The King Arthur myth is extraordinarily sticky because it is extraordinarily primordial and intensely human. It is a story spanning deep eons of time, but also touches something personal and present, deep within our hearts. As does the greatest film ever made about this wondrous myth—the John Boorman-directed Excalibur (1981). In its sound and fury we are witness to heroism, sacrifice, towering human achievement, codes of chivalric honor, hopeless battles against the encroaching dark, lust, betrayal, collapse… and the hope that order and goodness may one day come again.

Arthur is, after all, a once and future king. Or so we hope. And that hope never dies.

I love Excalbur. My holy trinity of fantasy films (which admittedly is not such elite company, given the heritage of dreck Hollywood has bequeathed upon us) are Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings, John Milius’ Conan the Barbarian, and this film. I refuse to rank any of these above the other; they stand like a holy trinity, coequal. LOTR may have Excalibur beat on objective measures of film-making quality, and CtB with its sword-and-sorcery swagger, but few films move me like this one does.

Excalibur is a gorgeous film in all ways, an unbridled delight of pure romance. It is possessed of beautiful visuals, a powerful Richard Wagner-infused operatic score, and a terrific cast including Helen Mirren, Liam Neeson, Patrick Stewart, Gabriel Byrne and Nigel Terry. Nicol Williamson as Merlin is perhaps the best wizard ever put to film… perhaps even better than Ian McKellen/Gandalf. Blasphemy? Perhaps, but you can make the case. Williamson’s lecture on truth (“when a man lies he murders some part of the world”) is everything, because everything depends on it. Equal in power are his meditations on responsibility, and modernity. “The Gods of Once are gone; it’s a time for men and their ways… There are other worlds; this one is done with me.”

Excalibur gets some flak for its acting and lines like these, which feel like something out of a formal Shakespearean production rather than a modern movie. But I think it only elevates the film’s mythic aura.

The King Arthur story dates all the way back to the early 9th century, with the “historic” Arthur dating back to the 5th/6th century Britain. There is a reason his story endures, even with its authenticity in question. Even some of us citizens of the United States of America otherwise repelled by the thought of a monarchy, and with the guns of 1776 still a faint echo, feel the allure of a Christlike king who promises to restore order, honor, dignity, and grace to a troubled, broken land. And are drawn under its potent spell. This lends film a gravitas that allows it to punch above its handful of flaws. Excalibur takes the best of its medieval literary sources including Malory and Chretien De Troyes, and some great modern ones, including Jessie Weston and T.H. White. From the former, Excalibur draws upon the romance and mythology and the broad storylines of the King Arthur story, and from the latter the philosophical underpinnings. The resulting film is a glorious polychromatic confluence of sound and color and fury that somehow all works.

Excalibur opens with ominous music against a dark screen, the gorgeous Richard Wagner-scored Siegfried’s Funeral March, a dirge for the Dark Ages in which it is set. But not the historical “dark ages” that followed the fall of Rome. If Arthur really lived he would have looked a lot more like a wild-haired warlord out of Hrolf Kraki’s Saga than the handsome Renaissance armor-era knights we see in this film. Boorman’s goal was not to bring history to the screen, but myth, and he does so superbly. Here the “dark ages” represents a time in which truth and fairness and principle took a backstage to power, where might makes right and the weak suffer. It’s a broken world crying out for healing and for its shattered pieces to be put back together.

Ironically this occurs through a weapon, which is again a symbol. Excalibur was forged when bird and beast and flower were one with man—nature and man in harmony. Mankind and nature must exist in harmony, not at odds with each other. The eco-terrorists have it wrong; so too do the scorched earth industrialists. We are not subservient to nature, nor above it; we work in conjunction with it. We shape it, not destroy it. Disharmony leads to conflict, a sword in the spine of the dragon, and the earth revolts.

The first character to whom we’re introduced is Arthur’s father, Uther. He’s a classic strongman, which makes him unfit to wield Excalibur. The purpose of the sword is “to heal, not to hack,” but not in Uther’s mind. “Talk is for lovers,” he sneers to Merlin.

Arthur comes to understand the need for order, and a kingdom of equals united around a table. And so is the only knight fit to wield the blade. One land one king. Authority with a heart is our optimal state of rule. Living a virtuous life backed by iron-clad principle, a noble pursuit.

Drawing the sword from the stone requires a unique fitness. It might be divine right, but it might also be someone with the right balance of traits--intelligence, duty, temperance, modesty, discipline, all in balance. Quivering in a stone, inextricable, Excalibur waits for that one dude to come along and claim his “birthright.” That dude is Arthur.

So yes, Arthur was possibly “born” to rule, but only because he possesses the right blend of traits. His role is not some conquering warlord, though he must put down the old warring kings that refuse to accept the new boy king. Rather his role is to heal and unite, and rule with charity and mercy. “You will be the land, and the land will be you. If you fail, the land will perish, if you thrive, the land will blossom,” Merlin instructs his young pupil.

But Arthur must first quell the rebellious lords, which makes for awesome film sequences. “Any man, who would be a knight, and follow a king… follow me!” the boy-king shouts to his new subjects. They instinctively rally to such a man, as do we, the movie-goer. The scene where Uriens, his most vocal opponent, knights Arthur in the moat… chills. “A noble knight, swear faith to a squire?” Uriens bellows, face twisted into a scowl of incredulousness. “You’re right, I’m not yet a knight…. You, Uriens will knight me,” replies Arthur. And we are stunned, when Uriens does so, and bends the knee. A knight’s right to bear arms derives from God, St. Michael and St. George. Excalbur is not a highly religious film but God is in it. It is steeped in values, and they derive from somewhere, something more than just atoms and flesh clockworks. The Round Table, Camelot and the shining kingdom, are built on values ordained from God. When this divine order is upset, Arthur is struck by lightning—a tangible symbol of God’s retribution.

Excalibur takes some outstanding artistic liberties with the myth, most of which work. Uther plunging the sword into the stone, and Arthur breaking Excalibur when he uses it to best a better knight than he, are not in any book I’m aware of. As is the scene on top of the mountain when the wars are finally over, and there is one land, one king. A moment of peace, immortalized by yet another great speech by Williamson. “Look upon this moment, savor it, look upon it with great gladness… you are ONE, under the stars. For it is the doom of men that they forget.”

We need a unified memory and a common set of legends. We forget the tales of Arthur, our mythical heritage, at our peril. When we destroy our myths we destroy our inherited past. Arthur understands this, and vows to create another powerful symbol to memorialize this great day. “Hereafter, so that we remember our bonds, we shall come together in a circle.” The Round Table has a throne for the king, but it’s not elevated, it is set on the same plane as his knights. United, with none above the other.

Then, with all set aright, human weakness undoes it all. A seed of evil has been planted in men; we are fallen creatures. It’s an old Catholic concept but there is much truth in it. “Good and evil, there never is one without the other.” There can’t be life without death, joy without sorrow. Meaning exists in contrasts, and paradox.

Lust undoes men, it always has, back to the days of Helen of Troy and Calypso. And so it does in Excalibur. Uther lusts after Ygraine, and for power. Guinevere and Launcelot lust for each other. Lancelot fights against his primal urges, but unlike every battle against men he loses the struggle against himself. His self-inflicted wound is deep, and never fully heals.

Any healing will come only with great sacrifice and great effort. The Fisher King needs his Grail Quest, as only the Grail can restore leaf and flower. Arthur commands his loyal knights to “search to the edge of… within” on a near suicidal quest to scour the land and recover the sacred artifact. “Where do we look for it?” asks Perceval. “Portents, signs…” Arthur murmurs. Perceval, the knight purest of heart, ultimately finds the grail on “the edge of within.” A pure draught from the cup heals the king and allows him to ride out to battle, one last time, against Mordred and the dark.

Excalibur did OK at the box office but received mixed critical reviews. The legend Roger Ebert was way off with his evaluation of the film, which he called both a “wondrous vision” and a “mess.” Myths are not supposed to have a 1:1 translation, or be “decoded”; they are subject to interpretation, and hint at larger Truths. Myths are inherently paradoxical, complex, and sometimes messy, because they’ve accumulated the cruft of ages, the result of countless retellings by unnamed bards in halls of fire before being committed to paper centuries later. Therein lies their power, and the power of this film. We don’t grasp them all at once, we are assailed by its images, but we feel their power, their depth, and their Truth. I suspect Ebert felt something in this “wondrous vision” that he couldn’t articulate. Not everyone comes to the film steeped in Arthurian history. But that doesn’t make Excalibur a failure, it makes it something different. We need films like this, that don’t follow safe and repetitive Marvel formulas, but instead offer something complex and unexpected, quirky and irreducible.

I enjoy turning my brain off from time to time when consuming entertainment, but also enjoy movies that demand more, that elevate and intensify the more a particular viewer brings to them, including familiarity with literary source material. Some would call that a failure—“a film must stand on its own”—I would argue Excalibur very much does, but also rewards a different kind of viewing, and viewer.

So yes, Excalibur is a great film. Difficult to get into and follow? Probably. Offensive to modern sensibilities? Maybe; I don’t care. It is myth, messy and bold, writ large. Today we seek to write new myths, but our old ones still survive, and serve, and we need the lessons they teach. Maybe more than ever.

I know the king will come again
From the shadow to the sun
Burning hillsides with the Beltane fires
I know the king will come again
When all that glitters turns to rust
Uther Pendragon standing fast beside you

I know the king will come again
I know the king will come again

Brian Murphy is the author of Flame and Crimson: A History of Sword-and-Sorcery (Pulp Hero Press). Learn more about his life and work on his website, The Silver Key.