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I'm off to London and thus can't keep my mind on comedy. I mean, I'm seeing a few comedies and I do find certain aspects of the English funny (they have a dish called mushy peas, for example, which they do not recognize as adult baby food until you tell them that's what they're eating), but when walking through Westminster Abbey or the Tower of London, only black humour is possible. (1)
Thus, let's talk about something else I know: films about British Kings and Queens. There have been a lot of them—the monarchy is attractive to history and movie buffs on both sides of the pond.
First, there's King Arthur, the mythic King who was likely based on a real man who united warring tribes into an association that might be called England or Britain. His story was told throughout the Middle ages, often in the terms of the Middle ages, and thus we think of this man, his knights, his round table, his life, as existing in the Middle ages, when he would have existed in the Dark ages (the period after the fall of the Roman Empire, which flourished during the Classical age). (1066, the year of the Norman conquest of England, is the year marked as the start of the Middle Ages.)
THE SWORD IN THE STONE chronicles Arthur's youth, ending with the pulling of the famous sword. Although this is one of the least remembered Disney movies, it's one of my favorites, maybe because it features Merlin primarily as a teacher. Merlin (who is drawn with Walt Disney's nose), is an accomplished wizard and time traveler, which accounts for many of his seeming non- sequiturs: "Big news, eh? Can't wait for the LONDON TIMES. Next edition won't be out for another, oh, twelve hundred years."
The best scene in the film is not the climax, but Merlin's battle with a witch—the Mad Madame Mim (it's a good bet that if you call yourself "mad," you're really just anti-social). The stereotypes about good wizards and bad witch-hags are all there, but it's still possible to find Mim somewhat lovable and to be relieved when we realize that Merlin's germ warfare isn't deadly.
Most films are about Arthur as an adult—among them, EXCALIBUR and FIRST KNIGHT. The Lancelot/Guinevere angle has gotten a lot of play ever since the medieval romances started writing about courtly love. In courtly love, you love an unattainable woman, like Lancelot supposedly loved Guinevere. The whole point was that you would never have her, not ever. This was conflated with Knights who dedicated themselves to the Virgin Mary. This was 
Running away from rabbits WAS the allegory of cowardice in old times |
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the age of chivalry, which is, as I once read somewhere, a man's inclination to protect a woman against every man but himself. It should also be noted that only noble women were considered deserving of this treatment (it sucked to be a peasant).
The original romance between Arthur and Guinevere is explored in the relatively recent film KING ARTHUR. The filmmakers tried to take us back into the Dark ages in an effort to be historically accurate, but it's difficult to believe that Arthur would be that hot or that Guinevere would be that naked. (Or that busty; movie posters "enhanced" her.)
I would argue that MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY SAKE CUP (as it was translated into Japanese) is more realistic than KING ARTHUR. Although witches don't actually weigh the same as ducks, although there were several capitals of Assyria, and although clapping two coconuts together won't get you there any faster, most people were dirty, cold, and tired, as depicted in this film. The line about knowing the King is the King because he alone is not covered in shit is pretty accurate. However, even the King and his Knights wouldn't have bathed much. Britons in the medieval period would almost never be completely naked and therefore would never take what we consider a bath. They would often be sewn into their winter clothes (that buttoned pocket in long underwear is for actual use) and believed that bathing too much could cause illness.
JABBERWOCKY, which was directed by Terry Gilliam (a Python), and loosely based on the Lewis Carroll poem, is even truer to medieval grime (and is totally worth seeing). The "constitutional peasant" character Michael Palin plays in HOLY GRAIL (Dennis, who is worried about "outdated imperialist dogma which perpetuates the economic and social differences in our society") becomes Dennis Cooper, the proto-capitalist young man bent on increasing efficiency. Dennis believes himself chilvarous and loves an unattainable woman. His quest is absurd, but so is life.
HOLY GRAIL and the musical it spawned, SPAMALOT, are more concerned with Arthur's other sword—the one from the Lake, not from the Stone. You see, as the Arthur legend was oral, it had many versions. We confuse them. Excalibur is often understood to be the sword in the stone, but is actually the other important weapon—the sword from the Lady of the Lake. I'm not sure why we've clung more to the stone than to "strange women lying in ponds distributing swords."
There are other Arthur movies and 
Two of the greatest actors matched! |
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certainly his screen time is not finished, especially since he can never really die. Arthur, according to legend, is in a cave somewhere waiting to rise when Britain needs him.
Of the many Kings that come after Arthur (all of them), we don't get many film characters until we come to Henry II, King during much of the 1100s. Henry's mother had been chosen by his father, Henry I, to rule after his death, but the patriarchal guys around her made it impossible—so she fought to put her son on the throne. Henry was married to Eleanor of Aquitaine, a rich and powerful woman, whom he put under house arrest for the last sixteen years of his life because she supported their son Richard in succession rather than another son, John. Henry's friendship with Thomas Becket is explored in the film (based on the play) BECKET, starring Peter O'Toole as Henry and Richard Burton as Becket. The men were so friendly that Henry made his friend the archbishop. Then, when he then tried to limit the power of the church and decrease ties to Rome, his friend stood up for his post. Henry's knights killed him. This murder of his traitorous friend haunted him forever.
O'Toole reprised his role as Henry II in THE LION IN WINTER (also a play first). His aging Henry is matched perfectly by Katharine Hepburn's Eleanor. BECKET downplayed Eleanor, while THE LION IN WINTER allows her to shine. Hepburn put all her energy into this film to distract herself from the recent death of her partner, Spencer Tracy. The verbal sparring between her and O'Toole's Henry is fantastic:
Henry II: I marvel at you after all these years. Still like a democratic drawbridge: going down for everybody.
Eleanor: At my age there's not much traffic anymore.
The king and queen do love and respect each other, no matter what they say. There's no room for that kind of hatred without something underneath.
Henry II's sons show up in most of our ROBIN HOOD films. Like Arthur, Robin is a mythical figure. There's been a consensus in our time, however, to set his run during the reign of John. John is portrayed as the weak or evil King whose thrown should belong to Richard, off on the third Crusade (who was Richard I, the Lionhearted). John did, however, sign the Magna Carta, which limited the power of the King (which we've all decided was a good thing). There's no Magna Carta history stuff in our Robin Hood tales, though. That might bore you.
Errol Flynn was the most famous Robin Hood of the early part of the last 
He should say |
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century. There are tons of Robin Hoods, including John Cleese in TIME BANDITS, Sean Connery in ROBIN AND MARIAN, Kevin Costner in ROBIN HOOD: PRINCE OF THIEVES (ugh), and Cary Elwes in ROBIN HOOD: MEN IN TIGHTS (opposite of ugh). Ridley Scott is reworking the story in the forthcoming NOTTINGHAM.
While I do love to see Wesley, the Dread Pirate Roberts as Robin Hood (and while I desperately love a Robin Hood who can speak with a British accent), I have to admit that my second favorite Robin Hood is a fox, from the Disney version, ROBIN HOOD. Like THE SWORD IN THE STONE, this movie was never really popular. Is it perhaps because neither of these is really about a princess? Is that why I really like this and not the princess ones? Hmm.
In my next article, I'm going to talk about those zany Tudors and the movies they've inspired. Before we get to them, though, I do want to mention one more pre-Tudor King, Richard III. Richard was the last in the Plantagenet line (which flows from those Henry guys we talked about earlier). He ruled briefly from 1483-1485, near the end of the War of the Roses, which had the York and Lancaster lines competing for power (Richard was a York). Richard was killed by a Tudor related to the Lancasters. That Tudor happened to be Henry VII, who succeeded him and fathered Henry VIII.
Richard's nephews were supposed to inherit the throne, but Richard killed the boys' protectors and put the boys in the Tower of London, where they "disappeared." (Their death is a lingering mystery.) Richard is remembered as having a physical defect, due to Shakespeare's legacy, though the historical evidence is dismissed by modern historians.
It is Shakespeare's Richard, however, that we find in RICHARD III with Sir Ian McKellen in the title role. The film is based on a famous stage production, which set the War of the Roses in a fantasy 1930s Britain, a Britain that has succumbed to fascism, largely in part to Richard. McKellen wrote the screenplay and peopled the film with amazing actors: Jim Broadbent, Robert Downey Jr., Kristen Scott Thomas, Maggie Smith, and John Wood, among others. This film is not your father's Shakespeare, but it's intriguing in its own right.
See you in a couple of weeks; I'm off for a scone! Writing this has me quite knackered and peckish.
(1) As an anglophile, I sometimes use British spellings. I also sometimes spell "bolour" with a "k" like a silly bunt.
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| Comedies with Dr. Karma |
Every other Wednesday
Dr. Karma discusses all things comic, from the classics to what may become classics. Laugh with, but not at, her, please.
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| Karma Waltonen |
Dr. Karma is a silly, nerdy know-it-all, but in a good way. She brings all her overeducation to discuss that which truly matters: comedy. As some famous guy once said: “And if I laugh at any mortal thing, ‘tis that I may not weep.” Or something like that.
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