"I dreamt of the dragon"
"I have awakened him. Cannot you see, all around you, the dragon's breath?"
This evening's viewing: revisiting one of my all-time favourites, Boorman's Excalibur, which succeeds where other Arthur fulms fail, because it embraces the myth.
#film #films #movies #BritishFilm #Excalibur #KingArthur #myth #mythology #1980sFilm
@LordWoolamaloo The story I heard about Merlin's magical chant is that John Boorman asked for someone in the School of Celtic Studies at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies to create something for the movie (which was filmed in Ireland). Proinsias Mac Cana was the professor at the time, so he put together a couple of phrases in Old Irish, which is why ostensibly Brythonic/proto-Welsh characters are speaking Irish.
@michaelmeckler I love that you can hear "Uisge beatha" among the Charm of Making, the Water of Life, which is still a Gaelic name for single malt whisky to this day!
The film is full of contradictions like that - it's the Dark Ages, but they have medieval plate armour and castles. Boorman said when faced with accuracy or playing to the myth, he chose the mythic every time. And he was right
LordWoolamaloo
Michael Meckler
michael fulgenzi
Grahame Gardner 🏴