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Malory, Monty, and Indy
Ryan Renfro
Of all the legends produced in the Middle Ages the tale of King
Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table has had the greatest
continual influence upon the imaginations of following
generations. In fact, one of the world’s foremost
authorities on myths, Joseph Campbell, has gone so far to state
that the Grail Quest, one of the central themes in the Arthurian
Legends, is the central myth of western civilization (Dandalf).
With the preeminent position of the Arthurian within western myth
in mind it should come of little surprise that these stories have
been so well explored throughout the ages in a number of
different formats. From Sir Thomas Malory’s Le
Morte d’Arthur to modern films such as Indiana
Jones and the Last Crusade, each artist has adapted the basic
Arthurian legend and presented it through the looking glass of
their own contemporary society. Thus though the examination
of these works and how they portray the ideals of chivalry and
knighthood, particularly with concern to the grail quest, one is
able to perceive certain ideals within and traits about the
societies which produced them.
The first work which shall be examined is Le Morte
d’Arthur. Written in fifteenth- century England
but drawing heavily upon earlier French versions, Malory’s
text is widely considered the most authoritative of all Arthurian
texts. As with all tales of the Round Table Malory’s
looks nostalgically back to the good old days in which things
were better than the present and indeed in his time knighthood
and feudalism had already begun to fade from Western Europe.
This fading of knighthood would explain why Malory seeks to
define it and glorify it in the light in which he does; Malory
appears to be clinging to the old ideas of Chivalry which were
quickly fading from his world. In fact if one examines the
treatment of chivalry in the text it looks as though Malory were
attempting to write a guide for a knight’s or a
gentleman’s behavior. Malory’s work shows his
endeavor to try to bring back into his society noble chivalry by
which men and women live virtuously, protecting the Holy Church
and thus improving society (Carss, Malory p.1).
The Quest for the Holy Grail in Le Morte d’Arthur is
best placed as part of the Lancelot story. The reason why
Malory’s greatest knight cannot achieve the Grail because of
his love for Guinevere and his inability to put “prevy
thoughtis” of her out of his mind (Tucker, 264). Lancelot’s
performance in the Grail Quest is one of the main sources drawn
upon by Tucker to back his argument that Malory views love and
chivalry as creating conflicting loyalties (259). Malory’s
understanding of how one’s allegiance to Christian religious
ideals, spouse and lord can come into conflict with love
undoubtedly originates from his experiences living within a
society in which marriages were often arranged and often had
nothing to do with love. In the end Malory’s judgement
of this conflict would seem surprising to many modern readers in
that Malory’s two greatest characters end up morning the
passing of the Round Table more than their loss of Guinevere:
Arthur states his disappointment at the passing of the Round
Table is greater than that for the loss of Guinevere, just as
Lancelot, when at the king and queen’s graves, mourned not
the loss of his love’s life but the destruction of the Round
Table. The morning of Arthur and Lancelot is perhaps
instead the morning of Malory and his contemporaries of the
ideals of knighthood abruptly passing from their world.
By the twentieth century and the invention of the motion picture
feudalism and knighthood had disappeared from society, although
it still lived on in legend and was brought back to life any time
in which people became disillusioned by modern society such as
during the Romantic era or by people trying to push the ideals of
chivalry and courtesy. Such is the case with the Richard
Thorpe’s 1953 Knights of the Round Table, which shows
a number of general similarities with the United States in the
1950s. For one, the 50s are generally defined as the decade
of unity and conformity. This film begins with narration
telling of the chaos created by the withdrawal of Rome’s
legions from England and how a new order of chivalry brings order
back to England. Indeed, this order brought back to England
is manifest in the film itself; because it is a fifties movie
everything is very structured and orderly. The shots in the
film are very steady, well-light and always very colorful. The
characters speak very formally and are rarely over-emotional.
It is in these ways that the very nature of the film reflect the
highly-structured society of the 1950s.
Thorpe also makes changes in the legends themselves which are
typical of his society. Merlin has lost all of his magical
powers and thus his pagan connection and has been relegated to
the role of Arthur’s foster father. Further, when
Mordred accuses him of witchcraft he denies it, just as Lancelot
laughs when Elaine tells him that he should have know she was
waiting for him by magic. Thorpe clearly does not believe in any
kind of magic and has even gone so far as to take it away from
Merlin! This is a very modern view which laughs at magic
and superstition and certainly would not have been that taken by
the medieval authors. Instead, what we see is the most
Christian version of the legend. The magic and paganism
present in Malory and later in Excalibur are lacking,
there are numerous mentions of God and characters performing
Christian rituals such as crossing themselves and attending the
mass celebrated for Arthur’s funeral, and most importantly
the Holy Grail is not confused with Arthur or fertility but is
portrayed as the cup of Christ. Thorpe’s deals with the
issues of Christianity and Paganism in Knights of the Round
Table in a manner that would be generally consistent with
mainstream society in the 1950s.
The next and last attempt at bringing Malory’s Le Morte
d’Arthur to the silver screen in its entirety was John
Boorman’s Excalibur. Boorman agrees with Joseph
Campbell in the every great myth of mankind marks a turning point
in the history of civilization (Keuchenius, 4). He views
the legend of King Arthur as the turning point from the old days
of paganism and nature to the time of man and the coming of
consciousness (4). Keuchenius argues that Arthur represents the
reason of man, whereas Merlin and Excalibur represent the
subconscious. He claims when the two are separated, a waste
land not unlike the one created by T.S. Elliot is created
(5). Thus one may deduce that Boorman is disillusioned with
modern society who have turned solely to order and reason, much
like the Romantic writers before him, and that he is perhaps
calling for a reconnection with the old spiritual, unconscious
side.
Although there are obvious references to Christianity throughout
the film such as Arthur’s wedding and knighting, the film
has an overall pagan feel to it. Merlin derives his powers
from something referred to as “the dragon” (Boorman),
a mystical beast viewed as evil in the Christian religion, in
fact Merlin himself is the classical magician, something which is
also frowned upon. Even the presence of Christianity in the
film is very heathen; for example the crucifix at
Arthur’s wedding could just as easily be a pagan spirit, and
the scene in the chapel in which Arthur is struck by lightning is
in a very green light, giving it the same Celtic feel as the rest
of the film. This provides a sharp contrast with the pure
Christian society portrayed in Knights of the Round Table
and is undoubtedly representative in the change in attitudes
towards Christianity and the acceptability of paganism within the
30 years since the former was released.
Boorman, although he claims to have based his film on Malory, in
fact takes great liberties with concern to Grail Quest. First
and foremost Boorman’s grail is not the Holy Grail of Malory
at all, but rather the grail seems to be linked to Arthur and the
ancient Celtic idea of the king being connected with the land
(Keuchenius). When Percieval crosses the drawbridge and
enters the grail castle he answers that the Grail serves Arthur
and that he has lost the secret that he and the land are one.
Boorman views the Grail Quest as a quest for something which
Arthur has lost as opposed to its usual role in Arthurian
literature as the quest for the divine. Boorman’s
quest for the secret that the king and the land are one should be
taken in the contexts of modern society in which many feel that
we have lost our connection with nature and the environment and
thus Boorman suggests that through acquisition of the
understanding that people are one with the land they may restore
their world to fertility and health, just as Arthur’s
drinking from the grail did.
Excalibur also differs form the previous two sources in
its portrayal of chivalry. Whereas they seek to convey and
image of noble chivalry and courtesy by which mankind could
vastly improve its state, Boorman shows a darker, faulty chivalry
which without the magical presence of Merlin is doomed to
failure. As previously mentioned the opening of
Thorpe’s film attributes prosperity to
the chivalry of the Round Table, just like Malory does. Boorman
on the other hand seems to attribute the prosperity of the land
to the king and further to the cooperation between the world of
man and of Merlin. It is in this light that Carss claims
that “Boorman works the use of the codes in a way to fill
the chasm that is developing between the two opposing
forces” (1). Whether this was his intention or not, it
is clear that he does take more of a negative stance on chivalry
than the previous versions. The knight’s seem to spend
most of their time fighting, drinking, or making love. The
war scenes are very graphic, violent and gory with lots of blood
and suffering. The love scenes, such as the rape of
Ygraine, are likewise very violent. With a release date of
1981 Excalibur is the product of a society still shaken from the
violence of the Vietnam War and certainly shows a more cynical
approach to violence as well as a more open approach to sexual
issues than that taken 30 years earlier.
By far the most critical film of the Arthurian legend is Monty
Python and the Holy Grail. Widely known for their
inability to leave anything sacred the Python crew mocks every
aspect of the Arthurian legend. In so doing they have also
most profoundly inscribed the values of late twentieth-century
society upon the film while brilliantly contrasting them with
medieval society.
First of all Monty Python presents Arthur and his knights and
therefore the ideas of chivalry which they represent as foolish.
Arthur is consistently outwitted by the peasants he is supposed
to be ruling, where it be in discussions about swallows carrying
coconuts or of forms of government. He is set back in his
quest by killer rabbits and the ferocity of the French taunting,
calling him a “silly king” (Gilliam) while the knights
back at Camelot impersonate Clark Gable. But it is not
enough that Monty Python just points out what is wrong about
medieval society; indeed, like all good satire they provide a
solution: “By hanging on to outdated imperialist dogma
which perpetuates the social and economic differences in our
society! If there's EVER going to be any progress...”
(Gilliam). The peasant Dennis is clearly better educated
than Arthur and through and anachronism presents a solution to
the problems of medieval government by clearly referring to
democracy.
As for the Grail Quest, it too is heavily criticized in Monty
Python and the Holy Grail. The quest has no apparent
reason in the plot and the characters have no idea why they are
looking for it, they just happened to have met God one day and he
thought it a “good idea” (Gilliam) that they look for
it. As opposed to Boorman’s distancing the Grail from
Christianity, the Python gang takes advantage of the quest to
mock it. First they display a group of monks chanting and
beating themselves on the heads, followed by the appearance of
God himself it what must be the silliest depiction of an
all-powerful being ever. They come around for a third time
with the Holy Hand Grenade of Antioch by which they mock holy
relics, one of witch the Holy Grail is. The portrayal of
the Grail Quest as a silly waste of time by a bunch of fools
could only have its origins in a culture which in reality views
it as such and thus we can infer that some if not many people
during the time when this version of the Arthurian myth was
produced did indeed see it accordingly.
The latest film based on or at least influenced by the Arthurian
legends is Steven Spielberg’s Indiana Jones and the Last
Crusade. Although no direct mention of Arthur or the
Round table, this film has many parallels with many versions of
King Arthur. To begin with the first scene of the film is
the young Indiana battling for the Cross of Coronado symbolizing
the struggle for the Christian faith (Schmidl). Once the
older Indiana has saved the cross, he returns to his court at the
university, where he is mobbed by mostly women seeking his help.
He is then deceived by a man named Donovan into aiding him in the
search for the Grail. Donovan roughly parallels Morgan le Fey not
only in his deception of the hero and his cooperation with the
evil nazis but also in his death at the end of the film in which
he quickly ages away just as Morgan did in Excalibur.
In the last scene Indiana must acquire the Grail in order to save
his dying father or this film’s version of the Fisher King.
Thus there are many parallels between this film and the Arthurian
legends.
The concept of knighthood is not very well developed in this
film, the only judgement of it we have is from the last scene in
which Indiana meets the knight and that he refers to Indiana as a
knight as well, therefore one may conclude that Spielberg conveys
the ideals of knighthood through Indiana’s actions such as
fighting for the cross and rescuing his father. Even though
the basic quest is still present Indiana Jones and the Last
Crusade still adds its own modern take on the ideas of
chivalry. When the knight begins to go through what appears
to be a ceremony Indiana states “Look, I don’t have
time…” (Spielburg). He also has little interest
in the Holy Grail as he states to Kasim “I didn't come for
the Cup of Christ. I came to find my father” (Spielburg).
Granted his father was dying the first quote still demonstrates
the difference between the two ages in that the knight is obliged
to perform a ceremony, where as the modern Indiana appears to
have little interest in such an event. The second quote
shows how Indiana is not interested in finding the Holy Grail or
any sort of spiritual connection with either God such as in
Malory or the unconscious as in Excalibur. This
makes the quest for Indiana a very secular or temporal one which
is unquestionable linked with the fact that the film was released
in 1989 and not 500 years earlier.
The Grail Quest in Spielberg’s film is connected with Henry
Jones and not Indiana. As Schmidl suggests a central theme
in the film is the importance of books and their role in the
fertility of the mind (1). This is parallel to the role of
the grail and the king in the fertility of the land in Excalibur.
She also suggest that the Grail diary is Henry Jones’
Excalibur; thus we can conclude that he is in a way the Arthur of
the film, leaving Indiana with the roles of a Lancelot, Galahad,
or Percieval. Henry even sprays ink in the face of a Nazi,
claiming the pen is greater than the sword and telling them to
read books instead of burning them. In the end the quest is
a success because Henry manages to find “illumination”
(Spielburg). This again is a very modern secular twist on
the story which leaves religion with only a minor role in the
quest and heightens the acquisition of knowledge to the point of
the quest.
Although no time period possesses a uniform set of traits and
thus one is only able to compare time periods by making large
generalizations about each age, one can however learn much about
the values and culture of a society by comparing its myths and
legends by those of another. It is therefore through
tracing the evolution of the Arthurian Legends and their quest so
central to Western Civilization that one is able to trace the
continual change in ideas about the role of religion such as
Christianity or paganism or of notions such as chivalry
throughout the centuries.
Works Cited:
Carss, Ty. “John Boorman's
Excalibur and his interpretation of the Chivalric Codes.”
[On-line]. (June
19th, 1997; found 1998, May 31st). Availiable:
http://coyote.csusm.edu/public/carss001/chivalry/boorman.html.
[Internet site]
Carss, Ty. “Sir Thomas Malory's
LE MORTE D' ARTHUR and his interpretation of the
Chivalric
Codes.” [On-line]. (June 19th, 1997; found 1998,
May 31st). Availiable:
http://coyote.csusm.edu/public/carss001/chivalry/malory.html.
[Internet site]
Keuchenius, Iman. “John Boorman's
Excalibur, summary and further analysis.” [On-line].
(1998; found
1998, May 31st). Availiable:
http://www.xs4all.nl/~iman66/excalib.html. [Internet site]
Schmidl, Alexandra. “The Last
Quest of Sir Indiana: Modern Borrowings of the
Arthurian Legend:
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.” [On-line]. (found
1998,
May 31st).
Availiable: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~arthsoc/Cauldron/indiana.html.
[Internet site]
Tucker, P.E. “The Place of the
Quest of the Holy Grail in the Morte dArthur.” Medieval
English Survey. Ed. Edward Vasta. Notre Dame, Indiana: University of Notre Dame Press, 1965.