Lancelot of the Lake (1974)
Directed by Robert Bresson
Having failed in their quest for the Holy Grail, the knights of the Round Table return to Camelot, their number reduced to a mere handful. Seeing a rift developing between Lancelot and Mordred, Arthur urges his knights to bury their differences and become friends. However, the king is unaware that Lancelot is having an affair with his queen, Guinevere. Lancelot is torn between his duty to his king and his love for the queen, whilst Mordred is determined to use his infidelity to destroy him.
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What critics compared Lancelot of the Lake to
For a much more penetrating, artful look at Arthur and his knights, seek out Robert Bresson's Lancelot of the Lake (1974), recently released on DVD by New Yorker Video.
If Robert Bresson's “Lancelot Of The Lake” (1973) deliberately made all the knights into interchangeable, clanking clones, Boorman seems to have arrived at the same place inadvertently.
Yet some films made of them are funnier (''Monty Python and the Holy Grail'') and more stimulating (Robert Bresson's ''Lancelot of the Lake'' and Eric Rohmer's ''Perceval'') than others, including the foolish screen version of the musical ''Camelot'' and now John Boorman's big, solemn, grandiose ''Excalibur.''
Compared to John Boorman’s Excalibur, Lancelot du Lac is a relatively uneventful interpretation of Arthurian myth, told over the course of a short period of time during Lancelot and Guinevere’s love affair.
With the exception of Robert Bresson’s anti-romantic Lancelot of the Lake in 1974, however, the same full-scale deconstruction never happened with the Arthurian stories.
Released about the same time as Monty Python and the Holy Grail,Lancelot du Lac (1974) is its diametricopposite.
I have no idea whether Mr. Gilliam and Mr. Jones have seen Robert Bresson's rather more austere film, "Lancelot of the Lake," which was shown at last year's New York Film Festival, but there are times when "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" seems to be putting on Mr. Bresson unmercifully.