tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post7533720103252004968..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: On the ghostly unending of Rohmer's Perceval le GalloisCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-54270574940349206792010-08-20T15:59:41.451-04:002010-08-20T15:59:41.451-04:00Thanks again, Karl!Thanks again, Karl!Richard Burthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09967496685717379125noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-74681554162023841662010-08-20T15:57:12.906-04:002010-08-20T15:57:12.906-04:00By the way, I have a review of Cinematic Illuminat...By the way, I have a review of Cinematic Illuminations coming out in JGEP (or is it JEGP?).Richard Burthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09967496685717379125noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-40412953428280559922010-08-20T15:54:28.116-04:002010-08-20T15:54:28.116-04:00Somehow I subtracted 100 pages from your book when...Somehow I subtracted 100 pages from your book when I looked it up <br />in google books: no, not brief! Apologies, and I'll get my hands on it (congrats on the paperback): the animated sequence is quite odd, a surprising intrusion into a film generally happy to use real animals, human and otherwise.Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-28969919948006569102010-08-20T15:45:07.844-04:002010-08-20T15:45:07.844-04:00Very nice observation about the "unending.&qu...Very nice observation about the "unending." Linda Williams has a great essay on the film. I discuss Perceval in my book Medieval and Early Modern Film and Media (Palgrave, 2008; paperback, 2010). I am especially interested in the one animated sequence in Perceval. Thanks very much for mentioning my book, Karl. I wouldn't call my book "brief," however. It was 50,000 word over the official word count (90k). Palgrave printed the book in a larger size to accommodate the large word count.Richard Burthttp://www.clas.ufl.edu/%7Eburt/publications.htmlnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-18539619555217393202010-08-20T13:54:59.732-04:002010-08-20T13:54:59.732-04:00Tom, great comment, and I find this very convincin...Tom, great comment, and I find this very convincing. I have to confess that my preference for Bresson and Rohmer's Athurian movies goes with my longstanding love Boorman, (Celtic) warts and all, a love matched only by my love for <i>Zardoz.</i> So: what do I THINK of Boorman? I don't much, actually, though I find his finessing of the grail legend in terms of a 'blood and soil' reading of England/Arthur at best embarrassing, especially with the vengeful temptress Morgan standing in as a kind of incarnated earth spirit. It doesn't make much sense.<br /><br />But then again, it's been a couple years since I last saw the Boorman, so cum grano salis. <br /><br />I honestly don't know European Arthurian film outside the arthouse (and even that I know pretty poorly), so I can't offer much here. A check of the list of films in David Williams, "Medieval Movies," The Yearbook of English Studies 20 (1990): 1-32 suggests that non-English Arthurian films are VERY hard to come by. There are basically none between the post-war and Bresson. Williams' list, I imagine, is incomplete. There's a larger list of Italian films in Jean-Pierre Bleys, "Filmographie des films italiens sur le Moyen Âge," <i>Les Cahiers de la Cinémathèque</i> 42-43 (1985): 157-64. There also may be a long list in Richard Burt's <a href="http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=01Oo-f175L8C&oi=fnd&pg=PR9&ots=qc6t2biSwh&sig=yQ-WGFKXV8Ppq5uiqwV9eSsn7gw#v=onepage&q&f=false" rel="nofollow">brief medieval and early modern film book.</a>Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-5551183487925744402010-08-20T13:30:50.686-04:002010-08-20T13:30:50.686-04:00I should also say that I'm only thinking about...I should also say that I'm only thinking about this in terms of film. There are plenty of modern English and American literary adaptations which are more ambivalent toward the Arthurian material. (T.H. White and Mark Twain jump to mind.)Tom Elrodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14634982419388998095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-1135403841593198792010-08-20T13:08:36.171-04:002010-08-20T13:08:36.171-04:00Speaking of differences to Boorman: I think it'...Speaking of differences to Boorman: I think it's interesting to consider the different approaches to Arthurian material in the major French film adaptations (this film, Bresson's <i>Lancelot du Lac</i>) and the major English/American adaptations (Boorman, Camelot the musical, the Clive Owen <i>King Arthur</i> movie), the latter of which seems always to be either "historical" or Malorian (with either no interest in or knowledge of Arthurian tradition before Malory).<br /><br />I haven't seen enough non-English Arthurian films or read much medieval film scholarship (I will have to check out <i>Cinematic Illumination</i> and that book of Arthurian film essays edited by Kevin Harty), so I don't know what a non-New Wave French (or German or Italian) filmmaker would do with Arthur & friends. Nevertheless, it seems that English & American productions are more interested in Arthur and his knights as legendary "heroes" or somesuch, their downfall unfortunate and "tragic" in the mainstream 20th-century sense of that word (i.e., "sad"). The actual concept of heroism isn't very complicated, whereas Rohmer seems to understand that the medieval material is very ambivalent about the ability of rulers and heroes to save and not destroy, which is why Perceval's quest remains unresolved and the Passion Play offers no redemption. Arthur's agency in his own downfall in Boorman's <i>Excalibur</i> is not very important, and his final confrontation with Mordred is framed as heroic and brave (like standing up to a bully), whereas in the post-Chretien romances his actions and their consequences were central to his death and his kingdom's collapse. It's not all evil Morgan le Fay's fault. (And obviously, Rohmer's film isn't based on the <i>Le Morte d'Arthur</i> material, but ambivalent heroism is there in Chretien, too.)<br /><br />If there are major cinematic exceptions to this, or some readings/analyses of French medievalism of which I'm just ignorant (and there probably are), I'd be interested to hear about them. I'd also be interested in hearing more of what you think of Boorman, as there are portions of his film I quite like, even though I think it attempts too much while in the end accomplishing very little.Tom Elrodhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14634982419388998095noreply@blogger.com