King Arthur

These pages contain a simplified and less formal rйsumй of a Masters Research Paper by Iman Keuchenius called: "King Arthur, the stuff of future memory; An analysis of authenticity in popular Arthurian movies".In this case authenticity can only be a relative concept. There is not much historical truth to rely on and we have little knowledge of the development of the Arthurian legend in the early stages. Criticising Arthurian films as portraits of a certain era in history seems rather useless, because over the centuries the legend has proven it is a timeless story, applicable and adaptable to every age. Over time it has been used and enjoyed by many people, pagans as well as christians, conservatives as well as hippies, and it has been subject to both low and hight art. Therefore it is hardly surprising that the legend does not contain one single message, it is incredibly rich and versatile.

There are on the other hand some elements in the Arturian tradition that can not be pushed aside if one wants to (re)tell the main story (and not use the Arthurian court merely as background for a new or other hero). The adultery between Lancelot and Guinevere for instance can hardly be denied. I have tried to analyse the way popular (the French art movies by Rohmer and Bresson are not part of my thesis) movies deal with the Arthurian tradition. To do so, I first had to give an overview of the highlights over the centuries, (see the menu on the left under Introduction, Legends and Pre-Raphaelites), concentrating on those versions that were important for the main movies of my thesis: First Knight and Excalibur. Because these movies were produced in Hollywood, I also had to take the swashbuckler genre into account (see the menu on the left under Swashbucklers.

The real Arthur, if there ever was such a person, was definitely not a king. That is just about the only indisputable fact about the historical Arthur scholars can agree on. Some early sources speak of him as a warlord. There is not much else, no truth to rely on. But there are a lot of people who like to believe in him as historical figure, and there are others who will tell you he is just a legend. Although I am not a believer in the historical Arthur, I will be the first to admit that the illusion of historical truth has been an important characteristic of the Arthurian legends through the ages. In other words: if there had not been so many believers, the legends would not be as impressive as they are now.

Nowadays it is still quite interesting for writers to play with the historical illusion; the name king Arthur has an authentic ring to it, but there are almost no annoying historical facts to suffocate the imagination.

The fact that we know so little about Arthur and the dark ages he came from is one of the reasons why, after fifteen centuries of changes to and repetitions of the story, he is still alive and well in our popular and even more serious culture.

There is not just one true version of the legend either, because we know very little of the origins of the myth. The story was part of the oral Celtic tradition, must have been told and retold before it was written down and most of these early versions have perished in time.

The Round Table was not mentioned until the 12th century, by Wace, who also gave Arthur's sword the name Excalibur. And a couple of decades later Crйtien de Troyes introduced Lancelot as Queen Guinevere's lover and Perceval as the grail hero. In later chronicles Perceval is surpassed by the perfect knight Galahad.

That is another reason for Arthur's longevity: his court is always open to new heroes and the ideal background for new story-lines. Like Lancelot, Perceval and Galahad, Merlin and Tristan were also drawn to his court at different times in the Middle Ages. An example of a modern hero that joins the Camelot court is Prince Valiant, the main character of Hal Foster's cartoons, published in several American Sunday papers from 1937 to 1971.

As far as the medieval Arthurian stories (from the 12th until the 15th century) is concerned, one can make a rough