Cinema Arthuriana: Twenty Essays, rev. ed.Kevin J. Harty The legends of King Arthur have not only endured for centuries, but also flourished in constant retellings and new stories built around the central themes. With the coming of motion pictures, Arthur was destined to hit the screen. This edition of Cinema Arthuriana, revised in 2002, presents 20 essays on the topic of the recurring presence of the legend in film and television from 1904 to 2001. They cover such films as Excalibur (1981) and Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975), television productions such as The Mists of Avalon (2001), and French and German films about the quest for the Holy Grail and the other adventures of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. |
Contents
Preface | 1 |
The Contributors | 3 |
An Overview | 7 |
2 Mythopoeia in Excalibur | 34 |
Elements of Setting in John Boormans Excalibur and Steve Barrons Merlin | 44 |
4 Morgan and the Problem of Incest | 54 |
The Black Knight and the American Dream | 64 |
6 Tortilla Flat and the Arthurian View | 71 |
Monty Python and the Holy Grail in the Twentyfirst Century | 136 |
Robert Bressons Lancelot du Lac and Eric Rohmers Perceval le Gallois | 149 |
The Dramatic Compulsion in French Cinema and Denis Llorcas Les Chevaliers de la table ronde 1990 | 163 |
15 Blank Syberberg and the German Arthurian Tradition | 177 |
Thames Television Strikes Back | 185 |
17 Will the Reel Mordred Please Stand Up? Strategies for Representing Mordred in American and British Arthurian Film | 199 |
18 Filming the Tristan Myth | 211 |
19 Fable and Poésie in Cocteaus LÉternel Retour 1943 | 220 |
Adapting Bernard Malamuds The Natural to Film | 80 |
The Film Versions of Mark Twains A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthurs Court and George Romeros Knightriders | 96 |
9 The Ironic Tradition in Four Arthurian Films | 110 |
The Sword in the Stone and Camelot | 118 |
Madness with a Definite Method | 127 |
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