[9]
Director John Boorman (Deliverance, Zardoz) mounts an ambitious pastiche of the entire Arthurian legend with Excalibur. Nigel Terry plays King Arthur from his naïve youth to his death and departure for Avalon, guided nearly every step of the way by the wizard Merlin (Nicol Williamson). Boorman and screenwriter Rospo Pallenberg hit all the highlights: the backstory of Arthur’s father Uther Pendragon (Gabriel Byrne), the pulling of the sword from the stone, Camelot and the Knights of the Round Table, the betrayal of Guenevere (Cherie Lunghi) and Lancelot (Nicholas Clay), the wrath of his half-sister Morgana (Helen Mirren), and the quest for the Holy Grail.
Excalibur hits a sweet spot for me that makes it all too easy to forgive its shortcomings. First of all, the story is all there — love, betrayal, revenge, atonement, and resurrection — compelling in its own right on that primal, archetypal level. And it’s captured sumptuously by cinematographer Alex Thomson (Legend, Alien 3) and costume designer Bob Ringwood (Dune, Batman). Boorman stages most of the film in the breathtaking Irish countryside, which has an ancient, magical vibe all of its own. Excalibur succeeds in transporting me to another time and place like few films do, and remarkably, it does so with next-to-no visual effects.
Among the cast, the film belongs to Merlin. Nicol Williamson plays the wizard with a refreshingly off-kilter, humorous quality that helps the film from getting mired in its dramatic weight. Helen Mirren makes for a great villain, as Morgana uses Merlin’s teachings against him and tricks Arthur into incest. She begets a ruthless son, Mordred (Robert Addie), who squares off with Arthur in the film’s finale. Of the main characters, Nicholas Clay makes the biggest impression as the handsome, loyal Lancelot, who admirably resists his lust for Guenevere for sake of king and country. When he finally makes that fateful betrayal, we can feel his and Guenevere’s shame and regret.
Other cast members are overly-theatrical, including ill-cast Nigel Terry as Arthur. Terry always sounds like he’s projecting his voice for the audience in the back of a stage production, often with eyes so wide and head shaking violently enough as to suggest a Kabuki theater performance. He’s not convincing at all as teenaged Arthur, and is best in the film’s back half, when Arthur is aged and tired. I suspect nearly all the dialogue in Excalibur was dubbed in post-production, which may explain why many of the actors, perhaps Terry included, feel ‘off’ or wooden.
The sound design in Excalibur is its biggest disappointment for me. It’s too sparse in many places, and the sound effects are often terribly unconvincing. A rich fantasy film like this deserved a much more sophisticated soundtrack. The music is hit and miss, too. Trevor Jones (The Dark Crystal, The Last of the Mohicans) contributes a few original cues, including an eerie theme for the sword Excalibur itself and an early, vibrant dance number for Arthur’s mother Igrayne. But most of the film is sloppily and repetitively tracked with classical music from Richard Wagner and Carl Orff’s Carmina Burana. These tracks sometimes fit the film like a glove and pack a powerful punch, but Boorman over-uses them, often fading them in and out in a jarringly abrupt manner.
Despite its frequent theatricality and less-than-stellar sound work, this is a film that speaks to me as a story and transports me with its atmosphere and visual splendor. It’s a world I love falling into from time to time, so I can’t help loving it — warts and all.
With Paul Geoffrey as Perceval, Liam Neeson as Gawain, and Patrick Stewart as Leondegrance.
Oscar Nomination: Best Cinematography (Alex Thomson)