King Arthur (2004 film)

King Arthur
King Arthur
	A movie poster for King Arthur
Directed by	Antoine Fuqua
Written by	David Franzoni
Produced by	Jerry Bruckheimer
Starring	Clive Owen; Ioan Gruffudd; Keira Knightley
Distributed by	Buena Vista Pictures
Release dates	July 7, 2004
Running time	126 min.; 140 min. (director's cut)
Language	English
Budget	$90,000,000 US (est.)

King Arthur is a film first released in the United States on June 28, 2004, dubbed as "The Untold True Story That Inspired The Legend" by Touchstone Pictures.

The makers of the film claim to present an historically accurate version of the Arthurian legends, supposedly inspired by new archaelogical findings. The accuracy of these claims is subject to debate, but the film is unusual in representing Arthur as a Roman soldier rather than a medieval knight.

This historical approach to the Arthurian legends had already been showcased in film once - in Arthur of the Britons, a 1972-1973 British TV series, and King Arthur, The Young Warlord, a movie-length compilation of some of its episodes. (In this version, Arthur is a Celtic chieftain.)

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Plot

Arthur, here Artorius, (Clive Owen) is portrayed as a Roman cavalry officer, the son of a Roman father and a Celtic mother, who leads a military force of Sarmatian cavalry in Britain at the close of the Roman occupation in 452 A.D. He and his men man Hadrian's Wall against the Woads, a tribe (or tribes) of locals who resist Roman rule, led by their mysterious leader Merlin. He is not the first Arthur - over the years, many of his ancestors have manned the Wall, leading Sarmatian auxilliaries.

As the film starts, Arthur and his remaining men - Lancelot, Bors', Tristan, Gawain, Galahad and Dagonet - are expecting to be finally discharged from the service of the Empire after faithfully serving for 15 years. However, they are dispatched on a final and possibly suicidal mission by Bishop Germanus of Auxerre to rescue an important Roman family from impending capture by the invading white supremacist Saxons, led by their chief Cerdic and his son Cynric. This rescue has to be done by the knights because Rome is retiring from Britain, by now considered an indefensible outpost.

Tristan (Mads Mikkelsen and Dagonet (Ray Stevenson).

In the course of this mission, Arthur encounters and rescues Guinevere (Keira Knightley), a Woadish princess, from the imprisonment and torture of the Roman citizen he is charged with rescuing. It is also revealed that Guinevere is Merlin's daughter and Arthur himself is actually half Woad (by his mother). His famous sword, Excalibur, is also revealed to be originally his father's, which he drew from the tombstone on his burial mound as a boy (thus the legend of the Sword in the Stone).

The Roman family is rescued and the knights fight with the Saxons on a frozen lake (losing Dagonet in the process) before they can make it back to the Wall. Struck by Rome leaving its subjects to the mercy of the Saxons, Arthur is further disillusioned when he learns that Bishop Pelagius, whose teachings about the equality of all men inspired the brotherhood of his Round Table - has been executed as a heretic.

In due course, Arthur and his remaining men forsake Roman citizenship and form an alliance between the Romano-British and the Woads to fight the invading Saxons. In the climactic battle, the Battle of Badon Hill, the Saxons are defeated and Cerdic and his son are killed - at the cost of many lives, including Lancelot's and Tristan's.

The film ends with Arthur and Guinevere's marriage. Merlin then proclaims him to be their king. King Arthur and his remaining knights promise to lead the Britons, now united, against future invaders.

Notes

File:Yxa.blod.Keira.Knightley.JPG

Keira Knightley as Guinevere.

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 and Celts at the Battle of Mons Badonicus. However, Arthur's full name in the film is Artorius Castus, suggesting a connection to Lucius Artorius Castus, a historical Roman active in Britain in the 2nd century.

The movie was adapted by David Franzoni and directed by Antoine Fuqua. Besides the actors mentioned above, it also stars Ioan Gruffudd (Lancelot), Mads Mikkelsen (Tristan), Hugh Dancy (Galahad), Ray Winstone (Bors), Stellan Skarsgård (Cerdic) and Til Schweiger (Cynric).

The historical consultant for the film was John Matthews, a historian known for his books on esoteric Celtic spirituality and teaching connected with Taliesin and other aspects of the Arthurian legend, some of which he co-wrote with his wife Caitlin.

Despite a promising cast and production team, the film opened to mixed reviews.

Criticism

The movie has been heavily criticized for its historical inaccuracies, especially since it claims to be close to the original story. Some examples include:

In the first place, the withdrawal of the Roman legions from Britain took place over 40 years before the movie is set.
The Saxons use crossbows known as gastraphetes in the movie; however, they historically used bows and spears instead. Crossbows were not introduced to England until much later.
In the film, the Picts are called "Woads". This is a reference to the plant they used to make their blue paint, but is nonetheless incorrect.
The Saxons are shown attacking Hadrian's Wall from Scotland. It is not clear why a seabourne invasion force would choose to make landfall on the wrong side of the heavily fortified wall. In reality the Saxons were actually occupying Britain at the time, and never invaded Scotland. (The pseudo-historical History of the Kings of Britain has the High King Vortigern actually introducing the Saxons to Britain as his mercenaries, fighting against the Picts.)
Germanus' second and last mission to Britain was twenty years before the year the movie is set in.
Pelagius is believed to have died decades earlier, and was not burned at the stake. The Pelagian heresy was misrepresented as well - it denied original sin, and was not about individual freedoms.
When the movie takes place, the Western Roman Empire no longer employed Sarmatian mercenaries; the Sarmatian soldiers would have been volunteers or sent by their chieftains instead of being drafted.
The capital of the Western Empire at the time was Ravenna instead of Rome because of ongoing wars with the barbarians.
The movie implies that the Pope was in control of the Western Empire, though it was actually controlled by the Emperor. The Pope did, however, have significant influences over the Empire's foreign affairs. (Note: some historians say that there weren't any "Popes" as we know them at this time. The office of Pontiff hadn't been clearly defined yet.)
During the battle with the Saxons, the "Woads" (Picts) use a trebuchet-like weapon to hurl missiles. The trebuchet was not introduced to England until the siege of Dover in 1216.
The Saxon leaders, Cerdic and Cynric, did not die at Mount Badon (see below).
In the film, Cerdic stops a warrior from raping a woman because it would lead to less-than-pure Saxon blood. The Saxons would not have had white supremacist attitudes, and were certainly not averse to intermarrying with the locals — as seen by their common descendants, the English!
Also, they would not have adopted a slash-and-burn approach to invasion, since they were going to and did settle there.
In the film Guinevere is portrayed as a warrior maiden who joins Arthur and the knights in battle. While there was historical precedent for this portrayal (see Boudica), it was probably still far from the Guinevere of classical history and lore. Warrior women were actually not as common as may be thought. In the Mabinogion, where Guinevere appears for the first time, she is already a queen.
The Saxons invade from the north. They actually invaded from the south and east.
Some characters keep their names in the forms found in French romances, instead of those found in earlier, more authentic sources. Examples include Tristan (Drustanus/Drystan), Guinevere (Gwenhwyvar), Lancelot (Anguselus(?))Gawain (Gwalchmei - see below) and Merlin (Myrddin).
The Sarmatian costumes are all wrong - they were armored in the manner of Byzantine cataphracts (see [1]), and used lances. Also, Tristan uses a Chinese sword called a dao.
Arthur and company use stirrups, which had not been invented yet.

Trivia

Cerdic and Cynric existed in actual history. They were the first kings of Wessex.
Dagonet, the knight who dies in the battle of the frozen lake, appears in Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur - as Arthur's court jester.
Lancelot and Galahad are portrayed as having similar ages while according to traditional versions they are father and son respectively.
This is possibly only the second Arthurian film in which Lancelot dies at the end while Arthur does not. The first was Robert Bresson's Lancelot du Lac (1974). In all other films, either Lancelot survives, as in First Knight (1995), or they are both killed at the end, as in Excalibur (1981).
In the film, Tristan is portrayed as having a hawk. In Welsh Arthurian legend, it is Gawain who is associated with hawks. He is called Gwalchmei, which means "Hawk of May".
Ironically, the film does not feature Kay and Bedivere, who, along with Gawain, are the most likely of Arthur's knights to have really existed (if they ever existed at all). The three appear as Arthur's companions in very early sources, like Culhwch and Olwen in the Mabinogion. (However, since Arthur and his men have been fighting for 15 years, it could be inferred that the two are dead at the time of the film.)

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