The Use of the Arthurian Legend in Hollywood Film: From Connecticut Yankees to Fisher Kings by Rebecca A. Umland and Samuel J. Umland (review)

h8arthuriana rebecca a. umland and Samuel j. umland, The Use ofthe Arthurian Legend in HollywoodFilm: From Connecticut Yankees to Fisher Kings. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1996. Pp. xv, 205. ISBN: 0-313-29798-3. $55. This study of cinematic versions of the Arthurian legend—the authors dismiss the term 'Arthurian film' as a 'collocation'—begins with the premise that these versions of the legend should be assessed not by narrative conventions but by conventions that govern the visual medium which filmmakers have chosen for expression. Such a view grants to filmmakers the same license critics have long been willing to grant to writers throughout the ages who have balanced a 'tyranny of tradition' with their own originality in retelling the legend ofArthur. In chapter one, the authors present an overview of the legend ofArthur and its transmission from medieval to modern times. In chapter two, they borrow a phrase from Umberto Eco to compare five film versions ofTwain's Connecticut Yankee and Monty Python and the Holy Grailas 'intertextual collages.' In Chapter 3, they discuss Knights ofthe Round Table, SwordofLancelot, Camelot, and First Knight as Hollywood melodramas. In chapter four, they evaluate The BUck Knight, Siege ofthe Saxons, and The Sword in the Stone as propaganda films. In chapter five, they consider Excalibur in light of the tradition of the Hollywood epic, and in chapter six, they link Knightriders, The Natural, IndianaJones andthe Last Crusade, and The Fisher Kingas cinematic versions ofthe postmodern quest. A filmography and seven stills supplement the discussions of these films. In theory, the approach adopted by the Umlands makes sense. In practice, however, their study more often disappoints than rewards. First, the authors begin with the premise that much—ifnot all—previous discussion ofthe cinematic tradition ofthe Arthurian legend is simply wrong. They are especially dismissive ofa largely unnamed group ofacademics—the authors are both on the faculty ofthe University ofNebraska at Kearney—who cry foul when films fail to follow putative literary sources. At other times, naming names, the authors offer contradictory readings to those advanced by fellow academics that seem to cloud rather than illuminate the issues contested. Thus I am wrong to have suggested in Cinema Arthuriana (1991) that George Romero's Knightriders is a biker film in the tradition of the American film western—a view generally accepted by film critics of all stripes (for horses read motorcycles). The Umlands contend that the biker film is really a subgenre ofthe juvenile delinquency film. Film directors too get their comeuppance in this study. Terry Gilliam and Terry Jones are, for instance, wrong in some of the comments they make about their film in the commentary included on the laser disc version oíMonty Python andthe Holy Grail. Throughout their study, the authors miss obvious connections and instead find connections that may well escape their readers. Their use ofthe term 'Hollywood film,' for instance, requires some expansiveness ifit is to define a group offilms that includesExcalibur, Monty Python andthe Holy Grail, and a television version ofTwain's novel. The 'bowdlerized treatment ofthe adultery' in First Knight links, the Umlands argue, that film to FatalAttraction and License to Kill as part of Hollywood's reviews149 'conservative response to sexual license after the advent ofAIDS.' What is more likely at work here is a continuing shift in Hollywood's depiction of the male (and female). The brutality of Rambo is out, and post-IronJohn sensitivity is in. Linking Monty Python and the Holy Grail-with five film treatments ofTwain's novel rather than with the Grail films it spoofs is also less than illuminating. What would have been interesting is a more thorough examination of the Twain films. But too often in this study, thorough examination is replaced by long passages of biographical and other background material drawn from standard general reference works. The Umlands' study would have been more insightful and valuable had they perhaps addressed the issue ofwhat happens to satire when a filmmaker decides to soften its bite. Does satire become comedy, parody ofsatire, melodrama, or something even more benign? In the case of Connecticut Yankee, the novel has been reduced to little more than cinematic juvenilia in Disney's Unidentified Flying Oddball...