Blending Narratives Across Film and Literature.

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Have you seen today's CineTV Twitter prompt? It's all about royalty. The recent trend in shows about the British Royals or Victorian era monarchs are certainly entertaining, and the costumes and glimpse into a fictionalized historical past entertains and has an aspect of inform. What's not to love about them? - And, in the interest of full disclosure: in Australia we're a Monarchy, and every couple of years there is a Republic push - my feeling is, I'm a happy little Monarchist, and I like to be a part of the Commonwealth Games (Not that I'm a sports fan; it's complicated).

To develop where I'm going in this post, I want to wonder how a narrative can be developed across time by engaging with the same story in different mediums - each one offering new understandings and perspectives for different audiences.

And - as far as favourite shows about royalty go - I need to go a lot further back to a fictional king, well - he's thought to be based on an actual warlord, but it's not concrete - and that royal is: King Arthur and the Camelot Tales.

As it turns out, I first encountered this timeless tale as a young fellow. Do you guys remember Disney's 'The Sword in the Stone'? It was a cartoon, and a little bit of fun with a quirky wizard. Obviously as a little guy I didn't know the story, and it was just a cartoon, but as I got older the fascination grew.

My questing into this story was filled years later with the release of Merlin - an absolutely epic film that went for hours and hours and hours, yet - it offered an insight into the narrative, placing Arthur at the centre. It introduced new characters into the story, Morgred, The Lady of the Lake and it painted Arthur in a particular way. It also introduced the idea of mythical beasts and magic into the world, and - as a fictionalised history, it grabbed me as a young person and made me think of the old-world in a way which was enchanting.

Growing older then, I started engaging with literature to support the story - my favourite was always Thomas Malory's 'Le Morte D'Arthur' - written in old English in the late 1400s and with a vocab list to help you move through the tale, yet, by the end, you don't need a key - the language just flows. It was a volume of books from the middle ages and Malory's depiction of Arthur is very much where modern audiences find their understanding. The key to this text middle ages text was about how it painted the relationship between Arthur and Guinevere, and blames her for the downfall of Arthur's kingdom as she runs off to France with Lancelot.

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As a tangent - throughout literature - go back as far as you want, there's an archetype which is constantly drawn on, 'The Eve Archetype' - basically, it blames women for the downfall of men (Think Eve in Eden - and develops into the Arthurian legend, as her infidelity ultimately led to Arthur losing control and the downfall of Camelot. If you want other examples you could think of the sirens who call to fisherman, or Helen of Troy).

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In the Victorian period, the narrative once again gained prominence as Poet Laureate Alfred Tennyson writes the Idylls of the King - twelve stories which re-visit and reaffirm Mallory as the canonical authority. However - in response to Tennyson, another poet, novelist and designer, William Morris writes, 'The Defense of Guinevere' - and justifies her leaving Arthur for love.

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And what excites me is how the narrative keeps getting reinvented and reintroduced to modern audiences. I havn't seen either, but the following films are both recent and show the narrative again.

There is The Green Knight, of course - based off the middle ages novel written by an anonymous author around 1400. I didn't want to ruin the original script - so I didn't see the flick. The film was released last year.

Here's the prompt, get on it:
https://twitter.com/CineTv_io/status/1523045265154121729