Just saw the somewhat revisionist, yet supposedly fact-based, film about the historical Arthur today. Now of course I was put-off right from the get-go because, yes, I’ve long known that historians suspect a Roman warrior, one “Arturus,” to be the basis for the Arthur legends. But I also know that Lancelot didn’t enter the mythos until about six centuries later, when the French crowbarred him in. I mean, naturally: He’s better and stronger than any other knight, he’s so irresistable that the queen cuckolds her husband for him, and of course he’s French. He’s like a medieval Lieutenant Mary Sue. So don’t go telling me you’re making a movie steeped in historical theory and then toss in a latter-day Gaullic addendum ’cause it’s just pìššìņg me off.
That said, I liked it a hëll of a lot better than I thought I would. Considering I know that they edited the crap out of it and inserted an uplifting ending, I’d be intrigued to see the R-rated director’s cut which I understand will be released on DVD. The absolutely stand-out is Bors, a growling monster-bear of a man who has so many bášŧárd children that he can’t be bothered to name them, only number them. Although I have to say that the mother of his kids (a dozen of them) should looked a lot less haggard than any such woman would realistically have the right to be. Kind of typical of these sorts of films: The men looked grizzled and wartorn and the women look like Hollywood actresses. The last time I saw a period film set in a poor area where the women looked right for the time and place, it was “Fiddler on the Roof.”
It’s certainly a refreshing take on Arthur once you get past the whole out-of-place Lancelot thing, and it certainly beats the hëll out of the ghastly “First Knight.”
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