I came into this thread to mention Lawhead’s Pendragon Cycle books, but Sage Rat seems to have beaten me to the punch. I’ll supplement my lack of timeliness with anecdotal testimony.
I became fascinated with Arthurian legend around the age of 10, and by 15 had exhausted most of the above-mentioned sources in film and literature. When I discovered Lawhead’s books, I was completely enthralled. He even worked Atlantis into the story! I read all the books over a span of about 5 months, and can still vividly remember many of the images.
Who knows if they’d hold up as well now, but reading them at that age was an Arthurian fanboy’s wet dream.
EXCALIBUR!!! Probably OK for a 15 yo girl but YMMV. Still, the best Arthur flick I can recommend.
FIRST KNIGHT is not too bad- would be better if they renamed all the characters, also the Round Table’s Knights uniforms look like they are a Christian order of the Star Trek Federation.
Haven’t yet seen the newish KING ARTHUR.
There was an early 80s TV movie- ARTHUR THE KING starring Malcolm McDowell, it’s been released on video as MERLIN AND THE SWORD- avoid it unless you want to make fun of it (“Come and get one in the yarbles, Mordred!”)
Avoid First Knight. It’s a terrible movie, and causes brain cancer.
Avoid any movie version of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court. It’s never been brought to the screen as the acid-laced social satire it is.
Here are two pretty good ones that haven’t been mentioned:
Lancelot and Guinevere (or you might find it under the title Sword of Lancelot). 1963. Cornell Wilde plays Lancelot as an educated Frenchman; Wilde’s wife Jean Wallace is an extremely hot Guinevere, whose actions are both completely selfish and understandable. Some good action, too (Wilde was a graceful athlete and an Olympic-level fencer).
Knights of the Round Table. 1953. Kind of wooden, but with great sets and plenty of action.
There was also an interesting mini-series in Britain called “King Arthur, the Young Warlord” (1975). More of a historical view, with Arthur, King Mark, etc. being warlords in a muddy, fractured post-Roman Britain. I don’t believe this one is available on DVD, but you might find a VHS set.
If you want an excuse to get her to watch Babylon 5, there’s an episode (“A Late Delivery From Avalon”) with a man suffering from severe Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder who thinks he’s King Arthur. They make numerous references to Arthurian legend, comparing different characters from the show to characters from the legend. Worth it just to watch Micheal York in chainmail flip out and beat up thugs with a broadsword.
For movies, I think Excalibur is going to be your best bet. Beautiful cinematography, great fight scenes, and Nicol Williamson rules as Merlin (“A dream, to some… a nightmare to others!”). Some other great actors, too: Gabriel Byrne as Uther; Patrick Stewart (while he still had hair) as Arthur’s future father-in-law; Liam Neeson as a knight (Galahad or Percival, I forget which), and Helen Mirren as a wickedly watchable Morgan le Fay.
For books, I very strongly recommend Thomas Berger’s Arthur Rex (1978), which I fell in love with when I was about your daughter’s age. It’s got it all: sword fights, romance, chivalry, humor, etc. A little tongue in cheek at times, but wonderfully written and basically respectful of Arthurian myth.
While I liked Arthur Rex, I wouldn’t recommend it for a kid – it’s definitely adult material. (“Godsfuck!” exclaims the dying Uther)
i still recommend T.H. White’s Sword in the Stone, The Once and Future King, and [The Book of Merlin
John Steinbeck – yes, Grapes=of=Wrath, Of-Mice-And-Men Steinbeck – wrote one of the best Artrhur books ever. Look it up.
For a kid, I’d recommend Howard Pyle’s books on King Arthur. Puffin publishes them.
I haven’t seen the movie for a while, but the most prominent bit of Wagner in it I remember is Siegfried’s Funeral Music from Götterdämmerung. IIRC it runs under the opening credits and in other spots. Of course the leitmotif of Siegfried’s sword is used for Excalibur itself.
Excalibur is a beautiful film: the cinematography is superb. Not the best direction ever, but still a great introduction to the legends. As for nudity - decide how much prudery you wish to inflict on your kid, but bear in mind that the movie had an AA rating when it was first released in the UK (that’s called a “15” now).
Somehow, my daughter has much more puritanical values than I did, so she is self-governing in what she is allowed to watch, listen to, etc. Personally, I have no problems with nudity/language/blood/whatever, as long as it serves a purpose and is not gratuitous.
As mentioned, Excalibur is the recent piece more in tune with the “classic” courtly-chivalric Arthuriana of de Monmouth, Mallory and Tennyson. (I will have to seek out Baldwin’s two lesser-known recommendations)
BTW, regarding the mentions Python’s Grail, that one has quite a few bits that work specially well if you have a few rounds of conventional chivalric media under your belt, but not necessarily much Arthuriana – other than the grail-quest macguffin and the use of some Arthurian characters, it’s really a rip on a whole lot of general elements of chivalric-fantasy fiction (just that in Britain, much courtly-chivalric fiction tended to get shoehorned into the Arthurian cycle anyway). OTOH you do want Arthur to be strong in you, before you try to tackle ** The Mists of Avalon** – it seems to raise major hackles about the reinterpretation.
After Excalibur, which is without question the best Arthurian movie, I was going to throw out Gargoyles. For a Disney financed cartoon series, it’s surprisingly quite intelligent and thorough. You have to go toward the end of season one, and into season two, to get to the Arthurian storylines, but they are included quite nicely into the overarching story.
White’s Once and Future King books (tetralogy?) are ideal if she’s an avid reader, but with a caveat: They’re pretty dense books, and while White can often keep it interesting, sometimes the story does drag a bit. It was assigned reading when I was in AP English in high school, when we were seventeen years old, and some of the kids really struggled with comprehending such a large, sweeping story. I’ve since bought my own copy, and love rereading it once every year or two.
Though a lot of people don’t like it, I think once you’re daughter’s really boned up on her traditional Arthurian lore, I think The Mists of Avalon would be a good read, if only for it’s different perspective. It’s much more focused on the women of Camelot and I really found it fascinating to see Morgaine’s life through her own eyes.
Continuing with the female-oriented versions, Alice Borchardt has a series that begins with The Dragon Queen, and is told from Guinevere’s point of view–only she’s much more of a Kiera Knightley/Warrior Queen character. I haven’t read the rest of the series (which I believe is only two books at the moment), but it’s really the only Arthurian spinoff I’ve ever read in which I didn’t detest Guinevere.
For a more realistic historical-novel take, I’d recommend Sword at Sunset by Rosemary Sutcliff. Very earthy; melancholy and passionate without being bogged down in romance-novel stuff.
