King Arthur (2004 film)

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King Arthur
Movie poster king arthur.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Antoine Fuqua
Written by David Franzoni
Produced by Jerry Bruckheimer
Starring
Cinematography Slawomir Idziak
Edited by Conrad Buff
Jamie Pearson
Music by Hans Zimmer
Production
companies
Touchstone Pictures
Jerry Bruckheimer Films
World 2000 Entertainment
Green Hills Productions
Distributed by Buena Vista Pictures Distribution
Release date
7 July 2004 (2004-07-07)
Running time
126 minutes
142 minutes (Director's cut)
CountriesUnited States
United Kingdom
Ireland
LanguagesEnglish, Scottish Gaelic
Budget$120 million
Box office$203.6 million

King Arthur is a 2004 historical adventure film directed by Antoine Fuqua and written by David Franzoni. It features an ensemble cast with Clive Owen as the title character, Ioan Gruffudd as Lancelot and Keira Knightley as Guinevere, along with Mads Mikkelsen, Joel Edgerton, Hugh Dancy, Ray Winstone, Ray Stevenson, Stephen Dillane, Stellan Skarsgård and Til Schweiger.

Contents

The film is unusual in reinterpreting Arthur as a Roman officer rather than the typical medieval knight. There have been several literary works that have also done so, including David Gemmell's Ghost King, Jack Whyte's Camulod Chronicles, and perhaps the strongest influence on this film, Bernard Cornwell's Warlord series. The producers of the film attempted to market it as a more historically accurate version of the Arthurian legends, supposedly inspired by new archaeological findings. The film also replaces the sword in the stone story with a more dark and tragic backstory of how Arthur claimed his sword Excalibur. The film was shot in Ireland, England, and Wales. [1]

Plot

In the 5th century AD, the declining Roman Empire is withdrawing from Britannia, where the native Woads, led by Merlin, stage an insurgency. A group of Sarmatian knights and their half-British Roman commander Artorius Castus, known as "Arthur", have fulfilled their duties to Rome and are preparing to return home. Arthur himself plans to continue his career in Rome until Bishop Germanus orders them to complete one final mission: evacuate an important Roman family from north of Hadrian's Wall, saving them from an advancing army of invading Saxons led by the ruthless Cerdic and his son, Cynric. Alecto, the son of the family patriarch, is a viable candidate to be a future Pope. Arthur and his remaining men – Lancelot, Tristan, Galahad, Bors, Gawain, and Dagonet – reluctantly accept the mission.

Arriving at their destination, they find that the Roman patriarch Marius, who refuses to leave, has enslaved the local population, enraging Arthur. He discovers a cell complex containing a number of dead Woads and two tortured survivors — a young woman named Guinevere and her younger brother Lucan. Arthur frees them and gives Marius an ultimatum — leave with them willingly or otherwise be taken prisoner. He and his knights commandeer the homestead, and liberate its exploited people. The convoy flees into the mountains with the Saxons in pursuit. Marius leads an attempted coup but is slain by Guinevere. Arthur learns from Alecto that Germanus and his fellow bishops had Arthur's childhood mentor and father figure Pelagius executed for heresy. This further disillusions Arthur with the Roman way of life, a process that matures when Guinevere and Merlin remind Arthur of his connection to the island of Britain through his Celtic mother.

Arthur leads the pursuing Saxons, led by Cynric, through a pass crossing a frozen lake. As battle ensues, Dagonet sacrifices himself to crack the lake ice with his axe, disrupting the Saxon advance. The knights safely deliver Alecto and his mother to Hadrian's wall and are officially discharged. Arthur, having concluded that his destiny lies with his mother's people, decides to engage the Saxons despite Lancelot's pleas to leave with them. The night before the battle, he and Guinevere make love, and on the following day, Arthur meets Cerdic under a white flag of parley, vowing to kill him. He is soon joined by Lancelot and his fellow knights, who decide to fight. In the climactic Battle of Badon Hill, the Woads and knights whittle the Saxon army. Guinevere engages Cynric, who overwhelms her. Lancelot aids her and kills Cynric but is fatally wounded. Cerdic kills Tristan before facing off against Arthur, who kills the Saxon leader, condemning the invaders to defeat.

Arthur and Guinevere marry and Merlin proclaims Arthur as King of the Britons. United by their defeat of the Saxons and the retreat of the Romans, Arthur promises to lead the Britons against any future invaders. Three horses that had belonged to Tristan, Dagonet and Lancelot run free across the landscape, as the closing narrative from Lancelot describes how fallen knights live on in tales passed from generation to generation.

Cast

Production

The film was produced by Jerry Bruckheimer and directed by Antoine Fuqua; David Franzoni, the writer of the original draft script for Gladiator , wrote the screenplay. The historical consultant for the film was John Matthews, an author known for his books on esoteric Celtic spirituality, some of which he co-wrote with his wife Caitlin Matthews. The research consultant was Linda A. Malcor, co-author of From Scythia to Camelot: A Radical Reinterpretation of the Legends of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, and the Holy Grail, in which possible non-Celtic sources for the Arthurian legends are explored.

The film's main set, a replica of a section of Hadrian's Wall, was the largest film set ever built in Ireland, and was located in a field in County Kildare. [2] The replica was one kilometre long, which took a crew of 300 building workers four and a half months to build. [3] The fort in the film was based on the Roman fort named Vindolanda, which was built around 80 AD just south of Hadrian's Wall in what is now called Chesterholm in Northern England.

Fuqua was reportedly dissatisfied with the film which he attributed to interference by Disney. [4] Fuqua said of the experience: “Did I get to make the movie I wanted? No and no,” he says of both versions. “I started out making the movie I wanted, but that was before they (Disney) started to police me. They said, ‘Try not to show so much blood.’ If you agree to make a gritty, dark, realistic film, then everything should be like that. I mean, it's set in the Dark Ages, when people were inconsiderate and decided to bleed everywhere.” [4]

Relationship with Arthurian legend

Cinematic versus traditional portrayal

Guinevere's warrior persona is closer to the ancient Queen Medb (romanticised above) of the Irish Tain Bo Cuailnge than the Guinevere of Arthurian legend. By J.C. Leyendecker, 1916 Maev.jpg
Guinevere's warrior persona is closer to the ancient Queen Medb (romanticised above) of the Irish Táin Bó Cúailnge than the Guinevere of Arthurian legend. By J.C. Leyendecker, 1916

The film's storyline is not taken from the traditional sources, but is a work of creative fiction. The only notable exception to this is the inclusion of the Saxons as Arthur's adversaries and the Battle of Badon Hill. Most traditional elements of Arthurian legend are dropped, such as the Holy Grail and Tristan's lover Iseult. The film barely includes the love triangle between Arthur, Lancelot and Guinevere; while Guinevere and Arthur are romantically involved, only a few sequences depict a possible relationship between Lancelot and Guinevere. The film does not feature Kay and Bedivere.

The knights' characterisations in Arthurian legend are also dropped. For example, the film's portrayal of a boorish and lusty Bors, the father of many children, differs greatly from his namesake whose purity and celibacy allowed him to witness the Holy Grail according to legend. The cinematic portrayal of Bors is therefore much closer to the traditional depiction of Sir Kay than his legendary namesake. Lancelot and Galahad are portrayed as having similar ages, whereas according to traditional versions they are father and son, respectively (the film's approach is also found in modern Arthurian fiction — such as Bernard Cornwell's The Warlord Chronicles , in which they are brothers).

The cinematic portrayal of Guinevere as a Celtic warrior who joins Arthur's knights in battle is a drastic alteration from the demure "damsel in distress" of courtly romance. [5] Although there is historical and mythological precedent for "sword-swinging warrior queens", such as the British Boudica of the Iceni, Gwenllian ferch Gruffydd of Wales, or the various Celtic war goddesses, the film's portrayal of Guinevere is actually closer to the Queen Medb of the Irish Táin Bó Cúailnge . [5] However, no source, early or late, describes Guinevere as either a warrior or a rustic Celt; in fact, in Geoffrey of Monmouth's Historia Regum Britanniae , which contains one of the oldest accounts of the character, Guinevere has Roman blood while Arthur is an indigenous Celt.

Despite the film's alleged historical angle, Merlin was not originally part of the legends. It is generally agreed that he is based on two figures— Myrddin Wyllt (Myrddin the Wild), and Aurelius Ambrosius, a highly fictionalised version of the historical war leader Ambrosius Aurelianus. The former had nothing to do with Arthur and flourished after the Arthurian period. The composite Merlin was created by Geoffrey of Monmouth.

Differences between the film and the Arthurian legend

In the film, Arthur's father is a Roman general from the Imperial Roman army and his mother is a Celtic woman. In the historical notes of the legend, Arthur's father is Uther Pendragon, a famous Romano-British commander and one of Britain's earlier kings, and his mother is Igraine, a beautiful young woman who was once the wife of Gorlois, the Duke of Cornwall and one of Uther's loyal subjects.

Arthur's knights are described differently in the film and the legend. In the film, Lancelot, Tristan, Bors and the other Knights of the Round Table are Sarmatian knights fighting for the glory of the Roman Empire. In historical notes, the Knights of the Round Table are Britons, knights of Romano-Celtic Britain fighting for the freedom of Britain against the Saxons. A round table is briefly present in the movie, where Arthur's knights regularly meet in equality, and which flummoxes the bishop Germanus when he cannot find a place at the table to distinguish his stature.

Other references to Arthurian legend

Dagonet, a self-sacrificing warrior in the film, has Arthur's court jester as his namesake. The character appears in Le Morte d'Arthur and Idylls of the King . Also in the film, Lancelot fights using two swords. This may be a reference to the ill-fated Sir Balin, the "Knight with Two Swords", but this epithet refers to his cursed sword rather than his fighting style.

Tristan has a pet hawk. In Welsh legends, a figure named Gwalchmai is commonly considered identical with Gawain (both are nephews of Arthur); a popular though unlikely proposed meaning of his name is "hawk of May". [6]

The role of traitor, typically ascribed to Mordred, is given a smaller part in the form of a young British scout, played by Alan Devine, who betrays his people to the Saxons. The character is unnamed, but called "British Scout" in the credits. Tristan kills the traitor with an arrow from the other side of Hadrian's Wall during the climactic battle.

Relationship with other works

Italian historian and novelist Valerio Massimo Manfredi claimed that the movie was almost a plagiarism of his 2002 novel The Last Legion, due to several similarities between the two works. [7] These similarities include the reuse of some tropes and happenings present in the book and, especially, the attempt to give historical reliability to the main characters with the concept of King Arthur having Roman origins. Indeed, the events of the movie suggest a theory that is largely different from the one on which Manfredi's novel is based, in which Artorius Castus isn't even mentioned, and neither is the Sarmatian auxiliary army. According to Manfredi, King Arthur's release and its commercial failure were among the main causes of the problems related to the movie adaptation of his novel, which was in development hell until its release in 2007.

Historical notes

Despite the film's supposedly historically grounded approach, much artistic licence is taken regarding historical figures, peoples, events, religion, wardrobe, and weaponry. The film places the story of Arthur not in its better-known medieval setting, but in the (still plausible) earlier times of antiquity, the early dawn of the Middle Ages – as did the earliest versions of the Arthur story. It would appear that the Arthur depicted in the film is based most closely upon Ambrosius Aurelianus, the Romano-Briton who fought against the Saxons in the 5th century, and was probably the leader of the Romano-British at the Battle of Mons Badonicus (Mount Badon). Nevertheless, Arthur's full name in the film is Artorius Castus, referring to Lucius Artorius Castus, a historical Roman active in Britain in the 2nd or 3rd century. [8] It is specified that Arthur was given the ancestral name of a legendary leader.

The film is loosely based on the "Sarmatian hypothesis", formulated by C. Scott Littleton and Ann C. Thomas in 1978, which holds that the Arthurian legend has a historical nucleus in the Sarmatian heavy cavalry troops stationed in Britain, [9] referencing the similarities between the legends of king Arthur and the older legends of Nartian king Batraz. In the 2nd century, 5,500 Iazyges were transported there as auxiliaries during the Marcomannic Wars. [10] However, the hypothesis is not accepted by scholars who say it lacks a solid base. [11]

Roman political issues

In the film, the Roman legions withdraw from Britain in AD 467; in reality, this was completed in the year 410, nearly 60 years before. Similarly, the opening text dictates that "King Arthur and his Knights rose from a real hero who lived [...] in a period often called the Dark Ages". The film, however, is set in 467. Some count the Dark Ages as beginning in Sub-Roman Britain, after the last Emperor of the Western Roman Empire, Romulus Augustus, was deposed by Odoacer in 476, nine years after the date for the setting of the film. The current Roman Emperor in the film's time would have been Anthemius.

The Roman family which Arthur rescues lives north of Hadrian's Wall (in modern Scotland). Such a mission would be unlikely. At times there were Roman expeditions and forts as far north as Cawdor, near Inverness. There were periods, during the 2nd century, when Romans occupied areas as far north as the Central Lowlands (such as modern Falkirk, where pieces of the Antonine Wall are still visible).[ citation needed ] Romanized client states such as that of the Votadini did exist north of the wall even into the Sub-Roman era. In general, however, Hadrian's Wall represented the extent of Roman rule in Britain.

Britons and Saxons

The Picts are called "Woads". [8] [12] This word is a reference to one plant the Picts may have used to make blue paint; [8] however, the use of woad by the Picts is contested by scholars, [10] and the historical Picts were never known by this name. [13] In an interview Antoine Fuqua stated that they used "Wodes" (sic) instead of "Picts" because they thought the latter sounded "a little weird". [14] Nevertheless, John Matthews said in an online article that the name substitution was "meant to echo similar belittling titles given to enemies". [8]

The 9th century Anglo-Saxon Chronicle mentions the arrival of the Saxon leaders Cerdic and Cynric in Britain (in Hampshire) in 495. [15] According to the Chronicle Cynric succeeded Cerdic as king of Wessex in 534 (Cerdic was the founder of the kingdom). [16] Thus the two could not have died at the battle of Mount Badon. The battle is thought to have been fought sometime between 490 and 516. [17]

The Saxons are shown attacking Hadrian's Wall from the north. By 467 the Saxons were already occupying parts of Britain far south of the wall. [18] Later in the film, Cerdic stops a warrior from raping a woman because it would lead to less-than-pure Saxon blood. This scene references the long-held belief that the Anglo-Saxons eradicated the Romano-Britons from the eastern part of the island. This contention, largely based on linguistic evidence, continues to be debated. Some historians (and fiction writers [19] ) have even suggested that Cerdic himself was at least part Briton. His name "Cerdic" has been argued to be a Germanised form of a Celtic name such as Ceretic or Caradoc.

Military technology

Historically, Sarmatians were armoured in the manner of cataphracts (full-length coats of scale armour); the film's Sarmatians are armoured with a mishmash of pseudo-Roman, Turkish, Mongol and Hunnic designs. The Saxons historically used bows (to a limited extent) and spears instead of crossbows during the period. Though there is evidence for the use of some form of crossbows by Romans (calling them manuballistae ) and, some claim, the Picts, [8] the weapon was still not widely used in England until much later.

Similarly, the Woads use a trebuchet-like weapon to hurl flaming missiles at the Saxons, though the trebuchet was not re-introduced to Britain until the Siege of Dover in 1216. [20] The Eastern Roman Empire, however, used the traction trebuchet as early as the 6th century. [21]

Roman soldiers displayed in the film are depicted as legionaries with 2nd century armour. By AD 400, legionaries were no longer in use and comitatenses were the new replacements.[ citation needed ]

Religious inaccuracies

The real Pelagius was a monk, not a bishop. He engaged Saint Augustine of Hippo in a debate on the theological issue of the relationship between grace and free will. However, the film confuses the issue of political freedoms and social choices (which were not issues in political debate in the 5th/6th centuries) with the principle of free will in relationship to God. When Arthur informs the people that "You ...were free from your first breath!", Roger Ebert notes that he is both "anticipating by a millennium or so the notion that all men are born free, and overlooking the detail that his knights have been pressed into involuntary servitude." [22] The Pelagian heresy denied original sin with its doctrine of the bondage of the will and the need for healing by God's grace. [23] Nor was Pelagius executed for heresy in Rome as the film indicates. He is believed to have died decades before 467 AD, likely of old age. [23]

St. Germanus of Auxerre's second (and last) mission to Britain was twenty years before (447 AD) and he died the following year. [24] Germanus is venerated as a saint by the Catholic Church, Eastern Orthodox Church and Anglican Communion and, although portrayed in the film as a cruel and pompous aristocrat, historically he "extended his hospitality to all sorts of persons, washed the feet of the poor and served them with his own hands, while he himself fasted." [25]

The film implies that the Pope (who in 467 was Pope Hilarius) was in control of the Western Roman Empire, although it was actually ruled by the Emperor and de facto controlled by the Magistri Militum and other regional governors. The Pope would not gain the political power to grant lands and other comparable privileges until centuries after the setting of the film. The film seems to be implying a literal interpretation of the Donation of Constantine, a document purportedly written in the 4th century, but in actuality an 8th-century forgery.

Promotion

Elements of the film's promotion have likewise been criticized as historically unsound. Its tagline "The True Story Behind the Legend" has been criticised as false. [10] [26] A trailer for the film claims that historians now agree that Arthur was a real person because of alleged "recent" archaeological findings, yet there is no consensus amongst historians on Arthur's historicity [10] [27] and no recent archaeological find proves Arthur's existence; the so-called "Arthur stone", discovered in 1998 in securely dated 6th century contexts amongst the ruins at Tintagel Castle in Cornwall, created a stir but has subsequently been of little use as evidence. [28] [29]

Reception

Box office

King Arthur grossed $15 million on its opening weekend in third place behind Spider-Man 2 and Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy . It eventually grossed $51.9 million in the United States and Canada and $151.7 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $203.6 million, against a production budget of $120 million. [30]

Critical response

On Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval rating of 31% based on 190 reviews being positive with the critics consensus being "The magic is gone, leaving a dreary, generic action movie". [31] On Metacritic the film has a score of 46 out of 100 based on reviews from 41 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews". [32] David Edelstein of Slate called the film "profoundly stupid and inept" and added, "it's an endless source of giggles once you realise that its historical revisionism has nothing to do with archeological discoveries and everything to do with the fact that no one at Disney would green-light an old-fashioned talky love triangle with a hero who dies and an adulterous heroine who ends up in a nunnery." [33] A. O. Scott of the New York Times further remarked that the film was "a blunt, glowering B picture, shot in murky fog and battlefield smoke, full of silly-sounding pomposity and swollen music (courtesy of the prolifically bombastic Hans Zimmer). The combat scenes, though boisterous and brutal, are no more coherent than the story, which requires almost as much exposition as the last Star Wars film. Luckily there is an element of broad, brawny camp that prevents King Arthur from being a complete drag." [34]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times had a more positive response to the film and awarded it three out of four stars, writing, "That the movie works is because of the considerable production qualities and the charisma of the actors, who bring more interest to the characters than they deserve. There is a kind of direct, unadorned conviction to the acting of Clive Owen and the others; raised on Shakespeare, trained for swordfights, with an idea of Arthurian legend in their heads since childhood, they don't seem out of time and place like the cast of Troy . They get on with it." [35]

Robin Rowland criticised critics who criticized the film for its Dark Age setting. [5] Rowland pointed out that several Arthurian novels are set in the Dark Ages, like Rosemary Sutcliff's Sword at Sunset and Mary Stewart's Merlin trilogy ( The Crystal Cave , The Hollow Hills and The Last Enchantment ). However, these works have little in common with the film's story and Sarmatian angle. In response to criticism of the setting, consultant on the film Linda A. Malcor said: "I think these film-makers did a better job than most could have done when it comes to giving us something besides knights in tin foil and damsels in chiffon.... [they] deserve a lot of praise for the effort that they made." [26] Fellow Arthurian scholar Geoffrey Ashe's opinion was unfavorable. [26]

Later director Antoine Fuqua said:

“When I first signed on to the movie it was to shoot an R movie, and then half way through it - that changed, for all sorts of reasons. Obviously it's always money...That was very difficult for me and I had a tough time adjusting to that. I had to change a lot of my shooting style that I had set up because it just wouldn't have been possible to do certain things and get a PG-13 rating, just because it would have been more graphic. Like I said, tonally, I had a whole different mindset. So once that happened, while I was filming, it made it difficult.“ [36]

Director's cut

An unrated director's cut of the film was released; it has extra footage of battle scenes as well as more scenes between Lancelot and Guinevere, whose traditional love triangle with Arthur is only hinted at here. The battle scenes are also bloodier and more graphic.

Several scenes are also omitted from the director's cut, including one where the knights sit around a camp fire asking about their intended Sarmatian life, in which Bors reveals that his children do not even have names, most simply have numbers. In addition, a sex scene between Guinevere and Arthur is shifted to be chronologically before he is informed of the incoming Saxons towards Hadrian's Wall. This seemingly minor change arguably helps the story flow more smoothly. In the original film he is seen in full battle armour, contemplating a broken image of Pelagius on his floor, and then is disturbed by a call to come outside. When he comes outside, he is hastily putting on a shirt, and his hair is disheveled. In the Director's Cut, after an intimate moment between Arthur and Guinevere explaining Arthur's morals, they carry on into their sexual encounter, and are thus disturbed so that Arthur can be briefed on the Saxons. During the sexual encounter, he is wearing the same outfit he wears during the briefing. The scene where he is examining Pelagius's image is removed.

Marketing

Despite these many drastic diversions from the source material (including the Welsh Mabinogion), the producers of the film attempted to market it as a more historically accurate version of the Arthurian legends. Other liberties were taken with the actors' appearances: Keira Knightley's breasts were enlarged for the US theatrical film poster. This practice angered Knightley, who says that it "comes from market research that clearly shows that other women refuse to look at famous actresses and stars with small breasts." Later in 2006, Knightley claimed she is "not allowed to be on a magazine cover in the US without at least a C cup because it 'turns people off'." [37]

Video game

See also

Related Research Articles

Cynric was King of Wessex from 534 to 560. Everything known about him comes from the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. There, he is stated to have been the son of Cerdic, who is considered the founder of the kingdom of Wessex. However, the Anglian King-list and parts of the West Saxon Genealogical Regnal List, instead says that Cynric was the son of Cerdic's son Creoda. Similarly, the paternal genealogy of Alfred the Great given in Asser's The Life of King Alfred, includes the name Creoda, while the account of the king's maternal ancestry in the same work calls Cynric son of Cerdic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Guinevere</span> Arthurian legend character

Guinevere, also often written in Modern English as Guenevere or Guenever, was, according to Arthurian legend, an early-medieval queen of Great Britain and the wife of King Arthur. First mentioned in popular literature in the early 12th century, nearly 700 years after the purported times of Arthur, Guinevere has since been portrayed as everything from a fatally flawed, villainous and opportunistic traitor to a noble and virtuous lady. Many records of the legend also feature the variably recounted story of her abduction and rescue as a major part of the tale.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lancelot</span> Arthurian legend character

Lancelot du Lac, also written as Launcelot and other variants, is a character in some versions of Arthurian legend where he is typically depicted as King Arthur's close companion and one of the greatest Knights of the Round Table. In the French-inspired Arthurian chivalric romance tradition, Lancelot is an orphaned son of King Ban of the lost kingdom of Benoic, raised in a fairy realm by the Lady of the Lake. A hero of many battles, quests and tournaments, and famed as a nearly unrivalled swordsman and jouster, Lancelot becomes the lord of the castle Joyous Gard and personal champion of Arthur's wife, Queen Guinevere, despite suffering from frequent and sometimes prolonged fits of madness. But when his adulterous affair with Guinevere is discovered, it causes a civil war that, once exploited by Mordred, brings an end to Arthur's kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Lady of the Lake</span> Enchantress and sorceress in Arthurian legend

The Lady of the Lake is a name or a title used by several either fairy or fairy-like but human enchantresses in the Matter of Britain, the body of medieval literature and mythology associated with the legend of King Arthur. She plays several important roles in many stories, including providing Arthur with the sword Excalibur, eliminating Merlin, raising Lancelot after the death of his father, and helping to take the dying Arthur to Avalon. Different sorceresses known as the Lady of the Lake appear concurrently as separate characters in some versions of the legend since at least the Post-Vulgate Cycle and consequently the seminal Le Morte d'Arthur, with the latter describing them as a hierarchical group, while some texts also give this title to either Morgan or her sister.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tristan</span> Cornish knight of Arthurian legend

Tristan, also known as Tristram, Tristyn or Tristain and similar names, is the hero of the legend of Tristan and Iseult. In the legend, he is tasked with escorting the Irish princess Iseult to wed Tristan's uncle, King Mark of Cornwall. Tristan and Iseult accidentally drink a love potion during the journey and fall in love, beginning an adulterous relationship that eventually leads to Tristan's banishment and death. The character's first recorded appearance is in retellings of British mythology from the 12th century by Thomas of Britain and Gottfried von Strassburg, and later in the Prose Tristan. He is featured in Arthurian legends, including the seminal text Le Morte d'Arthur, as a skilled knight and a friend of Lancelot.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Knights of the Round Table</span> King Arthur and order of chivalry in Arthurian romance

The Knights of the Round Table are the legendary knights of the fellowship of King Arthur that first appeared in the Matter of Britain literature in the mid-12th century. The Knights are an order dedicated to ensuring the peace of Arthur's kingdom following an early warring period, entrusted in later years to undergo a mystical quest for the Holy Grail. The Round Table at which they meet is a symbol of the equality of its members, who range from sovereign royals to minor nobles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gareth</span> Knight of the Round Table

Gareth is a Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend. He is the youngest son of King Lot and Queen Morgause, King Arthur's half-sister, thus making him Arthur's nephew, as well as brother to Gawain, Agravain and Gaheris, and either a brother or half-brother of Mordred. Gareth is particularly notable in Le Morte d'Arthur, where one of its eight books is named after and largely dedicated to him, and in which he is also known by his nickname Beaumains.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">King Lot</span> Legendary Arthurian king

King Lot, also spelled Loth or Lott, is a British monarch in Arthurian legend. He was introduced in Geoffrey of Monmouth's pseudohistorical Historia Regum Britanniae as King Arthur's brother-in-law, who serves as regent of Britain between the reigns of Uther Pendragon and Arthur. He has appeared regularly in works of chivalric romance, alternating between the roles of Arthur's enemy and ally, and is often depicted as the ruler of Lothian and either Norway or Orkney. His literary character is probably derived from hagiographical material concerning Saint Kentigern, which features Leudonus as king of Leudonia and father of Saint Teneu.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Bors</span> Legendary Arthurian knight

Bors is the name of two knights in Arthurian legend, an elder and a younger. The two first appear in the 13th-century Lancelot-Grail romance prose cycle. Bors the Elder is the King of Gaunnes (Gannes/Gaunes/Ganis) during the early period of King Arthur's reign, and is the brother of King Ban of Benoic and the father of Bors the Younger and Lionel. His son Bors the Younger later becomes one of the best Knights of the Round Table and participates in the achievement of the Holy Grail.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gaheris</span> Fictional character

Gaheris is a Knight of the Round Table in the chivalric romance tradition of Arthurian legend. A nephew of King Arthur, Gaheris is the third son of Arthur's sister or half-sister Morgause and her husband Lot, King of Orkney and Lothian. He is the younger brother of Gawain and Agravain, the older brother of Gareth, and half-brother of Mordred. His figure may have been originally derived from that of a brother of Gawain in the early Welsh tradition, and then later split into a separate character of another brother, today best known as Gareth. German poetry also described him as Gawain's cousin instead of brother.

Dagonet is a Knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend. His depictions and characterisations variously portray a foolish and cowardly knight, a violently deranged madman, to the now-iconic image of King Arthur's beloved court jester.

This is a bibliography of works about King Arthur, his family, his friends or his enemies. This bibliography includes works that are notable or are by notable authors.

<i>The Knight of the Sacred Lake</i>

The Knight of the Sacred Lake is a historical fantasy novel by Rosalind Miles. It was first published in 2000 by Simon & Schuster in the UK followed by Crown Books in the US. The book is a retelling of the Arthurian legend and follows the lives of Queen Guinevere, consort of King Arthur and her struggles with the king's nephews Agravain and Gawain; the queen is torn between her love for her husband, her land, and her lover, Lancelot. The book was part of a series, The Guinevere Novels, and was followed by The Child of the Holy Grail. Reviewing the book, Publishers Weekly described it as "a lush, feminist take on the English epic".

<i>Enemy of God</i> (novel) 1996 novel by Bernard Cornwell

Enemy of God: A Novel of Arthur is the second novel in The Warlord Chronicles trilogy by Bernard Cornwell. A sequel to The Winter King, it was first published in the UK in 1996. The trilogy tells the legend of King Arthur through the eyes of his follower Derfel Cadarn.

<i>Excalibur: A Novel of Arthur</i> 1997 novel by Bernard Cornwell

Excalibur: A Novel of Arthur is a historical fiction novel by English writer Bernard Cornwell, first published in the UK in 1997. It is the third and final book in The Warlord Chronicles series, following The Winter King and Enemy of God. The trilogy tells the legend of King Arthur through the eyes of his follower Derfel Cadarn.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sagramore</span> Fictional character

Sagramore, also known as Sagramor and other variations of this name, is a knight of the Round Table in Arthurian legend. He appears in many standalone and cyclical chivalric romances and other works, including some where he is the titular protagonist. Sagramore's characterisation varies from story to story, but generally he is characterised as a virtuous but hot-tempered knight who fights fiercely and ragefully.

King Arthur's Disasters is a British animated series which first aired on CITV. Co-created by Paul Parkes and Will Ashurst, the series follows and depicts attempts by King Arthur, assisted by the wizard Merlin, to woo the beautiful self-obsessed Princess Guinevere. Due to the popularity of the show, it was picked up for a second series which began transmission on CITV from 6 November 2005. Both were executive-produced by Genevieve Dexter at Cake Entertainment.

<i>Lancelot and Guinevere</i> 1963 film by Cornel Wilde

Lancelot and Guinevere is a British 1963 film starring Cornel Wilde, his real-life wife at the time, Jean Wallace, and Brian Aherne. This lesser-known version of the Camelot legend is a work shaped predominantly by Cornel Wilde, who co-produced, directed, co-wrote, and played Lancelot.

References

  1. ↑ "King Arthur (2004) Filming Locations". IMDB. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
  2. ↑ Ryan, Dermot (1 July 2008). "Hollywood heavyweights fly in for a reel taste of Shakespeare". Evening Herald. Retrieved 21 September 2010.
  3. ↑ 'Making of' featurette on DVD release of the film
  4. 1 2 "In pic-to-DVD shift, 'unrated' rates high". Variety . Retrieved 23 July 2021.
  5. 1 2 3 Rowland, Robin (2004). "Warrior queens and blind critics." CBC News
  6. ↑ Bromwich, Rachel. Trioedd Ynys Prydein , pp. 367–371.
  7. ↑ "Introduction to the movie "The Last Legion" hosted by Valerio Massimo Manfredi and Lorenzo Baccesi". YouTube . Archived from the original on 22 December 2021. Retrieved 4 January 2016.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 Riederer, Chris. King Arthur - Key historical facts.. Retrieved September 9, 2007.
  9. ↑ C.Scott Littleton - A.C. Thomas: "The Sarmatian Connection: New Light on the Origin of the Arthurian and Holy Grail Legends." Journal of American Folklore 91, 1978, pp. 512-527
  10. 1 2 3 4 Schultz, Cathy (2004). "KING ARTHUR: Romans and Saxons and Picts, oh my! Archived 2008-02-17 at the Wayback Machine ," History in the Movies
  11. ↑ Richard Wadge, "A British or Sarmatian Tradition," Folklore, Vol. 98, No. 2 (1987), pp. 204-215.
  12. ↑ Cathy Schultz, "KING ARTHUR: Romans and Saxons and Picts, oh my! Archived 2008-02-17 at the Wayback Machine ," History in the Movies
  13. ↑ Lambert, Kym (2004) The Problem of the Woad. Retrieved 1-27-07.
  14. ↑ Gilchrist, Todd "Interview: Antoine Fuqua, Keira Knightley and Clive Owen revisit the round table with King Arthur". "It was a little weird in the dialogue when we did a reading, to hear people say 'picts'. It came off kind of odd, for some reason, when they spoke it. So we went with Wodes." Retrieved December 18, 2006.
  15. ↑ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 458 - A.D. 500
  16. ↑ Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, A.D. 501 - A.D. 560 Archived 2007-09-25 at the Wayback Machine
  17. ↑ O'Sullivan, Thomas D., The De Excidio of Gildas, 1978. These dates are not universally accepted, as some scholars argue for a date in the mid 5th century. Cf. Lapidge, Michael, "Gildas's Education and the Latin Culture of Sub-Roman Britain" in Gildas: New Approaches, 1984.
  18. ↑ Gildas, De Excido Britanniae
  19. ↑ Cf. Alfred Duggan, Conscience of the King ; Stephen Lawhead, Pendragon Cycle series; David Drake, The Dragon Lord
  20. ↑ France, John (1999). Western warfare in the age of the Crusades 1000–1300. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press. pp. 122–123.
  21. ↑ Tarver, W. T. S. (January 1995). "The traction trebuchet: a reconstruction of an early medieval siege engine". Technology and Culture. 36 (1): 142. doi:10.2307/3106344. JSTOR   3106344. S2CID   112822220.
  22. ↑ Ebert, Roger. "King Arthur", July 7, 2004, RogerEbert.com
  23. 1 2 "Pelagius and Pelagianism", Catholic Encyclopedia
  24. ↑ "St. Germain", Catholic Encyclopedia
  25. ↑ Thurston, Herbert, S.J. Butler's Lives of the Saints, c1956, p251-252
  26. 1 2 3 Youngs, Ian (2004). "King Arthur film history defended." BBC News Online.
  27. ↑ N. J. Higham, King Arthur, Myth-Making and History (London: Routledge, 2002), pp.11-37 has a good summary of the debate on Arthur's existence.
  28. ↑ "Early Medieval Tintagel: An Interview with Archaeologists Rachel Harry and Kevin Brady" Archived 2014-08-21 at the Wayback Machine , The Heroic Age, 1999
  29. ↑ Green, Thomas. (1998 [2008]) Notes to "The Historicity and Historicisation of Arthur." www.arthuriana.co.uk
  30. ↑ "King Arthur (2004)". Box Office Mojo . Retrieved 15 March 2020.
  31. ↑ "King Arthur". Rotten Tomatoes . Retrieved 11 November 2019.
  32. ↑ "King Arthur". Metacritic .
  33. ↑ Edelstein, David (7 July 2004). "Arthur: On the Rocks – The once and future king, in his dreariest picture yet". Slate . Retrieved 26 May 2015.
  34. ↑ Scott, A. O. (7 July 2004). "The Once and Future Fury: Knights Go for the Jugular". The New York Times . Retrieved 26 May 2015.
  35. ↑ Ebert, Roger (7 July 2004). "King Arthur review". Chicago Sun-Times . Retrieved 26 May 2015.
  36. ↑ "Antoine Fuqua - King Arthur".
  37. ↑ "Enlarging Keira Knightley's Breasts". Posterwire.com. 18 July 2006. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
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