Excalibur

Cable has been playing John Boorman's classic Excalibur recently. It's a strange mixture of camp and grandeur. Not quite a great movie but still very very good.



Excalibur introduced a generation to the music of Carl Orff and Wagner. It's hard to listen to O Fortuna without thinking of the scene in Excalibur with the knights ridding through the flowering dogwood trees.



While the cast was composed of mostly unknowns actors, many have had fine careers and are still working today. Notables include: Helen Mirren as Morgana, Gabriel Byne as Uther Pendragon, Liam Neeson as Gawain and of course Patrick Stewart as Leondegrance.



In the true spirit of nepotism, Robert Boorman worked his children into the production. His daughter Telsche played the Lady in the Lake, his daughter Katrine played Igrayne, Authur's mother and his son played the young Mordred. Lore has it that Telsche got the part because she was the only girl on the set who could hold her breath long enough to get the shot.

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