Review by Charles Cassady, Jr.
Now that LeBron James has left, the only thing significant
about Cleveland ,
as we all know, is the Armor Court
at the Cleveland Museum of Art. The Armor
Court is a Ridley Scott movie-fan's dream come
true, all those gleaming suits of authentic European chainmail, armor, swords
and headpieces, hundreds of years old, in a world-class collection. Feeding the
King Arthur and St. George fantasies of generations of museum-goers, the Armor
Court lacks only Scooby Doo and Shaggy hiding in a couple of the suits to
escape, I dunno, the Egyptian mummy the next couple of corridors over.
If there was an "Armor Court ! The Motion Picture," it
would sure look like LANCELOT OF THE LAKE, or to those of you non-Ohioans who
don’t believe in “Freedom Fries” (look that one up online, you kids; yes, we’ve
had some real winners as politicians here in Buckeye land) Lancelot du Lac.
It’s a dour 1974 dramatization of the end of Camelot, as interpreted by French
filmmaker Robert Bresson.
This is no Broadway musical or even a Wagnerian John
Boorman Celt-gasm (the way EXCALIBUR was), but a joyless, flat depiction of the
Arthurian dream failed. It begins with a bloody massacre of armored knights right out of
MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL and flashes back from there
to how this dismal outcome came to pass, as the last act in the King Arthur
saga (fortunately, we are spared Bresson’s vision of the first two acts).
It seems that after the (unseen) Merlin the Merlin sent
the Knights of the Round Table out to find the Holy Grail, most of them got
killed. Only the virtually invincible (and French) Sir Lancelot du Lac (Luc
Simon) returns to the depleted and directionless Camelot, where he resumes his
taboo secret affair with Queen Guinevere (Laura Duke). One of the few knights
smart/wicked enough to sit out the Grail quest, Mordred, begins a jealous whisper
campaign against Lancelot and Guinevere, while the remainders of the shattered
Round Table act out their frustrations in jousting tournaments. Finally, the
knights split into two factions, one loyal to the fugitive Lancelot and
Guinevere, the other manipulated by Mordred (but still, paradoxically,
idolizing Lancelot all the same), for the gory denouement.
As action-packed and passionate as this sounds – it just isn’t.
Even non-French speakers will detect that the thespians are just reciting their
lines in unexcited monotone, whatever the occasion. Scenery remains small-scope
and mostly antiseptic, there is nearly no background music (the ambient noise
of clanking, clunking armor may be a surrogate). Overall the ambiance is as dispirited
as as a Cleveland job search (talk about a fruitless Grail quest).
Bresson’s skills as a world-class filmmaker are
undeniable, so what gives that this legendary material is shot in an unedifying fashion? Maybe Bresson is trying to avoid the
trap so many Hollywood filmmakers fall into; in a Camelot which has lost sight
of the Grail (possibly because of Lancelot’s indiscretion with the Queen) this
very Catholic film director is trying to show a lifestyle in which God and morality
have been lost. Now when the likes of Cecil B. Demille depicted Sin with a capital
S in their Bible epics, it looked pretty glamorous and fun; the rubes were buying
tickets to see the orgy and the gladiators in the arena just as much as the redemption. None of that for Bresson! These are doomed souls, marching (or riding) zombie-like to their
own destruction, and even Lancelot and Guinevere don’t appear to be much
enjoying themselves at all in their very chaste adultery scenes.
So there you are. Or, maybe Bresson just didn’t have his
heart in this one. Frankly (or Frankishly) it’s really hard to tell. And
narrative confusion sets in with a late development (I think) in which Lancelot
changes from his usual dark armor into a different set so nobody can tell
who/where he is. Or did I just lose interest, like everyone else? Anyway, it’s
no thrill ride, and not traditionally entertaining, unless you’ve got an armor
fetish. For which I repeat, Boorman’s EXCALIBUR, now on DVD, still holds the
crown, and young Helen Mirren was just as smokin’ hot as, well, old Helen
Mirren.
But, speaking as someone old enough to remember the production’s
time period (NO, NOT MEDIEVAL DARK AGES YOU STUPID, TATTOOED, TWEETING, SEXTING, FACEBOOKING TWENTYSOMETHING TWERPS!), namely the mid-1970s, avec Watergate, Vietnam,
post-hippiedom disenchantment and mainstream movies that actually flirted with
adulthood…I must say the tone of bleak disillusionment does strike an
appropriate contempo chord, take it or leave it, and most people did indeed
want to leave it, for the nearest disco and/or coke spoon.
Heck, today even the French producers would ask Robert Bresson
to step aside and hand the reins over to Luc Besson instead. Who would somehow
find a place in Camelot for parkour, a car chase and RPGs.
As you might recall, the government of France recently
made Cinematheque director John Ewing honorary Knight for his promotion of
French culture via cinema. Does that mean that if things go really bad for University Circle
he might run amok like Lancelot and decapitate lots of arts folks? Hey, just
trying to give us peasants something to look forward to. (2 out of 4 stars)
No comments:
Post a Comment
We approve all legitimate comments. However, comments that include links to irrelevant commercial websites and/or websites dealing with illegal or inappropriate content will be marked as spam.
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.