I just finished my practicum placement, and with it a unit on heroes. I left them just as they began to study King Arthur, and the class was watching a mediocre made-for-tv movie called Merlin. The plus of the movie is that it tells pretty much the entire story, beginning with Merlin's birth, and ending with Arthur's death. The minuses are that... well, it's a made-for-tv movie.
So I left the class with a series of recommendations. For movies, the recent King Arthur movie isn't great, but it is kind of interesting. First Knight has its appeal, the 1967 version of Camelot is a classic (with Richard "original Dumbledore" Harris as King Arthur), and The Sword in the Stone like the book of the same name, is peerless.
For books, as I mentioned, T.H. White's The Sword in the Stone can't be beat, unless it is by the continuation by White: The Once and Future King. Mary Stewart's trilogy is a mainstay, and worth reading. Bernard Cornwell's Arthur trilogy is an interesting (if frustrating) new perspective. And finally, John Steinbeck's Arthur stories are hard to find but definitely worth the search.
And finally, speaking of good reading and off the topic of Arthur, here are a few web comics I enjoy:
http://www.sluggy.com
http://www.machall.com
http://www.samandfuzzy.com
http://sinfest.net
http://www.orneryboy.com
Enjoy.
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3 comments:
I really have a soft spot for 'Excalibur' from 1981, with Nigel Terry as Arthur, Liam Neeson as a boorish Gawain, and Patrick Stewart as Arthur's father-in-law Leodegrance. It definitely has its flaws (particularly some cartoonish special effects near the beginning) but otherwise it's quite mythic. It makes good use of music by Wagner and Orff. There are some scenes which have become part of the personal iconography in my head - Lancelot with a sword in his side, for example. And I LOVE the Grail quest sequence.
Morgana: You have failed. It has been ten years, and all your friends are dead.
Percival (half-dead): Has it been so long...
Ah, see, I haven't seen that. Maybe I will now, though.
Yes. 'Excalibur.' I like it because weirdly enough it is the movie treatment I think medieval people themselves would have understood and liked.
Also, read the Rosemary Sutcliff books on Arthur - most were for Young Adults, as the librarians say, but the adult version was 'Sword at Sunset.'
Tried to read Cornwell's stuff, he's one of my favorite author's writing on my favorite perids, yet I couldn't force my way through the first volume.
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