I would like to welcome all new visitors to this part of the Vortigern Studies Messageboard, the Arthurian Forum.
New Messageboard
| Author | Comment | ||
|---|---|---|---|
 Vortigern Studies |
New Messageboard |
Lead | |
|
Posts: 21 (01/11/01 07:41:38) |
|
||
|
Unregistered(d) |
New Message Board | ||
|
Posts: 0 (01/23/01 14:11:20) |
So, not going to welcome old visitors, eh?
 Both new boards look terrific Robert and I think it was a great idea to seperate out the Arthurian ramblings (of which, of course I am a prime guilty party) from the more specific Vortigern discussions. Happy New Year/Millennium to all! Bert Olton |
||
|
Unregistered(d) |
new messageboard | ||
|
Posts: 0 (01/30/01 05:52:15) |
And OF COURSE a very warm welcome to OLD visitors!
 Hi Bert! Glad to see you found your way back here. Yes, I thought this was a good opportunity to make some changes. Glas you liked it as well. |
||
|
Unregistered(d) |
excaliber | ||
|
Posts: 0 (02/17/01 22:18:19) |
i love european history.... how accurate is the move "excaliber" to the true story of arthur ?
|
||
|
Vortigern Studies |
excalibur | ||
|
Posts: 21 (02/18/01 12:20:26) |
I doubt that anything much of Boorman's Excalibur resembled the grit of Arthurian legend. The sword in the stone and all did, but almost all between Guinevere and Lancelot was a bit too 60s. Apart from that Modred killinf off all the knights was really the Grail quest. Apart from that, Modred growing that fastwas absolutely unique..
|
||
|
jefgodesky |
Re: excalibur | ||
|
Posts: 2 (02/18/01 14:59:25) |
Well, of course, when Bert gets back, he's going to be in heaven with this one, so I don't want to steal his thunder. But, this does seem as good a chance as any to get on my "authenticity soapbox."
As a legend, the Arthurian corpus has, of course, grown and changed over time. Our "authentic" version is usually Malory, or White. But these were themselves brand new renditions of the legend, rearranged and restructured into new forms. When Le Mort d'Arthur was written, it was not an accurate rendition of the legend, nor was Tennyson's Idylls of the King. The glory of legend is its many divergent forms, that one form is as accurate as another. And the legend develops with as much innovation as tradition, mixing the new with the old, by putting the old stories in new forms, or simply adding new elements. Excalibur isn't a screenplay of Malory, that's for sure. But it is a rendition of the legend in its own right, and I think that calls for a critique on its own merits or lack thereof, rather than in comparison to various other works. Too often, new innovations in the legend are criticized for not being in line with older representations (okay, so maybe I did like _First Knight_!!), and I don't like this at all. Like the linguistic purists who insist that only one, "accepted" dialect of English be used, without "slang," forgetting that our "accepted" dialect was made by slang and the accents and dialects of the poor who diverged from the "accepted" dialect of their day! Likewise, Malory, Tennyson and White could never have composed their works had there not been a great many who diverged from the old story, put in new elements, and rearranged the order and significance, like "Excalibur" did. Okay, well, now that I'm beginning to dissolve into mere babbling, I think I'll stop before I do too much damage. 
|
||
|
bertolton |
Excalibur | ||
|
Posts: 4 (02/19/01 06:26:57) |
The short answer is of course that no one knows the _true story_ of King Arthur, so it's a wide open subject for writers or film makers. On that point, Excalibur is no more or less accurate than other films.
Essentially, there are three choices in coming up with an Arthurian story or film; 1. Work to follow one of the versions of the legends, 2. Work to follow what little is known of Post Roman/Dark Ages Britain and 3. Make something up. Boorman chose to combine options 1 and 3 in Excalibur. The director claims that all his films include Arthurian elements, but he also stated in an interview that he sees Malory as the first hack novelist. Perhaps that lack of respect for Malory explains the radical departures Boorman took from "The Mort d'Arthur". In spite of all that, Excalibur is still my favorite Arthurian film. I agree that it's ridiculous to criticize a work just because it doesn't hold true to a particular piece of Early or Late Medieval literature. If Excalibur does nothing else however, it captures some of the epic quality of the Arthurian tale. Bert |
||
