The definitive Arthurian adaptation gets legendary treatment in Arrow Video’s new box set.
Hollywood has been tilting at the windmill of capturing the magic of the King Arthur legend for decades, from the mid-1950s until as recently as 2021’s The Green Knight, but it’s hard to imagine anyone getting closer to bottling the visual and emotional scope of the sweeping epic in a single motion picture than 1981’s Excalibur.
A labor of love from director John Boorman (who also produced and co-wrote the script), the dreamy fantasy opus sets itself the outlandish goal of adapting almost the entirety of Thomas Mallory’s Le Morte d’Arthur, from the rise of Uther Pendragon and the birth of Arthur all the way to his death at the hand of Mordred. It honestly shouldn’t work, even before you consider that Mallory’s version is itself an amalgamation of dozens of stories from countless sources passed down over centuries. However, Boorman not only covers the narrative ground (mostly) without feeling like he’s speed-reading, but also adds a thematic perspective that now feels natural and indelible to the legend.
In focusing on the titular Excalibur as a narrative totem, Boorman (along with co-writer Rospo Pallenberg) gives the often disjointed and highly episodic Arthurian legends a thematic spine to compliment his concept of the tale representing the coming of civilization and religion to displace the nature-based old gods of Britain. One of the challenges of creating the world of Camelot is that the earliest Arthur legends come from shortly after the Romans abandoned the British Isles while later versions just kept moving the timeline forward.
Boorman’s answer to this was to simply “yes, and” bits from almost every time period, pulling what he wanted for maximum visual and thematic impact. Supposedly set in “the Dark Ages,” his vision of Arthur’s kingdom is an amalgamation of magical forests and endless wastelands somehow coexisting with both isolated medieval villages and towering golden castles filled with knights in full 15th century-style plate mail. It’s a studied unreality that allows the viewer to discard questions about fixed dates and wider worldly events and focus only on what’s on the screen at any given moment.
The journey of the sword from Uther’s violently ambitious hands to the boy king to the Lady of the Lake pulls the viewer along this surreal sprinting tour of the sword in the stone, the forming of the Round Table, the betrayal of Lancelot and Guinevere, the quest for the Holy Grail, and the fall of Camelot. While there’s a lot of actors striking poses and making declarative statements to make sure the audiences knows where and when they are, there’s also quiet moments and intimate scenes of characters simply enjoying each other’s company on the way to the next major act break. Boorman’s direction really excels here, with his focus on the human drama giving the cast’s seasoned stage actors a lot of room to fill in the corners of the legend.
That said, Excalibur doesn’t have a subtle bone in its body. It would be easy for a film so arch and melodramatic to tip over into self-parody, especially as this was already coming in the wake of note-perfect satire Monty Python and the Holy Grail, but Boorman’s commitment to earnestness alongside the outlandish sets and story keeps the tone just this side of camp. It helps that the film is supported by veterans like Nichol Williamson and Helen Mirren as well as packed to the rafters with now-familiar names like Liam Neeson, Patrick Stewart, Ciaran Hinds, and Gabriel Byrne that would become fixtures of genre cinema over the decades.
Nigel Terry is suitably impressive as Arthur in his prime and as and older, stricken monarch, but fares less well when he’s tasked with playing 20 years younger than himself as teenage Arthur – which unfortunately colors our introduction to both the actor and the character. However, his easy chemistry with both Williamson’s Merlin and Cherie Lunghi as Guinevere buys just enough time to let him find his strengths, and by the time he’s dueling Nicholas Clay’s Lancelot or speaking to his knights on Badon Hill, he’s found a real rhythm for the character. He’s especially strong as the older Arthur in the final stretch of the film, finding a deep melancholy and affection as he bids farewell to his companions over the years.
It feels hyperbolic to describe the myriad of adaptation decisions this film makes as akin in scope, difficulty, and relative success to Peter Jackson and company’s work in cramming Tolkien’s prose into the Lord of the Rings films, but Excalibur really is balletic in how it navigates so many elements from its source material. It shifts certain events around in time and combines multiple characters (Paul Geoffrey’s Perceval is as much Bedivere and Gareth as the Grail Knight, but this only enriches his character journey) to fit into a pacey 2 hours and 20 minutes, as well as deepen personal stakes for these figures that could easily be little more than mythic archetypes or inscrutable plot devices. Almost every choice is in service to capturing the spirit of the legend, but also maximizing the personal impact for everyone involved.
The biggest change on a story level is how Excalibur combines the character of Arthur with that of the Fisher King, the wounded monarch whose ailing health required the finding of the Holy Grail in Mallory’s text. In Boorman’s film, Merlin tells Arthur that “the king and the land are one,” which is exemplified when Arthur is stricken down by both grief at personal betrayal and by dark sorcery at the hands of his sister Morgana, so the land itself begins fail as his health wanes. It’s the sort of narrative choice that makes the rest of the film’s hazy approach to its time and place in history into load-bearing surrealism, necessitating the finding of the Grail as a quest for personal salvation and tying it to the film’s over-arching themes of birth, death, and rebirth.
Watching this in a post-LOTR world can still be a somewhat uneven experience, but the idiosyncrasies of the creative choices far outweigh any shortcomings of budget or story constraint. Even when not all of its elements are working in perfect unison (the films still has to “yadda yadda yadda” a few things on its way to a confrontation between Arthur and an adult Mordred who maybe has 3 whole minutes of screen time), Excalibur is an undeniable piece of visual art approaching cinematic opera, especially when pieces from Wagner and Orff are trading off with Trevor Jones’ background score. It’s been infamously influential on Zack Snyder (who’s been trying to remake it for years), but you can also see moments from it lifted almost wholesale in movies like The Fisher King, The Fellowship of the Ring, and The Kid Who Would Be King. The movie feels less like a fantasy blockbuster (it was actually pretty low-budget, considering) than a tale you hear while sitting half-asleep in front of a fire – which is wholly appropriate, given the story’s roots in oral tradition.
John Boorman tried to get this film made for decades, going through so many permutations that between one studio telling him no and Orion pictures finally saying yes, that he had spun up and subsequently backed out of his own planned adaption of The Lord of the Rings, resulting in him incorporating some of those ideas into this movie (only to influence Jackson’s films, and there’s that cycle again). And while it can feel a bit stagey or clumsy at times, its unerring commitment to Boorman’s oddball vision make for an experience that’s somewhat timeless in spite of also being a very 1980’s-ass fantasy movie.
Good luck, Zack – I don’t envy you.
Presentation:
Even Excalibur‘s harshest critics recognize it as a a sumptuous visual experience, and this was an element lost on the previous Blu-ray release – which featured much more muted colors and a flatter picture. Arrow rides to the rescue once again with an impressive restoration from the original negative, presenting the film in John Boorman’s preferred 1:66:1 aspect ratio (hence the narrow black bars on the side of the screen) and bringing the images back to vibrant life.
The film’s soft lighting and highly reflective metal surfaces (from the titular sword to Lancelot’s armor to the walls of Camelot itself) as well as the greens and reds and deep blacks that dominate the film’s color palette come through impressively. The beauty of the film’s Ireland shooting locations are particularly well-served by this transfer.
It’s easy to see why this film immediately became a visual reference point for fantasy movies of the period, and not just because cinematographer Alan Thompson would go on to DP fantasy films like Legend and Labyrinth. Boorman’s in-camera effects and meticulously scheduled location shooting (he talks in particular about wanting to be able to catch bluebells blossoming) result in a mixture of recognizably tactile settings and hazy visions pulled from a half-remembered dream.
The film’s grain has been retained, but is never over-powering, even in lower light, making this new transfer an almost perfect success in creating something between the Bayeux Tapestry and a moving Edmund Blair Leighton painting. Small details like the decoration on Guinevere’s wedding dress or the dragon horns on Arthur’s helmet are as well-served as the sweeping mountain vistas and primeval forests, and it’s never been easier to catch Morgana’s furtive looks or Merlin’s sly smile at the edge of the frame.
The film’s audio is every so slightly more of a mixed back. The presentation of the original mono track is crystal clear and appropriately muscular, but the 5.1 “surround” feels a bit hollow and echo-y due to either a wide mix or a lack of usable LCRS (left, center, right, surround) elements from the audio restoration. Both mixes feature clear music and dialogue, but the mono is the clean victor here.
Bonus Content:
Arrow’s Excalibur box set includes case, double-sided insert disc art, double-sided poster, 120 page booklet featuring cast and crew information, essays, details on the restoration, and other production notes along with the 3 discs.
Disc 1 (4K UHD): Feature Film
Theatrical Cut of the film (4K HDR – 141 minutes)
- Audio Commentary by John Boorman
- Audio Commentary by Brian Hoyle
- Audio Commentary by David Kitteredge
Disc 2 (Blu-ray): Extras
- The Making of Excalibur: Myth Into Movie (HD – 48:19)
- To Be a Knight and Follow a King (HD – 28:12)
- When Death Was But a Dream (HD – 25:07)
- The Charm of Making (HD – 26:11)
- Confessions of a Professional “Pain-in-the-Arse” (HD – 75:44)
- Anam Cara: A Consideration of Rosco Pellenberg & John Boorman (HD – 37:34)
- Divided Nature: The Death and Life of Illusion in the Cinematic Kingdom of John Boorman (HD – 30:07)
- Trailers (Teaser Trailer: HD – 1:48, Theatrical Trailer Upscaled SD – 2:28)
- Image Galleries (Original Production notes, stills, draft screenplay, posters)
One of the big feathers in this set’s cap is “The Making of Excalibur,” a documentary by Neil Jordan shot during the shooting of the film and practically unavailable until now.
In addition to a wealth of on-set behind the scenes footage and cast and crew interviews, there’s a running narration by Boorman as he talks through his creative process, his intentions and visions for the film, his inspirations, and even a look at his editing process.
The other video bonus content is new to this release as well, including present-day interviews with Boorman and his son, a conversation with Neil Jordan about his journey to filmmaking, interviews with the film’s production designer and second-unit director, and visual essays by film historians Howard S. Berger and Kevin Marr.
Disc 3 (Blu-ray): TV Version
- TV Version (HD – 120 minutes)
- Excalibur: Behind the Movie (HD – 52:24)
This final disc is archival extras, with the final featurette (“Excalibur: Behind the Movie”) being a 2013 retrospective that aired on PBS, showcasing cast and crew reflecting on their time making the film.
In addition to hearing from legends like Neeson and Mirren, as well as getting a running retrospective from Boorman himself, a particular draw here is getting to hear Nigel Terry reflect on playing Arthur (Terry passed away in 2015). This serves as a solid companion piece to the “on-set” documentary, and was also never included in previous releases of the film.
The “TV Version” of Excalibur is mostly a curio, being a heavily edited cut of the film for both content and time in order to air on television. The HD transfer is solid, but at just over two hours it loses nearly all the breathing room that Boorman finds in the theatrical cut, and seems largely there for completionists.
Excalibur is a movie I’ve been metaphorically circling for years, first discovering it in a Blockbuster Video in the ’90s and being somewhat baffled by it at turns, but unable to get it out of my head. It’s a film I couldn’t help but keep returning to, and my appreciation for it has grown with each viewing.
With this set, stuffed with bonus materials inside a lavish package and boasting far and away the best presentation of the film since theaters, Boorman’s epic finally has a release worthy of the herculean effort of this production and the lasting impact of the film’s vision. Hollywood doesn’t show any signs of being done with King Arthur adaptations, but it seems unlikely that this will soon be unseated as the singular version all others react to in one way or another. Like the legends it’s based on, Excalibur has taken its place as the stuff of future cinematic memory. A waking dream of what was, and what could be.
Excalibur is now available on 4K UHD from Arrow Video.
