Yesterday I reposted Rebecca Fisher’s Big Worlds on Small Screens look at the ’80s cult classic, Excalibur. (Reposted because muggins here inadvertently scheduled two posts simultaneously last Wednesday: duh!)

So if you haven’t checked it out already, do so now! 😉

I think of all the films and shows Rebecca has reviewed over several years of Big Worlds on Small Screens, Excalibur is probably the film that was among the most formative for me. I’m not sure how it would stack up on a rewatch but I first saw it when I was quite young and despite the violence — and it is very violent — I really loved it.

I loved the way it juxtaposed a sense of gritty reality comprised of genuine dirt and Dark Ages squalor, the brutality, and the outright venality of many of the people, with a layering of myth, legend, and magic — for example, the interweaving of the mythic Fisher King with the Grail quest: i.e. “the King and the Land are One.”

I really liked the larger-than-life characters such as Merlin, Morgana, and Lancelot, as well as the colour and splendour of the Round Table — and the sharp contrast to the devastated landscape and “nucleur winter” malaise that the realm falls into during the Grail quest. And I find it hard to imagine anyone who couldn’t love the moment when both Arthur and the land recover and the restored knighthood of the Round Table gallop through the flowering land to the marvelous music from the Carmina Burana’s O Fortuna.

Well, I can imagine those who don’t love it, actually, but for me it’s part of the epic-heroic, over the top appeal of the film. Most importantly, though, Excalibur is one of the films that sparked my imagination as to what Fantasy could be and achieve.

Rebecca asks whether, “…it is the quintessential retelling of the Arthurian legends?” and decides “no.” I agree that given the scope of the legend it’s probably not possible to really have a quintessential retelling — and in fact it is not necessary for the film to be that. For me it’s enough that Excalibur not only worked as a movie — probably because of the coherence Rebecca also mentions — but “spoke” to me and fired my imagination through its considerable artistic and storytelling achievement.

~ by Rebecca Fisher

I’m sure that John Boorman’s ambitious attempt to adapt all the Arthurian legends into a single cinematic spectacle did not deliberately include capturing the aesthetic of the Eighties in all its glory – but it totally did.

As such, Excalibur is set in the Eighties version of the Dark Ages, complete with perms for the women, mullets for the men, and lots of massive jewellery and florescent eyeshadow. Because of the sheer volume of material it has to cover (and it covers nearly sixty years’ worth of story) any degree of character nuance has to be obliterated in favour of plot, making it a “cliff notes” version of the legends.

With this emphasis on story over character, the film is divided into five distinct parts: the first deals with Uther’s pursuit of Igraine, the second the Sword in the Stone and Arthur’s attempts to prove himself as king, the third Lancelot and Guenevere’s love affair, the fourth Perceval’s quest for the Holy Grail, and the fifth Arthur’s rejuvenation and the battle of Camlann.

The wedding of Arthur and Guenevere

Strewn throughout are the staple parts of Arthurian Romances: Merlin fostering Arthur to Sir Ector, the Lady of the Lake granting Arthur Excalibur, the formation of the Knights of the Round Table, Morgana and Arthur’s incestuous liaison, Guinevere and Lancelot’s infidelity, shiny armour, mysterious castles, crotchety bridge-keepers, and knights that lose their minds at the drop of a hat.

Some of the creative choices in merging characters and relying on potent imagery to get the point across are pretty clever. Here the sorceress Morgana is combined with Morgause (the original mother of Mordred) and Nimue (who traps Merlin in the crystal cave) in order to simplify matters, and the state of Arthur’s kingdom is usually signified by how shiny the armour is – and trust me, that armour can get pretty damn shiny. We’re talking a blinding mirror-quality level sheen here.

See what I mean?

There are a lot of familiar (albeit youthful) faces: Helen Mirren as Morgana, Patrick Stewart as Leondegrance, Liam Neeson as Gawaine and Gabriel Byrne as Uther, though in regards to the performances, it’s largely Nicol Williamson as Merlin who’s the standout.

Despite the huge swathes of material it has to cover, it’s to Boorman’s credit that the film remains coherent. There are stirring speeches and incredible set pieces – but is it the quintessential retelling of the Arthurian legends?

In my opinion: no. But only because it’s virtually impossible to fully capture the depth and scope of the Arthurian legends in their entirety. Most other adaptations chose only one chapter of Arthur’s life to dramatize: Disney’s The Sword in the Stone explores his youth, while Jerry Zucker’s First Knight dealt with the Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot love triangle.

Morgana prepares her son Mordred for battle (plus proof that George Clooney’s Batman was not the first to have armoured nipples).

Perhaps one day someone will do the entirety of the Arthurian cycle justice – though I expect when that happens it’ll be an episodic television event so as to give itself time and space to delve into all of the myriad legends. Until then, Excalibur remains a flawed but interesting contraction of a story that has been retold countless times before, and has yet to be told countless more.

Next Time:

We veer away from the strict “fantasy” genre to explore what can more generously be categorized as “speculative fiction” – starting with Terry Gilliam’s time-travelling comedy/adventure: Time Bandits.
.

About The Reviewer:

Rebecca Fisher is a graduate of the University of Canterbury with a Masters degree in English Literature, mainly, she claims, because she was able to get away with writing her thesis on C.S. Lewis and Philip Pullman. She is a reviewer for FantasyLiterature.com, a large website that specializes in fantasy and science-fiction novels, as well as posting reviews to Amazon.com and her They’re All Fictional blog.

To read Rebecca’s detailed introduction of both herself and the series, as well as preceding reviews, click on:

Big Worlds On Small Screens

Rebecca won the 2015 Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Fan Writer, for writing that included Big Worlds On Small Screens.

Autumn Fires

In the other gardens
….And all up the vale,
From the autumn bonfires
….See the smoke trail!

Pleasant summer over
….And all the summer flowers,
The red fire blazes,
….The gray smoke towers.

Sing a song of seasons!
….Something bright in all!
Flowers in the summer,
….Fires in the fall!

~ Robert Louis Stevenson, 1850 – 1894

—

We’re enjoying a prolonged Indian Summer here in the Southern Hemisphere, but the leaves are nonetheless turning and it’s officially autumn, so I’m marking the season with poetry.

Mary Victoria

Over the weekend I talked about the author’s dilemma that often arises out of research, a train of thought sparked by my recent interview with the insightful Mary Victoria:

Helen Lowe & Mary Victoria in Conversation

Another aspect of storytelling that Mary and I discussed was how sometimes as author you have to backtrack on earlier material to get your story right. Mary used the adjective “painful” to describe this process and she is quite right, it very often is painful: also frustrating, time consuming, and maddening.

Writing as alchemy…

We also agreed that being willing to backtrack and reevaluate almost always results in a better book.

I took comfort from such reflections this past week as I found myself spending as much time reflecting on as actually writing the current instalment of The Chaos Gate (The Wall of Night Book Four — & very much a  work in progress at this juncture!)

The holdup was all about structure. I know what I want to achieve with the material, but whether it works or not all depends on how its structured in relation to other aspects of the story. In this case anyway, getting that structure right is all about getting the right words into their right order in the first instance, then relative to other sequences of text in the second.

New book a-comin’

It’s all been a bit of a slog, one that merits all of the adjectives above: painful, frustrating, time consuming and just a wee bit maddening as well.

There is a gleam of sunshine in there, though, which is that it is also incredibly rewarding—and despite the to-ing and fro-ing, the challenge of the storytelling is rather fun as well.

But for the story to work, make no mistake:  at times like these the author absolutely has to get that structure right. If she or he doesn’t then (imho) the whole storytelling house of cards will collapse in on itself.

Usually, Rebecca Fisher’s Big Worlds on Small Screens column posts every second Wednesday, but in a blog editorial oops! & mea culpa! this week, I managed to post two features simultaneously. (Embarrassed, you will be…)

Anyway, so Rebecca and followers of Big Worlds on Small Screens aren’t short-changed, I’ll be re-posting her review of that ’80s classic, Excalibur, this coming Wednesday.

So if you haven’t read the post already, look out for it again then. 🙂

UK/AU/NZ

In this week’s conversation about Daughter of Blood with friend and fellow writer, Mary Victoria,  she raised the question of background research. In reply, I talked about how my research focus for this third book in The Wall of Night series focused on “sieges and related matters such as disease and medicine.”

All completely true and to find out more you should definitely check out the Q&A, here:

A Conversation with Mary Victoria

However, Mary’s question also got me thinking about the importance of research for historically-influenced fantasy fiction (which is the kind I write) — but also about its dangers.

The most profound being that having researched sieges and assaults, ancient and modern, and also looked into some of their related permutations such as disease, I was naturally eager to demonstrate that I had been duly diligent and KNEW ALL THE THINGS!

USA

Do you see the pit yawning beneath my feet? Because although it was undoubtedly helpful for me in writing Daughter of Blood to “know all the things”, they didn’t necessarily all need to be in the story for the telling thereof to work and the tale to rock along. In fact, putting in too much research background can have the opposite effect and bog the storytelling—and reader experience—down.

In short, less is always more. I knew the time had come to cry quits when I found myself combing the manuscript for somewhere to insert a few sentences so readers would know beyond doubt that I “knew all the things” about necessary siege camp hygiene.

But here’s the thing: as I also remarked to Mary in a different context, the Derai have been a “people under arms” for millennia if not aeons so they know all about siege warfare and would automatically do whatever was required. So as author, I didn’t need to continually underline that point—particularly since it had already been traversed in The Gathering of the Lost and the character who is in command of the Daughter of Blood defense was also present during the earlier siege.

AKA there was no need to worry: I could be assured that through training and experience he would know everything he needed to do. And also rest assured that stories tend to rock along a lot more effectively if the minutiae of every aspect of the action is not canvassed in detail.

Sometimes, of course, it can be necessary for me to put the blow-by-blow in so I can get the sequencing of the action right in my own mind—but a very important of my work in the next draft is to remove anything that is not strictly necessary for the story to work.

So much as I may want readers to see that I have done my research and do indeed “know all the things”, the book will provide a much better reading experience, particularly in terms of pacing, if I don’t give in to that impulse.

Mary Victoria

Only last week I maintained and averred that “in the writing ‘verse, interviews always come thick and fast around book publication day and then gradually taper off.”

UK/AU/NZ

Just to prove me wrong, this week I got together with my friend and fellow author, Mary Victoria, for an indepth conversation on matters that included Daughter of Blood, developing the character of Myr (the Daughter of Blood herself), and researching the book.

As always when conversing with Mary, the discussion is broad in scope, insightful, and not a run-through of all the usual suspects, question-wise.

USA

So I hope you will head on over to Chronicles of the Tree and check out:

Mary Victoria & Helen Lowe in Conversation

And do say hi to Mary while you’re over there.

Like me, she enjoys hearing from visitors and always replies to comments.

Mary Victoria’s world of the Tree; art by Frank Victoria – used with permission

“Team Cap”

Yep, I’ve seen it.

And yes, I liked it. Quite a lot, actually.

And yes again, that is an accolade since by and large I’m reasonably lukewarm about superhero movies. (I know, how can that be?)

So why the like? First of all #TeamCap. Just sayin’ 😉

I also liked the convincing way the film wove together so many different characters, far more convincingly than Avengers: Age of Ultron, imho. Plus a big thumbs-up for Black Panther as a new character who was far more than one-dimensional; the antagonist was also well drawn and well acted by Daniel Bruhl.

Really, though, Captain America: Civil War was pitched in what for me is heartland territory, focusing on a story that was all about the relationships between the characters and exploring consequences, rather than the usual superhero fare of OTT set-piece wham-kapows in which Manhattan/London/Segovia gets trashed (for the ker-zillioneth time in the case of Manhattan; I mean, seriously, who would live there?)

In fact, I really liked that the denouement pointed viewer expectation in the big wham-kapow direction–and then delivered something not only entirely different but also satisfying.

Put all that together with the moments of leavening—and refreshingly understated—humour and it’s probably fairly clear why I left the theatre a satisfied customer.

Rosie Cooper

A little while back, reader Rosie Cooper tweeted to tell me how much she had enjoyed Daughter of Blood (noice!) — but also how much she wanted to discuss the book with other The Wall Of Night series readers.

I was still pondering this, when the very next thing I knew, Rose was emailing to tell me she had set up a Facebook group for the series, titled Haarth, and that she wondered if I would mind spreading the good word.

Naturally I don’t mind at all. 😉

If you are a person who likes discussing books, and heart The Wall of Night series, too, then I would love it — and am very sure Rosie will, too — if you’d consider paying a visit and adding to the fun on:

The Wall of Night Facebook Group

The Haarth group may be small as yet, but like Rosie it is Made of Mighty — just like Daughter Of Blood & The Wall of Night series. 😀

~ by Rebecca Fisher

I’m sure that John Boorman’s ambitious attempt to adapt all the Arthurian legends into a single cinematic spectacle did not deliberately include capturing the aesthetic of the Eighties in all its glory – but it totally did.

As such, Excalibur is set in the Eighties version of the Dark Ages, complete with perms for the women, mullets for the men, and lots of massive jewellery and florescent eyeshadow. Because of the sheer volume of material it has to cover (and it covers nearly sixty years’ worth of story) any degree of character nuance has to be obliterated in favour of plot, making it a “cliff notes” version of the legends.

With this emphasis on story over character, the film is divided into five distinct parts: the first deals with Uther’s pursuit of Igraine, the second the Sword in the Stone and Arthur’s attempts to prove himself as king, the third Lancelot and Guenevere’s love affair, the fourth Perceval’s quest for the Holy Grail, and the fifth Arthur’s rejuvenation and the battle of Camlann.

The wedding of Arthur and Guenevere

Strewn throughout are the staple parts of Arthurian Romances: Merlin fostering Arthur to Sir Ector, the Lady of the Lake granting Arthur Excalibur, the formation of the Knights of the Round Table, Morgana and Arthur’s incestuous liaison, Guinevere and Lancelot’s infidelity, shiny armour, mysterious castles, crotchety bridge-keepers, and knights that lose their minds at the drop of a hat.

Some of the creative choices in merging characters and relying on potent imagery to get the point across are pretty clever. Here the sorceress Morgana is combined with Morgause (the original mother of Mordred) and Nimue (who traps Merlin in the crystal cave) in order to simplify matters, and the state of Arthur’s kingdom is usually signified by how shiny the armour is – and trust me, that armour can get pretty damn shiny. We’re talking a blinding mirror-quality level sheen here.

See what I mean?

There are a lot of familiar (albeit youthful) faces: Helen Mirren as Morgana, Patrick Stewart as Leondegrance, Liam Neeson as Gawaine and Gabriel Byrne as Uther, though in regards to the performances, it’s largely Nicol Williamson as Merlin who’s the standout.

Despite the huge swathes of material it has to cover, it’s to Boorman’s credit that the film remains coherent. There are stirring speeches and incredible set pieces – but is it the quintessential retelling of the Arthurian legends?

In my opinion: no. But only because it’s virtually impossible to fully capture the depth and scope of the Arthurian legends in their entirety. Most other adaptations chose only one chapter of Arthur’s life to dramatize: Disney’s The Sword in the Stone explores his youth, while Jerry Zucker’s First Knight dealt with the Arthur/Guinevere/Lancelot love triangle.

Morgana prepares her son Mordred for battle (plus proof that George Clooney’s Batman was not the first to have armoured nipples).

Perhaps one day someone will do the entirety of the Arthurian cycle justice – though I expect when that happens it’ll be an episodic television event so as to give itself time and space to delve into all of the myriad legends. Until then, Excalibur remains a flawed but interesting contraction of a story that has been retold countless times before, and has yet to be told countless more.

Next Time:

We veer away from the strict “fantasy” genre to explore what can more generously be categorized as “speculative fiction” – starting with Terry Gilliam’s time-travelling comedy/adventure: Time Bandits.
.

About The Reviewer:

Rebecca Fisher is a graduate of the University of Canterbury with a Masters degree in English Literature, mainly, she claims, because she was able to get away with writing her thesis on C.S. Lewis and Philip Pullman. She is a reviewer for FantasyLiterature.com, a large website that specializes in fantasy and science-fiction novels, as well as posting reviews to Amazon.com and her They’re All Fictional blog.

To read Rebecca’s detailed introduction of both herself and the series, as well as preceding reviews, click on:

Big Worlds On Small Screens

Rebecca won the 2015 Sir Julius Vogel Award for Best Fan Writer, for writing that included Big Worlds On Small Screens.