A FLEETING WISP OF GLORY: ONCE AND FUTURE KINGS
To think on the Middle Ages is to summon the unreal. As Western Europe fell into economic and cultural ruin following the collapse of the Roman Empire, its tenebrous afterglow would be defined by soaring myths. Unicorns. Dragons. Catholicism. Chivalry. Divine Mandates. The Knights of the Round Table. These larger-than-life creatures and causes all summon supreme composure in the face of the unknown. Considering this fantastical fugue in the history of Western civilization, this series interrogates the weight conferred upon the grandest of all legends in the Dark Ages and beyond: King Arthur and his quest for the Holy Grail.
Films in this Program
Robert Bresson
85 minutes
Director Robert Bresson’s dream project, a film he wanted to make for more than 20 years, LANCELOT OF THE LAKE marked a new distillation in this master’s artistry and imbues fresh power to this oldest of tales. LANCELOT has the breadth of vision and distillation of style that marks the comprehensive late masterpiece of a great artist. The subject of the film is the end of the age of chivalry, the death of a dream. Set in the last days of the quest for the Holy Grail, it describes the spiritual pall that falls over King Arthur’s knights as they are overtaken by the failure of their mission. Bresson’s masterly color photography depicts the bright surfaces of pageantry surrounded by dark, treacherous forests and the twilight tones of a dying age. Horses, armor and pennants take on an almost mystical force. But he director predictably ignores the pageantry, magic and romance of the quest for the Grail, concentrating instead on the demise of the chivalric codes and on the canonic knights’ spiritual anguish as they return “without the Grail, which is to say the absolute, God” (Bresson).
A new 4K restoration courtesy of Film Desk!
A new 4K restoration courtesy of Film Desk!
John Boorman
141 minutes
Like his masterful cinematic head-trip Zardoz, John Boorman’s EXCALIBUR plays by its own set of rules. The epic medieval tale reimagines Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur as a glistening collection of ornate iconography, deconstructing familiar characters and references to create a fantastical hyper-realized version of medieval folklore. The rise of King Arthur (Nigel Terry), the meddling of Merlin the Magician (Nicol Wiliamson), and the dark influence of Morgana the Witch (Helen Mirren) are not just plot points, but powerful swoons of emotional transition churning a half-remembered version of history. The one constant in Boorman’s nightmarish renaissance fair is the sword Excalibur, a dual reflector of man’s endless potential and crippling ego. The weapon’s double-edged prowess becomes EXCALIBUR’s thematic sledgehammer, a trigger for ideological and social shifts seeped in stylized melodrama. EXCALIBUR is a staggering achievement of exaggerated artifice, dismantling the Arthur legend one invigorating aesthetic swipe at a time.
Éric Rohmer
140 minutes
Filled with wonder at the sight of shining armor belonging to a group of knights he has mistaken for angels, naive Perceval immediately solves the mystery of his destiny: he will become one of King Arthur’s knights. Valiant astride his horse, he rides from one ordeal to another, obsessed with a dream as Éric Rohmer goes in search of directing’s Holy Grail.
“All hail PERCEVAL LE GALLOIS, Eric Rohmer’s masterpiece maudit, undoubtedly one of the most original, daring, and meticulously devised films in all of cinema. […] Criminally underrated or simply unknown by the masses and many a Rohmerian, though of cherished cult status for a fair number of cinephiles (and academics), Rohmer’s near-literal adaptation of Chrétien de Troye’s incomplete 12th century Arthurian epic poem has induced as much awe as it has consternation, and misguidedly, a fair dose of derision. Admirers and dissenters alike have deemed PERCEVAL a variation of any of the following: naïve, primitive, childlike, theatrical, stylized and stilted, fantastical, baffling, old-fashioned, anti-cinematic, postmodern, literary, and punishing – all of which resound with an air of casual insouciance considering the film’s creator was a man whose extreme erudition ensured enlightened exactitude. Rohmer’s interest in the creation of original forms (forma = Latin for beauty), like those he situated at the hearts of both Mozart and Beethoven in his delicately astute treatise, “De Mozart en Beethoven” – an intimate, semi-scholarly musicology informed by his love of the two titular composers, his approach to filmmaking, and his own predilection for free-floating ideas and essences – is not so much a pastiche panoply in PERCEVAL; rather, it is a seemingly insuperable double translation, that of the text itself and of its modern translation into cinema form.” – Andrea Picard
“All hail PERCEVAL LE GALLOIS, Eric Rohmer’s masterpiece maudit, undoubtedly one of the most original, daring, and meticulously devised films in all of cinema. […] Criminally underrated or simply unknown by the masses and many a Rohmerian, though of cherished cult status for a fair number of cinephiles (and academics), Rohmer’s near-literal adaptation of Chrétien de Troye’s incomplete 12th century Arthurian epic poem has induced as much awe as it has consternation, and misguidedly, a fair dose of derision. Admirers and dissenters alike have deemed PERCEVAL a variation of any of the following: naïve, primitive, childlike, theatrical, stylized and stilted, fantastical, baffling, old-fashioned, anti-cinematic, postmodern, literary, and punishing – all of which resound with an air of casual insouciance considering the film’s creator was a man whose extreme erudition ensured enlightened exactitude. Rohmer’s interest in the creation of original forms (forma = Latin for beauty), like those he situated at the hearts of both Mozart and Beethoven in his delicately astute treatise, “De Mozart en Beethoven” – an intimate, semi-scholarly musicology informed by his love of the two titular composers, his approach to filmmaking, and his own predilection for free-floating ideas and essences – is not so much a pastiche panoply in PERCEVAL; rather, it is a seemingly insuperable double translation, that of the text itself and of its modern translation into cinema form.” – Andrea Picard
George Romero
145 minutes
A raucous, tenderhearted, defiantly eccentric look at the pressures faced by artists and other outsiders, George Romero’s KNIGHTRIDERS stars a young Ed Harris as the leader of a group of LARPing modern knights who ride motorcycles instead of horses. Written and directed by Romero, it was released just three years after the biggest success of his career, 1978’s DAWN OF THE DEAD, and was a commercial as well as critical bomb. But the world was wrong! KNIGHTRIDERS is one of Romero’s greatest films and it bears his fascination with turning small communities into microcosms of America at large. Tackling such issues as masculine role-playing, women’s rights, queerness, police ethics, and the pressure placed on creative people to join a corrupt and reactionary system that they have no choice but to depend on for their livelihood - and it’s all anchored by a staggering amount of insane motorcycle stunts. Camelot is a state of mind.
