Well, it's obvious that a lot of people here are fans of the Arthurian legend. I'm sure you've heard about the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced King Arthur, which is currently in production. It's supposedly based on Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur and is touted as presenting the legend in a more historical and factual light. Hmmm, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't seem to remember Guinevere wielding a sword, an axe, a bow and arrows, etc. Rumor has it she'll be fightin' up a storm in this film.

This leads me to my question: Are there any wothy movie adaptations out there about King Arthur? I've been tempted to get Excalibur from my library, but the Conan the Barbarian-like picture on the cover was, uh, off-putting and I've heard bad things about First Knight.

Excalibur is an interesting pastiche of Arthuriana, which to be fair more or less reflects the disparate nature of the Arthurian materials, but more succeeds, I think, in being an interesting movie about Arthurian legend than in being a specific story or interpretation of the figure or legend of Arthur.

I recently caught the 1953 MGM Knights of the Round Table starring Robert Taylor and Ava Gardner. Mostly a showcase for CinemaScope, it's conventional and a bit stiff, but ultimately turns out to be a fairly sturdy and enjoyable cover of Malory, with the love-triangle presented in a way that puts everybody in just about the best possible light and is accessible to family audiences (I watched it with my eight- and five-year-old kids). Not a great movie by any means, but worth catching. The Christian angle is really hyped, too, especially in the very last scene.

First Knight sucks. Out loud.

I've never seen the musical Camelot version, or the MZB-based Mists of Avalon (but HATED the book).

My favorite 20th-century BOOK versions of the Arthur legend are White and Mary Stewart, whose wonderful Merlin Trilogy + Mordred would make a lovely miniseries.

Someone doing Arthur movies is like someone doing, well, Lord of the Rings movies. It's really easy to do a crappy job. (Yes, I'm looking at you, Rankin Bass.)

First Knight is certainly not in my top ten list. My memory of the movie is pretty vague (blissfully), but the Guinevere/Lancelot thing, I never really appreciated the way movies handled that, like it was this great romantic thing, all beautiful and flowery. From what I remember (haven't read anything on the topic in a few years) Lancelot was pretty tortured about it, no? There was a little bit of guilt/worry on the part of the two lovers, but it really was just lip service. Like, "We know they should feel bad, so here's a shot of Julia Ormond crying. Ok, now back to the passion and romance! Woo!" And Arthur was played by Sean Connery. Who'd cheat on Sean Connery? for Richard Gere??


As far as this newer movie goes: http://www.murphsplace.com/owen/arthur/arthur.html (It looks to be a fansite for the forthcoming movie you referred to, DRose -- scroll down a bit and there's a link to Kiera Knightly talking briefly about her role as Guinevere.)

edited because URLs and tags confound me

Don't forget the Arthurian-inspired The Fisher King!

[quote]My favorite 20th-century BOOK versions of the Arthur legend are White and Mary Stewart, whose wonderful Merlin Trilogy + Mordred would make a lovely miniseries.[/quote]

Oh, the Stuart books certainly would amek a wonderful miniseries. Much better than anything based on Mists of Avalon, which I also hated, could be. Her books show that you can take a different point of view without making those who are traditionally viewed as heroes seem like villians--something many writers of these "feminist" retellings seem unable to understand (Don't even get me started on The Red Tent.)The Once and Future King should definitely be required reading for anyone interested in a relatively modern retelling of the Arthurian legend.

I liked Excalibar quite a bit, and I think SDG's comments on it are accurate. It also has lots of nice visuals--worth seeing.

I liked Camelot, though I prefer the stage version. I don't really evaluate Camelot as a version of the Arthur story as much as I evaluate it as a musical. As an Arthurian story, it's okay, but as a musical it's great fun. Lots of fun songs that I often find myself humming.

Of course, Monty Python gave us my own favorite take on the Arthur legend.

I'm afraid of anything with the Bruckheimer name on it--I can't imagine the damage he'd do to Arthur. :xyxnervous:

--Teresa

In Camelot there is a scene as Arthur ponders what to do about Gwen and Lance that comes straight from Hosea. Also don't forget Disney's The Sword in the Stone.

Doesn't Rohmer have a film about Lancelot?

Jeffrey Overstreet wrote:

Doesn't Rohmer have a film about Lancelot?

Don't know, but I forgot to mention the movie version of Gawain and the Green Knight, which starts very promisingly and goes rapidly downhill.

Yes. Percival is considered by many to be one of his best. It is definitely where you see him and Bazin in full cinematic disagreement, for its production values are decidedly Hollywood.

Okay, don't shoot me for this in case I get it wrong. But I am pretty sure it comes from a 12th century Arthurian work. I can't remember the provenance, Arthur is not my strongsuit by any stretch of the imagination.

But it is not straightforward Medieval re-enactment at all. It is highly stylized.

M Leary, you don't get shot today. Rohmer's Percival is indeed from Chr[this would be an e with an acute accent if I had html]tien de Troyes, which means you're in the right time period and everything.

"Chrétien de Troyes' unfinished Count of the Grail"

Ah. Just found it and posted at the same time as you. I am going to watch it tonight and report back (provided it is checked in).

[quote]M Leary, you don't get shot today. Rohmer's Percival is indeed from Chr[this would be an e with an acute accent if I had html]tien de Troyes, which means you're in the right time period and everything.[/quote]
As in Chrétien?

Alan W wrote:

As in Chrétien? (note the lack of HTML)

That is cheating and is unfortunately not supported by Internet Explorer for Macintosh.

You can write é as:

é

regardless of platform. Other international characters can be written similarly.

Dale

First Knight is the Arthurian movie that medievalists love to hate. I don't mind a anachronisms in a medieval movie with a sense of irony or humor--love Monty Python & the Holy Grail, thought A Knight't Tale was a hoot--but First Knight is so grimly EARNEST, and everyone is so dashed COLOR-COORDINATED. And those stupid cross-bow pistols are the last straw!

The Once and Future King is probably the best modern book based on Malory. I find I always tend to read Malory now through the lens of White, even though I probably shouldn't. I don't like Camelot as much as I did when I was 13, however. The music is good, but as a film, most of it just doesn't hold up well.

Excalibur is also crammed with anachronisms, but it's so beautifully archetypal, and so effective, that almost no one cares, beyond occasionally wondering how the poor knights slept in their armor, which they never seem take off.

M. Dale Prins wrote:

You can write é as:

é

regardless of platform. Other international characters can be written similarly.

Of course you can, I do it all the time. The point is, on this board, if I try to write Chrétien's name that way, it will come out "Chrétien," because this board doesn't render special characters.

However, it turns out that I am wrong about the "é" character written as such not translating properly between IE for Mac and IE for PC. I know there are some special characters that don't, but this appears not to be one of them, for I am on my Mac now.

[quote]M. Dale Prins wrote:

You can write é as:

é

regardless of platform. Other international characters can be written similarly.

Of course you can, I do it all the time. The point is, on this board, if I try to write Chrétien's name that way, it will come out "Chrétien," because this board doesn't render special characters.

However, it turns out that I am wrong about the "é" character written as such not translating properly between IE for Mac and IE for PC. I know there are some special characters that don't, but this appears not to be one of them, for I am on my Mac now.[/quote]
I just cut-and-pasted the correct spelling from another site. Works for me.

Speaking of King Arthur...

teresakayep wrote:
: I'm afraid of anything with the Bruckheimer name on it--I can't imagine
: the damage he'd do to Arthur.

He's producing, but I believe the director is Antoine Fuqua, who started out making boilerplate action films like The Replacement Killers but was also the director responsible for Denzel Washington's Oscar-winning performance in Training Day; his most recent film was the Bruce Willis / Monica Bellucci war movie Tears of the Sun.

Darrel Manson wrote:
: Also don't forget Disney's The Sword in the Stone.

Based on The Once and Future King, if I'm not mistaken -- I remember watching my copy of this DVD not long after seeing X2: X-Men United, which makes a couple of references to that book.

FYI, the Learning Channel is airing a documentary on the real King Arthur this week:

http://tlc.discovery.com/tuneins/arthur.html

--Teresa

If it's the Discovery Channel doc I've seen before, I remember it being not bad.

Am I the only one who's read (okay, most of ) Steven Lawhead's Pendragon Trilogy? Taliesin, Merlin, Arthur. A greater emphasis of Christian overtones, but strong enough to stand on its own in the secular market. Good poetry in there too.

In terms of films, I saw Excalibur once, _years_ ago, and remembered how beautiful it was. Considering buying the DVD for some time now, but haven't quite gotten the urge to do it--need to see it again on cable or rent it.

Nick

Thanks for the recommendations, everyone. I'll definitely look past that tacky cover (which has since been updated, so my library's copy must be very old) and check out Excalibur. I should be able to grab it this week.

Alas, no cable...or I'd look into that Arthur documentary, too.

[quote]I'm afraid of anything with the Bruckheimer name on it--I can't imagine the damage he'd do to Arthur. [/quote]

Pirates of the Carribean had "the Bruckheimer name on it", and I really enjoyed it. However, I think the legend of Arthur deserves a slightly more serious tone than a film based on a Disneyland theme-park ride.

Coincidentally, (or not), Miss Knightly also starred in Pirates (and she's a real hottie too!). I also happen to be a fan of Clive Owen. Here's hoping the movie is a sucess.

Get a load of Guinevere!

Why does this remind me of Knightly's remark on the Jay Leno show that the make-up people on Pirates of the Caribbean applied their skills to her chest to give her what seemed to be better cleavage?

More importantly, why does this not remind me of Guinevere?

Speaking of Bruckheimer-produced historical epics, has anyone seen the jingoistic ads for The Alamo? I wanna gag. (And because Canada is treated like part of the American studios' "domestic" market, we get the full rah-rah stars-and-stripes be-a-patriot treatment.)

Addendum: Whoops. Just fact-checked this and the film in question is actually being produced by Brian Grazer. I must've gotten it confused with Bruckheimer because I saw the trailer just before Veronica Guerin, which IS a Bruckheimer film. I would have deleted this message, but I couldn't find the button for doing that.

Those photos look like promo still from Guinevere: Warrior Princess, or some such.

It doesn't remind you of Guinevere, because it's not :wink: It's Gwynhwyfar, the British tribal princess! #-o Evidently, they're going with an "authentic" 6th-century Arthur approach, rather than the usual Malory-White-Tennyson 12th-15th century hodgepodge Camelot approach. Hm.

Ever since First Knight, I'm generally skeptical of Arthurian movies until I actually see them. But I will see it, probably.

BethR wrote:
: Evidently, they're going with an "authentic" 6th-century Arthur approach,
: rather than the usual Malory-White-Tennyson 12th-15th century
: hodgepodge Camelot approach. Hm.

Dare I ask, is there an Arthur Seminar helping them out?

BethR wrote:

It doesn't remind you of Guinevere, because it's not :wink: It's Gwynhwyfar, the British tribal princess! #-o

You can call her Gwynhwyfar, Gainovere, Genever, Guendoloena, Gaina, Weinore, Jenover, Wenneveria, or Zinevra (just a few variants mentioned in one of my Arthurian reference books). I'm not getting an Arthurian vibe here, that's the main thing. That Warrior-Princess comment was spot on.

Evidently, they're going with an "authentic" 6th-century Arthur approach, rather than the usual Malory-White-Tennyson 12th-15th century hodgepodge Camelot approach. Hm.

I'm totally cool with trying to go back and be as authentic to the 6th-century historical realities as possible. But I am deeply hostile to just acting like Geoffrey, Chretien, Malory et al never happened. The fact is, if it weren't for Geoffrey and Cretien and Malory and the rest, you wouldn't be making a King Arthur movie today, so you owe it to them to try to take their contributions into account and do something constructive with it rather than tearing it all down and starting from their earliest sources according to you and you alone.

Of course, I have not entirely dissimilar issues with the Protestant Reformation, but that's something else again....

Ever since First Knight, I'm generally skeptical of Arthurian movies until I actually see them. But I will see it, probably.

Oh yes, so will I. And I will continue to pine for the definitive Arthur movie. How come Robin Hood got his classic Errol Flynn adventure and King Arthur still awaits a truly authoritative cinematic interpretation?

SDG wrote:
: I'm totally cool with trying to go back and be as authentic to the
: 6th-century historical realities as possible. But I am deeply hostile to just
: acting like Geoffrey, Chretien, Malory et al never happened. The fact is,
: if it weren't for Geoffrey and Cretien and Malory and the rest, you
: wouldn't be making a King Arthur movie today, so you owe it to them to
: try to take their contributions into account and do something constructive
: with it rather than tearing it all down and starting from their earliest
: sources according to you and you alone.

I totally, totally disagree. There is absolutely no reason that we should be slaves to the artistic or literary embellishments of later writers. You might just as well say that every movie made nowadays about Robin Hood is obliged to take Errol Flynn's contribution into account. (And I wrote this sentence before reading your reference to Errol Flynn's film a couple paragraphs later ... hmmm.)

: Of course, I have not entirely dissimilar issues with the Protestant
: Reformation, but that's something else again....

Quite.

Peter T Chattaway wrote:

SDG wrote:
: I'm totally cool with trying to go back and be as authentic to the
: 6th-century historical realities as possible. But I am deeply hostile to just
: acting like Geoffrey, Chretien, Malory et al never happened. The fact is,
: if it weren't for Geoffrey and Cretien and Malory and the rest, you
: wouldn't be making a King Arthur movie today, so you owe it to them to
: try to take their contributions into account and do something constructive
: with it rather than tearing it all down and starting from their earliest
: sources according to you and you alone.

I totally, totally disagree. There is absolutely no reason that we should be slaves to the artistic or literary embellishments of later writers.

Since I said nothing about being slaves to the artistic or literary embellishments of later writers, I'm not sure what relevance this has to my comments.

Beyond that, I think it's rather silly to describe the contributions of Geoffrey and Chretien and Malory as "embellishments." What have you got to go on, prior to Geoffrey? A couple of bits in the Mabinogion, a couple of references in Nennius and so forth, and hardly anything else. Not much to make a movie about. Certainly nothing that would ever inspire a movie in the first place, if it weren't for Geoffrey and the later writers. To ring a change on my earlier analogy, you almost might as well talk about making a movie about Jesus and ignoring the "embellishments" of the Evangelists (and now of course we are back to your "Arthur Seminar" crack).

You might just as well say that every movie made nowadays about Robin Hood is obliged to take Errol Flynn's contribution into account.

That doesn't remotely follow, although as it happens I think you'd have to be stupid to make a Robin Hood movie and not even think about the Errol Flynn version in relation to your film. But Errol Flynn didn't so much reshape or constitute the Robin Hood legend in the popular imagination, the way that Geoffrey, Chretien, and Malory reshaped and constituted the Arthurian material, as simply give it its definitive cinematic summation. Robin Hood is pretty much the same figure today as he was in 1937. But King Arthur before Geoffrey -- or, let's face it, before Malory -- was not remotely the figure he is today in popular imagination. Without Geoffrey, you have no Guinevere, no matter how you spell her name. Without Chretien, you have no Lancelot. The bottom line is, European civilization has been retelling this story for centuries, and it's gotten really good at it, and you ignore that at the peril of your own version. Can you imagine a Superman movie based solely on Action Comics #1? I can, but I doubt there would be any point to making it, or that it would do anything interesting or worthwhile for the Superman mythos. Ditto an Arthur movie that disrespects the development of Arthurian tradition.

SDG wrote:
: What have you got to go on, prior to Geoffrey?

Those "earliest sources" you mentioned, I assume.

Let's put it this way. Would you be as opposed, in principle, to Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead, which purports to be an account of the 'real' history behind the Beowulf legend? I don't think John McTiernan's adaptation of that book, The Thirteenth Warrior, is all that good, but I appreciate the idea, in principle. I would similarly appreciate any attempt to imagine the 'real' history behind the Arthurian legends, as speculative as they might be.

: To ring a change on my earlier analogy, you almost might as well talk
: about making a movie about Jesus and ignoring the "embellishments" of
: the Evangelists (and now of course we are back to your "Arthur Seminar"
: crack).

And indeed, there is not a single Jesus movie out there that doesn't ignore SOME element of the gospels. But I guess a more accurate analogy would be a Jesus movie that ignored EVERYTHING in the gospels, which is pretty difficult to imagine, since there'd be no story at all, then. The main difference here, of course, is that it doesn't really matter how much of the Arthurian legends is historical, whereas it does matter very much whether there is an historical core to the gospels (even if we can accept that some aspects of the gospels are later literary inventions).

: Without Geoffrey, you have no Guinevere, no matter how you spell her
: name. Without Chretien, you have no Lancelot.

Ah. So these characters didn't exist at all before those authors, is that it?

: The bottom line is, European civilization has been retelling this story for
: centuries, and it's gotten really good at it, and you ignore that at the peril
: of your own version.

Well, what's art without a few risks, eh?

: Can you imagine a Superman movie based solely on Action Comics #1?
: I can, but I doubt there would be any point to making it, or that it would
: do anything interesting or worthwhile for the Superman mythos.

Now that you mention it, I think that could be pretty cool. It would be like watching those old Fleischer cartoons, in which Superman doesn't fly yet -- he only makes giant leaps, like the Hulk.

Peter T Chattaway wrote:

: What have you got to go on, prior to Geoffrey?

Those "earliest sources" you mentioned, I assume.

Which offer you very little worth making into a movie, or that many people would want to make into a movie, if it hadn't been for the interest generated by the subsequent tradition.

Let's put it this way. Would you be as opposed, in principle, to Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead, which purports to be an account of the 'real' history behind the Beowulf legend? I don't think John McTiernan's adaptation of that book, The Thirteenth Warrior, is all that good, but I appreciate the idea, in principle. I would similarly appreciate any attempt to imagine the 'real' history behind the Arthurian legends, as speculative as they might be.

In principle, I acknowledge the possibility of such an endeavor succeeding. My opposition is not a matter of absolute principle but of an aesthetic resistance to something that I think doesn't work in practice -- and, in fact, the failure of The Thirteenth Warrior is grist for my mill.

I've always liked this quote from Alan Moore's introduction to Frank Miller's The Dark Knight Returns: "Everything is exactly the same, except for the fact that it's all completely different." Miller took the Batman canon as he received it and then radically reinvented and reinterpreted it in a way that respected and honored the source material, rather than in a way that was radically revisionistic and antithetical to the source material, or in a way that said "I'm going by the earliest Batman stories only and screw everything else." For my money, that's the way to do an adaption. I am suspicious of revisionistic or primitivist approaches, not in the sense that they couldn't possibly work but in the sense that I am skeptical about getting them to work in fact, especially if I am a fan of the source material and will resent such an obvious lack of respect.

Again, not to say it's impossible. I'm an aesthetic idealist; I believe in principle that almost anything you can conceive of doing in art can really be done in art. In principle, I think it's possible to make a live-action Scooby-Doo movie that is truly great art, perhaps even the best film of the year. But I hold out little hope that anyone will ever actually do it.

And indeed, there is not a single Jesus movie out there that doesn't ignore SOME element of the gospels. But I guess a more accurate analogy would be a Jesus movie that ignored EVERYTHING in the gospels, which is pretty difficult to imagine, since there'd be no story at all, then.

And in between those two extremes there are approaches that respect and honor the gospels without necessarily following every detail and approaches that don't respect the gospels even though they follow them in some details. It's a matter of sensibility. First Knight does not honor its source material. The Adventures of Robin Hood does. Spider-Man honors its source material more than Daredevil. I am in favor of honoring the source material, and that starts with recognizing and being honest about what your source material is, and what made a given topic interesting to you in the first place. Attempts to dig beneath the story that attracted you in the first place and find some supposedly more authentic kernel beneath it in my opinion are ill-advised and tend not to work.

The main difference here, of course, is that it doesn't really matter how much of the Arthurian legends is historical, whereas it does matter very much whether there is an historical core to the gospels (even if we can accept that some aspects of the gospels are later literary inventions).

Of course. And ditto the tradition issue: Geoffrey, Cretien, and Malory all invented, to one degree or another, but the claim in the case of Catholic tradition is that it merely expanded upon what was already there from the beginning. The analogy can't be pressed too far, but I still think there are some interesting resonances.

: Without Geoffrey, you have no Guinevere, no matter how you spell her
: name. Without Chretien, you have no Lancelot.

Ah. So these characters didn't exist at all before those authors, is that it?

I misspoke in the case of Guinevere (or Gwenhwyfar); she actually goes back to the Mabinogion, to the story of Culhwch and Olwen. But yeah, we have no record of Lancelot prior to Chretien de Troyes. Not to say that they didn't exist before these tales, but we can't document their existing.

: The bottom line is, European civilization has been retelling this story for
: centuries, and it's gotten really good at it, and you ignore that at the peril
: of your own version.

Well, what's art without a few risks, eh?

I think it's plenty risky enough going for the Frank Miller style reimagining. It's still quite possible to fail. Do it the other way, and I'm betting you fail.

: Can you imagine a Superman movie based solely on Action Comics #1?
: I can, but I doubt there would be any point to making it, or that it would
: do anything interesting or worthwhile for the Superman mythos.

Now that you mention it, I think that could be pretty cool. It would be like watching those old Fleischer cartoons, in which Superman doesn't fly yet -- he only makes giant leaps, like the Hulk.

And of course those old Fleischer cartoons, interesting as they are in their historical context, are part of Superman's past, not his ongoing development. I repeat that redoing them would not, in my opinion, hold much potential to do anything interesting or worthwhile for the Superman mythos. Not to say it's impossible. But I think it's one of the least promising approaches to the prospect of making a Superman movie.

[quote]

: Without Geoffrey, you have no Guinevere, no matter how you spell her
: name. Without Chretien, you have no Lancelot.

Ah. So these characters didn't exist at all before those authors, is that it?

I misspoke in the case of Guinevere (or Gwenhwyfar); she actually goes back to the Mabinogion, to the story of Culhwch and Olwen. But yeah, we have no record of Lancelot prior to Chretien de Troyes. Not to say that they didn't exist before these tales, but we can't document their existing.

[/quote]

Thanks for saving me the trouble of pointing out the Culhwch & Olwen connection. There's a theory (a whole book about it) that Lancelot has continental European origins older than Arthur's, but he's certainly not British. On the other hand, in Geoffrey, Mordred (or Medraut) plays a somewhat analogous role--an adulterous affair with the Queen, kidnapping her, etc., before trying to take over the kingdom. He's even more important than in Malory. And Medraut is linked with Arthur in the "Annals of Cambria (900 AD), though it's not really clear whether he's an ally or an enemy ("The Battle of Camlann, in which Arthur and Medraut fell").

But it's true, the shape of the legend before the 12th century is pretty nebulous, going by the available sources.

SDG wrote:
: My opposition is not a matter of absolute principle but of an aesthetic
: resistance to something that I think doesn't work in practice -- and, in
: fact, the failure of The Thirteenth Warrior is grist for my mill.

I wouldn't be so sure of that. I remember thinking Crichton's book was good and interesting enough -- and I liked his theory that the legends about Grendel and his mother were references to the last remnants of Neanderthal society in northern Europe -- but it was just the film itself that was badly made. I mean, McTiernan made a couple good flicks in the old days, what with Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October, but nowadays, he's become the guy who made that awful remake of Rollerball.

: I've always liked this quote from Alan Moore's introduction to Frank
: Miller's The Dark Knight Returns: "Everything is exactly the same, except
: for the fact that it's all completely different." Miller took the Batman
: canon as he received it and then radically reinvented and reinterpreted it
: in a way that respected and honored the source material, rather than in
: a way that was radically revisionistic and antithetical to the source
: material, or in a way that said "I'm going by the earliest Batman stories
: only and screw everything else." For my money, that's the way to do an
: adaption.

Ah, but Miller was writing a story that supposedly took place AFTER the canon-to-date had taken place. He was NOT pretending to give us an alternate history of the events we already knew about. I'm not even sure you can call what Miller did an "adaptation" to begin with.

Perhaps a better analogy might be what John Byrne did with the Superman mythos in the late '80s, when he started it all over from scratch and decided to junk all the Superboy, Supergirl, indestructible cape, death-of-the-Kents etc. stuff.

: It's a matter of sensibility. First Knight does not honor its source
: material. The Adventures of Robin Hood does. Spider-Man honors its
: source material more than Daredevil.

Well, 'honour' and 'respect' are nice when they're needed, but again, you don't want to become a slave to the old material -- there CAN be value in bypassing the later sources in favour of some other reconstruction. And of course, there is a world of difference between films that ADAPT the stories of fictitious Marvel Comics heroes a little too loosely on the one hand, and films that seek to explore the tension between history and legend on the other. (And no, I'm not referring to First Knight here, since I have never seen the film.)

: I am in favor of honoring the source material, and that starts with
: recognizing and being honest about what your source material is, and
: what made a given topic interesting to you in the first place.

Thing is, sometimes a person's attention is caught by the sheer artificiality or falseness of a story, so what becomes interesting to them is not the story as given, but the 'real' story lurking beneath. This is a factor not only when the story has a HISTORICAL core, as in the case of Arthur or Robin Hood, but also in the case of the comic books that you cite, where there is no historical core but there is, shall we say, a PSYCHOLOGICAL core that has been ignored or distorted by the stories to date, and which the new authors want to bring to the light.

: And of course those old Fleischer cartoons, interesting as they are in
: their historical context, are part of Superman's past, not his ongoing
: development.

Right, so any new films along those lines could have a cool retro feel.

Peter T Chattaway wrote:

Perhaps a better analogy might be what John Byrne did with the Superman mythos in the late '80s, when he started it all over from scratch and decided to junk all the Superboy, Supergirl, indestructible cape, death-of-the-Kents etc. stuff.

Dude, that's a perfect example, because Byrne's deep affection and respect for the full gamut of his impossibly varied source material -- which included a number of prior continuities without Superboy or Supergirl -- is all over that adaptation, as can be seen in the long list of influences to which he tips his hat in the trade paperback edition. Obviously he had to pick and choose what he was going to include as well as how he was going to reinterpret, reinvent, update, and synthesize, but the point is that he did it in a spirit of respect and with a desire to honor the source material, not a dismissively revisionistic spirit that simply wrote off the previous five decades of development and went back and started over with Action Comics #1.

Well, 'honour' and 'respect' are nice when they're needed, but again, you don't want to become a slave to the old material -- there CAN be value in bypassing the later sources in favour of some other reconstruction.

I don't think of honor and respect for the source material as being elements that are nice to bring in here and there. I think of them as guiding sensibilities that should be at work throughout the process. Only someone who respects his source material can justly decide in a spirit of respect when that material is best bypassed or altered and make an adaptation worthy of the name. Otherwise you're just pillaging someone else's work for material to use in your own creation -- which, depending on the results, may be a good or bad product judged on its own terms, but which will not work as an adaptation or please fans of the original qua fans.

Thing is, sometimes a person's attention is caught by the sheer artificiality or falseness of a story, so what becomes interesting to them is not the story as given, but the 'real' story lurking beneath.

I've got no objection to being interested in the real story lurking underneath, but as soon as you're not interested in the story as given I think you're in danger of just projecting your own ideas onto what you decide is the authentic core of the source material (the old "by their lives of Christ ye shall know them" syndrome). Anyone who says he's interested in telling a King Arthur story but doesn't care about Geoffrey or Chretien or Malory, I say he's tone-deaf and arrogant and setting himself up for failure.

: And of course those old Fleischer cartoons, interesting as they are in
: their historical context, are part of Superman's past, not his ongoing
: development.

Right, so any new films along those lines could have a cool retro feel.

Sure, in principle. And Scooby-Doo 2 could be the best film of the year, in principle. I just don't think it's very likely to work in fact.

SDG wrote:
: Dude, that's a perfect example . . .

I think you and I are moving to a common point of understanding here.

: I don't think of honor and respect for the source material as being
: elements that are nice to bring in here and there. I think of them as
: guiding sensibilities that should be at work throughout the process.

Agreed, but I guess what was at issue here was what the source material was in the first place. If someone proposes going to the primary source material and not to the secondary source materials, I can't say I have much of a beef with that. There's a reason we distinguish between them by calling one 'primary' and the other 'secondary'. (But having said that, as an historian, I would still rely on, say, a secondary source like the Book of Acts to provide a basic framework within which I would read the primary sources which are Paul's epistles. I might even allow that Acts brings to the fore historical elements that Paul suppressed in his epistles -- like the possibility that Jews were involved in the plot against Paul's life in Damascus, or the possibility that Paul performed a circumcision on at least one of his followers even though his letters are full of some pretty forceful anti-circumcision rhetoric. But in that case, at least, the secondary source is so close to the primary source -- portions of it are even written in the first person -- that we often lump it in with the primary sources; so it's not quite the same thing as appealing to secondary sources that were written hundreds and hundreds of years later.)

: Only someone who respects his source material can justly decide in a
: spirit of respect when that material is best bypassed or altered and make
: an adaptation worthy of the name.

Ah, but do the people making this Arthur film call it an 'adaptation' of the sources to which you refer? If not, then your objection (which is somewhat circular -- "only someone with respect can make decisions in a spirit of respect" -- well, uh, yeah!) loses some of its force.

: Otherwise you're just pillaging someone else's work for material to use in
: your own creation -- which, depending on the results, may be a good or
: bad product judged on its own terms, but which will not work as an
: adaptation or please fans of the original qua fans.

Well, nothing wrong with that, obviously.

: Anyone who says he's interested in telling a King Arthur story but doesn't
: care about Geoffrey or Chretien or Malory, I say he's tone-deaf and
: arrogant and setting himself up for failure.

Yeah, well, where would we be without at least SOME arrogance. It does help to buck received wisdom at times. You just have to know that you're bucking it, and be honest about that.

FWIW...

[url=http://www.moviecitynews.com/arrays/king_arthur_arthur.htm]More photos. (This time of Arthur and his posse.)

Well, a glance at the entire photo gallery shows the film has a beautiful look about it (except for that horrible belt-strap-across-the-chest thing on Guinevere). I'll probably go see it.

[quote]Those photos look like promo still from Guinevere: Warrior Princess, or some such.[/quote]

My thoughts exactly.

Diane

[quote]FWIW...

[url=http://www.moviecitynews.com/arrays/king_arthur_arthur.htm]More photos.

Definitely attempting a post-Roman Britain thing. We can only cross our fingers and hope devoutly that they're not planning to go all Mists of Avalon on us.

Can you tell that I have definite--er--views--on the Matter of Britain?

When I saw the photos, my first thought was LotR's Rohan meets Gladiator.

Diane

[quote]When I saw the photos, my first thought was LotR's Rohan meets Gladiator. [/quote]

Which, given Rohan's origins lie in the early English tribes of the Dark Ages (ala Beowulf) and the fact that they're playing the post-Roman era for this film, that's probably a good thing.

I'm somewhat interested in this film, and I think it could be good. But seeing as I recently did Malory in one of my courses, I echo SDG's desire to see a definitive Arthur film that takes the Malory, Crétien, Tennyson approach.

[quote]Which, given Rohan's origins lie in the early English tribes of the Dark Ages (ala Beowulf) and the fact that they're playing the post-Roman era for this film, that's probably a good thing.[/quote]

Definitely.

[quote]I'm somewhat interested in this film, and I think it could be good. But seeing as I recently did Malory in one of my courses, I echo SDG's desire to see a definitive Arthur film that takes the Malory, Crétien, Tennyson approach.[/quote]

Oh, I echo this desire, too. The definitive version only waits for me to step behind the camera and direct it. Ha! My dream job in Bizarro-world.

Diane

[quote][quote]I'm somewhat interested in this film, and I think it could be good. But seeing as I recently did Malory in one of my courses, I echo SDG's desire to see a definitive Arthur film that takes the Malory, Crétien, Tennyson approach.[/quote]

Oh, I echo this desire, too. The definitive version only waits for me to step behind the camera and direct it. Ha! My dream job in Bizarro-world.

Diane[/quote]

I'd see that movie. Go for it!

Ever since I read the Pendragon Cycle, which takes place somewhere in the 5th or 6th century, all the other renditions of Arthur have struck me as cold. There is something really compelling to me about Arthur filling the power vacuum the Romans left, including the fact that if he's unsuccessful, there are some barbarous savages up north who aren't going to give him a second chance.

As for the pictures of Gwen, the "warrior princess" aspect that is being played up meshes perfectly with Lawhead's story. Lawhead makes her an Irish princess however, and as such is a bit more civilized than the Scoti or Picti, as it seems like they have Gwen.

I have always wanted to see a film version of "Arthur" and this looks like as close as I'm likely to get. I can't wait.

AFAIK, most forms of the Arthur story have Arthur filling the power vacuum left by the Romans, albeit following Vortigern and Uther.

[quote]AFAIK, most forms of the Arthur story have Arthur filling the power vacuum left by the Romans, albeit following Vortigern and Uther.[/quote]Which is perhaps why most of those forms do not appeal to me. They claim to do as you say, yet all seem to be set hundreds of years after Roman rule. To have Arthur and his knights go on their crusade for the Holy Grail, which was an idea obviously informed by the actual crusades, places him in at least the 11th century, well after the Romans had cleared out of Britain. Also, the ideas of courtly love and chivalry put forth are ideals that were much more applicable to 13th century and 14th century European society and as such seem like an anachronism in the case that we place Arthur in the "Roman power vacuum" period. In other words, many traditional elements of the Arthur saga seem out of place in the context of Britain's fledgeling soveriegnty, which is why I'm glad that the Pendragon Cycle dispensed with them and focused on the politics of soveriegnty, and am equally glad to see this film seeming to do the same.