxton edition to be found in paperbacks, e.g. Le Marte D'Arthur, ed. Janet Cowen (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1969), as we are dealing with popular culture, and as Boorman and Thorpe had no access to scholarly editions of Malory. The numbers respectively refer to Caxton's clivision into Books and Chapters, ); and always to do ladies, damosels, and gentlewomensuccour, upon pain of death. Also that no man take 110 battles in a wrongfulquarrelfor no law, ne for no world'sgoods. (iii. 15) that asketh mercy C •• and its ontological undertones in the legend, whether he is entombed in the earth or under a large stone by the magical powers stolen from him by the girl Nimue (iv. 1). Stonehenge, known as a place of sacred magic where the human and other worlds come into contact in the Celtic tradiThe historical setting is stylised rather than realistic, relying on opulent tion, is turned into a profane platform where political issues are discussed. period sets, obviously unhindered by major historical and geographical This violation reaches an extreme when Arthur asks his knights to 'vote' anachronisms. Thorpe followed in the wake of this genre, its Camelot for or against the war. As for the Grail, it is hardly shown, since Galahad castle and armour being reminiscent of the Norman Age, whereas accuis said zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA to have heard voices by the voice-off which creates an effect of racy would have demanded a representation of the Merovingian age. But distance from any overt depiction of the supernatural. This time Thorpe had not Malory done just the same in the fifteenth century, and Tennyson could not but make some small concession to this cumbersome but comand the Pre-Raphaelites in the nineteenth century? pulsory element of the legend; yet the spiritual dimension involved in the In any case, the adventures of the heroes are in fact fictional exploits of Grail Quest is left aside, and its discovery is secularised. archetypes rather than actual adventures of historically defined individuMoreover, the decline of earthly chivalry, the sense of impending doom not to deceive the als. They consist of a series of ritualised themes, as ifzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA and failure so present in Malory's last books, is here totally obliterated. In standard expectations of the audience, contrary to other popular genres the optimistic final sequence Galahad finds the Grail and Lancelot has whi~h have evolved towards greater complexity (consider, for example, killed the wicked Mordred and will be forgiven, thus demonstrating that the mfluence of psychology and psychoanalysis on the western and the the age of chivalry is to be redeemed. Thorpe thus complies with the detective film). Arthur's adventures as retold by Thorpe can be compared Hollywood tradition of the happy ending, representing the unflinching step by step with those of Richard the Lionheart. The motives in both are supremacy of Good over Evil, in concurrence with the Cold War mentality. the king's loss of power (Arthur threatened by Mordred and Morgana, Finally, Hollywood censorship weighs heavily. There is a conspicuous Richard the Lionheart by his brother), followed by battles and a quest for lack of some of the most powerful and disquieting motives of the myth. power (the Grail in the former, the intervention of Robin Hood in the Incest between Arthur and one of his sisters (i. 19) has been expunged, as latter), then finally the restoration of order and the punishment of evildotheir incestuous son, Mordred, is simply said to be one of the kingdom's ers (Mordred's death and Galahad's reassertion of chivalric values, or the barons. Adultery is only hinted at: Guenevere gives token proof of her return of the king). Other compelling items of this stylistic composition love (a scarf) to Lancelot, and comes to his chamber in a sequence loaded are the siege of a castle, a tournament, a ride through the forest and the with sexual connotations, in which Ava Gardner gracefully takes off her rescuing of the maidens (Guenevere and Elaine, or Marian). Thorpe thus cloak but no more. In a way this might be interpreted as being in accordconjures up an image of Arthur as the ideal monarch, belonging to a ance with Malory's biased presentation of the entrapment scene, although familiar, coherent yet anachronistic period of history which the Hollydeparting from his knowing understatement: 'And whether they were wood myth-making industry has turned into an ideal past, still fascinating abed or at other manner of disports, me list hereof make no mention, for to us and arousing in us childish bewilderment and pleasure. The Middle love at that time was not as is nowadays' (xx. 3). The last combat features Ages are thereby but a fictional and imaginary world. Mordred against Lancelot, not Arthur, thereby avoiding the ultimate conBut are these mainstays of the swashbuckler sufficient to convey the frontation between father and son and the issue of patricide. Heavily essence of the Arthurian myth? In fact, three major instances definitely bowdlerised, Knights of the Round Table loses its universal impact in run counter to it. First, Thorpe exercised a rationalisation of the supernatuorder to fit into the mould of the swashbuckler. ral. Merlin is reduced to being Arthur's military strategist and friend, Thirty years later," Boorman's Excalibur signals the return to fantasy which is in accordance with Malory," his prescience and magical powers and visual pleasure, such as can be found in the popular heroic-fantasy expelled. He wears anonymous armour instead of the traditional sheepskin or hood which would identify him immediately as a necromancer. Like a helpless old man, he is treacherously poisoned by Morgana and 7 The swashbuckler did not exactly vanish, but in the sixties its audience turned to its related genres - historical epics such as Viking films, biblical epics or even martial arts Mordred (a heresy!), in sharp contrast with the mystery of his disappearance Malmy insists on Merlin's control of events: 'For the most part of his life he (Arthur) was ruled much by the counsel of Merlin' (iii. 1), and more specifically in Book I, with such words as 'advice' (i. 5; i. lO; i. 14; i. 15), 'counsel' (i, 3), 'providence' (i. 6), 'provision' (i. 11) and 'devise' (i. 3; i. 14). 6 156 pictures, samurai standing. for knights. The seventies, an age of re-evaluation, dealt a severe yet salutary blow to the dying medieval genre, reviving Arthur and even Robin Hood as the targets of parody, and deconstructing myths in Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975) and Richard Lester's Robin and Marian (1976). In France however, two authentic transpositions of the legend were released: Robert Bresson's Lancelot du lac (1974) and Eric Rohmer's Percevalle Gallois (1979). SANDRA GORGIEVSKI zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA The Arthurian Legend in the Cinema genre to which Boorman is clearly indebted, and which was applied in the The Ring. All-pervasive violence is to be found in events - war, lust, eighties to films, novels, posters and comic-strips. zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA It is an almost exclubreach of contract, ambush, treason, murder, rape - as well as in images. sively American product which revives the tradition of the swashbuckler The gnarled armours of the knights and the horses' harnesses suggest a yet tries to reactivate the old spirit with new settings and an updated taste reptilian, antediluvian world, the castle of Tintagel peering over the steep for legends and lost civilisations: a hybrid genre, as its aesthetic universe cliffs is dark and oppressive, the sea is wild, the forest is dark and unis inspired by German, Celtic, Oriental and Byzantine mythology, with a tamed, war-fires blaze everywhere. ItzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSR is an age of chaos, the dawn of time, renewed interest in magic. when man emerged from nature. Magic is usually thought of as the elementary force which man maSometimes, heroic-fantasy films emphasise an element of horror, creatnipulates without assessing its true power. In the cinema the weapon, not ing an aesthetic of violence and gore, perhaps intending to highlight the the man, is endowed with supernatural powers and confers on the warrior savagery of the Middle Ages, yet often undermining the overall quality of his heroic status, so that it becomes identified with him and gives him an the film. One might be tempted to associate Excalibur with this aesthetic, unearthly, mythic stature. This myth of the weapon more powerful than especially as Boorman displays a predilection for violence in other films, gold is but a reworking of many European myths depicting the symbiosis such as in the unforgettable and unrelenting shots of a farmer's corpse between man and weapon - Caldalbog (the Celtic ancestor of Excalibur), transfixed with an arrow in Deliverance (1975), or the horrific make-up of MjöIlnir (Thor's hammer), Gram (Siegfried's sword), or Durandal and a demon girl digging in the hearts of her victims in Exorcist II: The Hauteclère in the Chanson de Roland. In Boorman's film, Excalìbur's Heretic (1977). But in the case of Excalibur, is the violence not dictated supernatural powers kill Mordred, a feat which no human weapon could by the medieval texts themselves? Medieval use of hyperbole, rather than have achieved. Excalibur is sacred, as it symbolises the king's legitimacy; a taste for raw brutality, is evidenced in Malory's narrative. Frequent transmitted from Uther to Arthur (thus replacing the many swords to be bloodbaths, far from being realistic, underline the corporeal and the viofound in Malory), it deprives Arthur of his identity as king when he lence inherent in knightly deeds: 'They tamed their helms that the hot embeds it between Lancelot and Guenevere. 'A king without a sword; a blood ran out, and the thick mails of their hauberks they carved and rove land without a king,' Lancelot laments. Its modern avatars include the in sunder that the hoot blood ran to the earth' (iiì, lO). Boorman recaptures sword of Conan the Destroyer (a perfect illustration of the heroic-fantasy this dimension when the Duke of Cornwall is impaled on a range of film) as well as the invincible laser-sword of Luke Skywalker in the last spears, or when the sword Excalibur inflicts terrible wounds on its opposection of the science fiction trilogy Star Wars. It is not by chance that the nents, just as in Le Morte D'Arthur the king shortens a giant's legs and posters for all three of these films display the swords brandished upwards cuts off a Roman's head lengthways down to the breast (v. 8). A crow in the foreground." surreptitiously plucks out the eye of one of the Grail knights hanged on a The heroic-fantasy genre is at the same time keen on historical verisitree, in a sequence strongly reminiscent of François Villon:to militude. Historical and archeological studies in the seventies? had shed La pluie nous a bués et lavés light on Arthur's Romano-Celtic origins, so that, with his superb muscles, Et le soleil desséchés et noircis he fits into the newly fashionable image of the sixth-century barbarian Pies, corbeaux nous ont les yeux cavés depicted in heroic fantasy. He continues the tradition of the muscle-men Et arraché la barbe et les sourcils. of epic films, like Charlton Heston in William Wyler's Ben Hur zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA (1959) Jamais nul temps nous ne sommes assis; who later appeared in Anthony Mann's famous swashbuckler El Cid Puis ça, puis la, comme le vent varie, (1961), or like Kirk Douglas in The Vikings (1958) by Richard Fleisher, A son plaisir sans cesse nous charrie, who also directed Arnold Schwarzenegger in Conan the Destroyer. Thus Plus becquetés d'oiseaux que dés à coudre. the cinematic appearance of the Middle Ages approximates to a kind of primitive prehistory. The first part of Excalibur lies within the Scope of The cruelty of the last battle, culminating in patricide, is an exact Conan's universe. The film opens with the remote, fantasmagorical world translation to the screen of the Malarian text, with the roles reversed: of 'the Dark Ages', as they are called, enshrined in the obsessive rhythm Then the king gat his spear in both hands, and ran towards Sir Mordred, and primitive force of Siegfried's Funeral March from Wagner's opera crying, 'Traitor, now is thy death day come.' And when Sir Mordred heard 8 Richard Fleisher, Conan the Destroyer (1984); the Star Wars trilogy: George Lucas, Star Wars (1977), The Empire Strikes Back (1980) and Richard Marquand, The Return of the ledi (1983). 9 See the research work of Leslie Alcock, John R. Morris and Geoffrey Ashe. 10 'L'épitaphe de Villon en forme de ballade', in François Villon, Oeuvres (Paris: Garnier, 1951), pp. 152-3. Sir Arthur, he ran until him with his sword drawn in his hands. And there King Arthur smote Sir Mordred under the shield, with a fain of his spear, throughout the body, more than a fathom. And when Sir Mordred felt that he had his death's wound he thrust himself with the might he had up to the bur of King Arthur's spear. And right so he smote his father Arthur, with his sword holden in both his hands, on the side of the head, that the sword piercedthe helmet and the brain pan. (xxi. 4) Contamination by other myths Both cinematic frameworks, the swashbuckler and heroic fantasy, have created their own 'mythologies', in Roland Barthes's words," further playing on the existing mythologies surrounding the actors themselves. Some more profound influences, however, underlie Boorman's film, such as the other medieval myths of Tristram and Isoud, or Siegfried. In Malory the Tristram section functions as a parallel motive to the Lancelot-Guenevere relationship, and works through comparison and allusion. As early as in Book V, Lancelot is 'wroth' because Tristram is allowed to join Isoud in Cornwall whereas he must leave Guenevere. In the Tale of Sir Tristram (viii to xìì in Caxton's edition), we are constantly made aware of the progression of the love between Lancelot and Guenevere: Isoud writes to Guenevere (viii, 31) while Tristram writes to Lancelot (ix. 5); Morgan le Fay, the 'enemy of all true lovers' (viii. 34) sends a magic horn to test Guenevere's loyalty, but it is Isoud who is eventually put to the test (viii. 34); they exchange rings (viii. 12, xx. 4); Isoud sends a message to Guenevere which makes the parallel even clearer: 'there be within the world but four lovers, that is, Sir Lancelot du Lake and Queen Guenevere, and Sir Tristram de Liones and Queen Isoud' (viii. 31). The title of 'Queen' strengthens the motif of divided loyalties to the King (whether Arthur or Mark). The castle of Joyous Guard shelters both Tristram and Isoud (x. 52) and Lancelot and Guenevere (xx. 6). All these parallels point to the ill-fated character of both couples' love, beset by secret meetings, adultery and tragedy within a courtly-love system; In Excalibur, Boorman points to this myth of eternal love through the use of Wagner's opera Tristan und Isolde, which, according to D. de Rougemont, represents the, culmination of the myth as a temporal absolute, a desire for eternal unity only achieveable in death: La musique seule peut bien parler de la tragédieP Thé Prelude can be heard each time Lancelot and Guenevere meet, during their first encounter at Guenevere's father's castle, when Lancelot escorts her through the forest to her wedding, when he avoids her at Camelot and goes into exile in the forest, and Roland Barthes, Mythologies (paris: Seuil, 1957). 'Only music can speak thoroughly of tragedy.' Denis de Rougemont, L'amour et r Occident (Paris: Plon, 1938-72), p. 251. again when she joins him there, thus illustrating the theme of the voluntary flight to the utopian shelter of the desert-forest. Finally it is heard when they make love and are taken unawares by Arthur. The entrapment scene is a narrative reminder of the myth, and visually encapsulates this connection: it is directly borrowed from the French medieval texts, in which King Mark surprises the two lovers sleeping in the forest. As Tristram's sword separates them and their bodies lie apart, he prefers to believe that they are innocent. He renounces slaying them, and embeds his own sword between the two bodies as an omen: l'zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcb acier zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfed froid de l' épée zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFE In Excalibur Arthur does the same, but this time as brillait entre eux.13 evidence of their fault as well as of his forgiveness, since the two lovers, naked, sleep in a tender embrace. Despite adultery, it is actually the royal couple who rework the myth of eternal love in this film. In Knights of the Round Table, as in Malory (xxi. 9), Lancelot pays a last visit to Guenevere in the nunnery where she has taken refuge after the kingdom's downfall. The choice of the two stars (Robert Taylor and the sex-symbol Ava Gardner) makes it clear that it is this couple which has survived in popular imagination, whereas the actor Mel Ferrer (as Arthur) cuts a pathetic figure and appears as a wishy-washy king. In Excalibur, however, the lovers are not destined to meet after the entrapment scene, for it is the ageing Arthur who comes to the nunnery to forgive and be forgiven, his dignified yet humble bearing being more convincing than Lancelot's unflinching, fanatic assertion of his love. Arthur evokes 'the hereafter' of their lives and the possibility for reconciliation: it is the royal couple whom we will remember. Moreover, Boorman makes use of a Malorian episode to Arthur's advantage: Lancelot was made knight by both King and Queen, dubbed by Arthur with the same sword Guenevere had given back to him after he had lost it (xviii. 7). In the film it is Arthur who, formerly dubbed by Sir Uriens, owes his identity to his wife when she returns Excalibur to him in the nunnery. Once more Wagner serves as an auditory link with Germanic mythology, this time with Siegfried's Funeral March. Rather than the hero himself, it is the sense of doom arising from this recurrent musical motif which pervades the whole film. Indeed it actually structures the film, as it singles out the key moments of the legend - Uther's death and the prediction of Arthur's reign; the creation of the Round Table; Arthur facing treason without Merlin; the last combat against Mordred; and finally the moment when Excalibur is thrown back into the lake and the prophecy of Arthur's return is delivered. The Funeral March (from The Twilight of the Gods, the last part of The Ring) also marks the disappearance of the old gods and the crumbling of the Valhalla. In the Prologue the thread of Il 12 1¡;O 13 'The cold steel blade was gleaming between them.' Tristan et Iseult, translated from Old French by René Louis (Paris: Librairie Générale Française, 1972), p, 127. SANDRA GORGIEVSKI The Arthurian Legend in the Cinema destiny had been broken, symbolising the advent of the Age of Man.14 Knights of the Round Table. This theme is best exemplified in Malory by Indeed, Merlin's disappearance in the film highlights the necessity for Sir Bors, who is faithful to Lancelot 'whether in right or wrong' and, after Arthur to take charge of his own destiny, no longer relying on Merlin's the entrapment of the lovers, is ready to take 'the woe with theweal' (xx. prescience and advice: 'I can tell you nothing more, my days are ended 5-6). Male frienship can even be regarded as superior to kinship. In Le ... It's a way of things, it's a time for men and their ways.' The idea that Morte D' Arthur brotherhood is of the utmost importance. Brothers are 'the gods of once are gone forever', that 'the one God comes out to drive closely linked, and their names cannot be dissociated, as the use of assoout the many gods' is in keeping with medieval reality and the rise of nance and consonance underlines - Balin and Balan, BIamor and Christianity in the Western world, yet the idea of man mastering his fate Bleoberis, or the four brothers Agravain, Gawain, Gareth, Gaheris, the alone is inherited from the Renaissance movement. Thus different historisisters Lynet and Lyoness and the sister and brother Elaine and Lavaine. cal world views are synthesised in Boorman's own interpretation of the But the Round Table serves as a more binding brotherhood. Gareth's , .. disappearance of the Arthurian world. loyalty to chivalric service takes him away from his brother: No such references can be found in Thorpe's film, the American director instead returning to his own 'national myths' and to the legendary past There was never no knight that Sir Garethloved more so well as he did Sir specific to the new continent - the myth of the frontier and the western. At Launcelot... And ever for the most part he would be in Sir Launcelot's first we witness a visual contamination. A single sequence bridges the gap company; for after Sir Garethhad espiedSir Gawain'sconditions,he withdrew himselffrom his brotherSir Gawain'sfellowship.(vii. 34) between two apparently opposed genres: a military attack by a horde of Piets, fraught with the intensity to be found in great Indian attacks in This love intensifies the dramatic irony of Lancelot's inadvertent slaying westerns. The 'wild' warriors ride down a steep gorge resembling canof Gareth (xx. 8), 'for Sir Gareth loved Launcelot above all men earthly' yons, yelling like the stereotyped 'wicked' Indian tribes, 'savagely' stab(xx.9). bing their enemies to death. This striking link is enhanced by the narrative Another common legacy is the female stereotype, to be found in the voice-off, a commonplace device in westerns, such as The zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Big Sky by pure, ingenuous child (Olivia de Haviland as Elaine in her pale blue, Howard Hawks (1952). virginal dress, just as in Ivanhoe), or the femme fatale (Ava Gardner as But it seems likely that cross-fertilisation has occured. Some motives Guenevere). The codified behaviours, ceremonies, oaths and banners parare blatantly filmed in the manner of western clichés, which are themtake of both chivalry and cavalry as if the memory of the old continent had selves likely to be borrowed from romances. First of all they focus on the shaped the attitudes of the new one. knight and his horse. The myth of the 'lonesome cowboy' who cannot The Hollywood production history sheds light on this process of mufind rest or home anywhere else but on his horse, the physical entity tual influence. Throughout the fifties, Universal and Columbia resorted to which both represent (a cowboy hardly ever walks on solid ground; rather, western directors for their swashbucklers, with a cast reflecting the westhe rides) and the emotional link which binds them, are all inherited from ern's familiar supporting actors. At the same time, they selected title roles romances. In Thorpe's film, on the eve of battle, men and horses stay up for their 'chivalric' appearance. Robert Taylor played in first-rank westtogether by the fire in a snow-covered landscape reminiscent of the zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA Wild erns just before and after the MGM trilogy," and was no doubt chosen West. In the final sequence Lancelot's horse plays a prominent role in the by Thorpe because 'he was the embodiment of the solid chivalric single combat against Mordred, as it saves his life twice by getting him virtues, mature, upright, inflexibly honorable' .16 In terms of the creative out of quicksand. In fact it reawakens the symbiosis between the knight imagination, is not the conquest of the West the only possible Middle and his horse, especially in battle, to be found in Malory, Sir Gawain and Ages for America? the Green Knight and epic tales. Malory.often mentions a horse's wounds Boorman, by contrast, seems less dependent on any fixed framework, as an objective correlative of its master's, and shows the knight taking and relies rather on an individual recreation of the Arthurian world, care not to endanger it: 'When he saw his horse should be slain he alit and achieving his personal mythology by means of syncretic imagination and voided his horse' (ix. 4). Male friendship is one of the supreme values in westerns, as well as in romances. In The Big Sky the two heroes, at first enemies, come to recog15 R.Taylor played in Billy the Kid (David Miller, 1941), Devil's Doorway (Anthony nise each other's worth during combat, as do Lancelot and Arthur in Mann, 1950), Westward the Women (William Wellman, 1952), The Last Hunt (Richard 14 See Ede Eugene, 'Le sens politique de l'anneau', in Avant-scène Opéra, 13/14 (1978), pp.19-21. Brooks, 1955), Many Rivers to Cross (Roy Rowland, 1955) and The Law and Jack Wade (John Sturges, 1958). 16 Director John Sturges, quoted by Jeffrey Richards in Swordsmen of the Screen: From Douglas Fairbanks to Michael York (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977), p. 94. SANDRA GORGIEVSKI zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA The Arthurian Legend in the Cinema stylisation. To a certain extent Excalibur lies within the scope of the world. His condensed vision offers multiple perceptions of the era, avoidheroic-fantasy genre's affinity for the supernatural, and recaptures many ing monotony while retaining coherence because each canvas corresponds of its elements, whether narrative or visual. This tendency is never gratuito the particular narrative structure of the film. The age of U ther, depicted tous, but is in accordance with the demands set up by the Arthurian myth above as part of the heroic-fantasy imagery, is a period of chaos, out of or the vision created by the director's own idiosyncrasies. For instance, which King Arthur arises as a new, unifying ruler. In visual as well as narBoorman does not yield to the new fashion of living bestiaries, be they rative contrast with this age of iron, the age of Arthur is one of gold and monsters - such as the ghastly monster in Ridley Scott's Alien (1979) _ or silver. It is a shining era which opens with a joust near a luminous waternostalgic counterparts in futuristic worlds like the puppet Yoda in Star fall, between two silver-armoured knights - Arthur and Lancelot, the Wars; or the elves of the fable Dark Crystal by Jim Henson (1982). flower of chivalry. The forest is clear and welcoming, providing food for Boorman's sale imaginary creation is the Dragon, which is spoken about Perceval and rest for Lancelot. Camelot nestles in a grassy valley and apbut never seen in full view. The director favours the fearful dragon of pears as an elaborate piece of fantasy sculpture, far from any identifiable Arthur's dream in Malory (v. 5), interpreted by a wise philosopher as an existing castle, a mélange of Indian, Gothic and Roman. The interiors hold image of Arthur the Conqueror, which contributes to a coherent Arthurian the golden Round Table, and are warmly lit and hung with rich tapestries world. In the film, it ensures the unity between the king and his land, just reminiscent of Gustav Klimt's golden stylised frescoes. The kitchen swells as the sword Excalibur does. Its breath (a fog) enables Uther to lie with with musicians, a puppet master, a jester, alchemists - a whole miscellany Igrayne and to conceive Arthur, and it stands against Mordred's army in of medieval archetypes. 'There is no want,' the king boasts. It is an age of also presides over Arthur's initiatory night with Merlin, the last battle. ItzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA temporary stability, peace and plenty, yet carrying within it the seeds of its thereby becoming the emblem of Camelot. When Arthur relinquishes own destruction, for gold also portends vainglorious wealth. Excalibur he thrusts it not only between the lovers' bodies but also, Consequently the last part of the film, the Grail Quest, displays a symbolically, into the dragon's spine, thus renouncing his kingdom. The bloody, muddy world, in the tradition of the Italian cinema, from the dragon is suffused with Boorman's fondness for esoteric symbols. It stands neo-realism of Vittorio de Sica to P. P. Pasolini's social concerns in his for the cosmic, primary forces of the earth described by Mircea Eliade: medieval films The Decameron (1971) or The Canterbury Tales (1972). l'involution, la modalité pré-formelle de l' univers, l' un non fragmenté We have moved from the enclosed, courtly world of chivalry to a povertyd' avant la crêation.ï' Merlin says that 'it is everywhere, it is everything', it stricken, plague-ridden peasant world. The land becomes sterile and the is the place where 'all things are possible and all things meet their opposite'. forest is devastated, objectifying the decay of chivalry and the king's Furthermore, it combines effectively the four elements of medieval cosillness in a kingdom which can only be a waste land. Boorman takes up mology, which is another compelling constant in Boorman's films;" it the theme of moral and spiritual failure, choosing realistic details for their emerges from water, spits fife, breathes vapour and lives under the earth. symbolic significance. He was influenced in this respect by PreAs for Merlin, he combines the traditional roles of friend, prophet, Raphaelite paintings, though he does not recapture their dream-like, omniscient strategist and inspirer of the Round Table; and he is also ethereal atmosphere.> Boorman's favourite figure. His films are filled with Merlin-characters: The director moves even further away from pseudo-historical references, manipulators, such as the powerful businessman in Catch Us ifzyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA You Can and plays with science-fiction imagery. Knights wear full-dress, solid(1965), the estate manager Lazlo in Leo the Last (1970), Arthur Frayne in metal, shining armour which reminds us of the diving-suit ìmag, . '-:'1 Zardoz (1973), who also act as metaphors for the film-maker himself as Jules Verne, the golden robot in Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1920) and the they pull the strings behind the curtains. Merlin is an embodiment of the first space-suits. The parallel is even more obvious in group sequences, shaman archetype, who also appears as Wanadi in The Emerald Forest when knights ride together in search of new adventures, swearing oaths (1985) and Kokumo in The Heretic (1977). Furthermore, he recalls the under the stars, thus suggesting a mythical fellowship which is in no small trickster figure as defined by C. G. Jung.'? way akin to the spirit of the space conquest. Science fiction combines the In his recreation of the Middle Ages, Boorman devises his own fantasy themes of the exploration of unknown worlds with medieval imagery, 17 'Involution, the undifferentiated form of the universe, the non-fragmented whole before creation.' Mircea Eliade, Le mythe de l' éternel retour (Paris: Gallimard, 1969; Essais/ Folio, 1992), pp. 54-60. 18 See Michel Ciment, Boorman, un visionnaire en son temps (Paris: Calman-Lévy, 1985). 19 C. G. Jung, Four Archetypes (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972), pp. 135-53. What also prevents us from drawing further comparisons is that the depth of field gives space to his sharp-eyed actors, whereas Rossetti's and Burne-Jones's mystic characters, for instance, seem to move on a shallow, rectilinear plane. See also, William Monis's 'Queen Guenevere' (1858) or Frederik Sandys's 'King Pelles beating the Vessel of the San Grael' (1861). 20 SANDRA GORGIEVSKI interstellar space replacing the medieval forest. For instance, the spaceship in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA A Space Odyssey (1968), in which human adventures are held in camera, suggests the enclosed, outlying castle of ancient legends. It zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA is of interest that the Arthurian subject gave rise to other manifestations in science-fiction literature and cinema, as is revealed in a close analysis of the Star Wars trilogy screenplay.s' The legend of the once and future king still catches the popular imagination, answering perhaps the spiritual yearnings of a disillusioned era, proving its continuing relevance. The Middle Ages still fascinate us because they are both mythical and imaginary, as George Duby said: U zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA n Moyen-Age qui fonctionne comme une mythologie, qui se situe simplement 'bien loin dans le temps' et assez obscitr pour qu' on y projette librement ses fantasmes présents, en leur donnant consistance de l' épaisseur du passéì? Both Thorpe and Boorman have created a world onto which the viewers can project themselves, thus playing on the collective imagination and on potent symbols rather than on history. As opposed to Thorpe's film, which is a perfect product of the dream factory Hollywood was in fifties America, Boorman has proved to be more personal in recapturing the great Arthurian motives while working from his own motivations, thus satisfying the quest for a genuine appropriation of the myth, enabling its ultimate survival. Works Cited Lacy, Norris J. (ed.), The Arthurian Encyclopedia (New York: Garland, 1986-95) Le Goff, Jacques, L'imaginaire médiéval (paris: Gallimard, 1985) Girouard, Mark, The Return to Camelot: Chivalry and the English Gentleman (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1981) Buache, Freddy, Le cinéma américain 1971-1983 (Lausanne: L'âge d'homme, 1985) de la Breteque, François, dir. 'Le moyen-âge au cinéma', in Cahiers de la cinémathèque, 42/43 (1985) Elley, Derek, The Epic Film: Myth and History (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul,1984) Richards, Jeffrey, Swordsmen of the Screen: From Douglas Fairbank to Michael York (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1977) Viviani, Christian, Le western (Paris: Artefact, Henri Veyrier, 1982) See Renée Hein and Catherine Saisset, 'La chevalerie dans les étoiles', in Cahiers de la Cinémathèque, 42143 (1985), pp. 167-70. 22 'The Middle Ages which function as a mythology, which are distant enough in time and obfuscated enough so that one can freely project one's own fantasms onto them, while giving them the potency of the past.' George Duby, quoted in Cahiers de la Cinémathèque, 42/43(1985),p.171. 21 THE MIDDLE AGES AFTER THE MIDDLE AGES IN THE ENGLISH-SPEAKING WORLD Edited zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONML by Marie-Françoise Alamichel and Derek Brewer zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSR 'I" D. S. UI~EWHR , CONTENTS Editors' Preface vii CLAIRE VIAL Prom Written Record to Legend: The Receyt zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIH of the Ladie Kateryne as Retelling of the Morte Darthur zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSR DLìlUCK S. TIIOMSON Influences of Medieval Thinking on the Gaelic World in Scotland. in the Sixteenth Century and Later 17 RUES DI.':KKER Jan van Vliet (1620-1666) and the Study of Old English in 27 the Low Countries Bruc G. STANLEY The Early Middle Ages England and in English = The Dark Ages = The Heroic Age of 43 FLolWNCI'. BOlJRGNE Medieval Mirrors and Later Yanitas Paintings 79 t(Ht-JATlì [[AAS The Old Wives' Tale and Dryden 91 l.~mŒK BREWER Modernising the Medieval: Eighteenth-Century Translations of Chaucer . LAUl~A KENDRICK ~fllI;~ American M iddle Ages: Eighteenth-century Saxonist 103 121 Myth-Making RBN~ (JALLET Coleridge. Scholasticism. and German Idealism lAMIIR 137 NOBLE zyxwvutsrqponmlkjihgfedcbaZYXWVUTSRQPONMLKJIHGFEDCBA 1'hf J M ists ofïw a lon: A Confused Assault on Patriarchy 145 ,~ANI>I(i\ UOIWlltvSKI The t\l'thlldun Legend In the Cinema: Myth or History? 153