Retrospective Film Review

Excalibur (1981) • 40 Years Later

Merlin helps Arthur Pendragon unite the Britons around the Round Table of Camelot, even as dark forces conspire to tear it apart.

John Boorman’s Excalibur is a wonderful oddity, even in the context of the British director’s varied career. It’s an epic fantasy like no other and stands out from the long list of lesser movies that tried to put their own spin on the legends of King Arthur. It’s dismissed by detractors as a piece of cheesy 1980s hokum, yet loved by many as a definitive retelling of timeless legends that hold profound ecological wisdom we sorely need, now more than ever. In recent interviews, Boorman cites it as his personal favourite and believes it to be his greatest cinematic achievement. That’s certainly saying something, coming from the director of Point Blank (1967), his superb second feature and ‘calling-card’.

Tales told of King Arthur, Merlin the Mage, and the Sword in the Stone, Excalibur, had fascinated Boorman since childhood, and he sees his career as a lifelong quest to make mythic movies. He was already pondering his…