Telegraph.co.uk wrote:Spielberg puts the legend of King Arthur to the sword
By Catherine Milner, Arts Correspondent

Steven Spielberg is to demolish the "myth" of Camelot in a television film series about King Arthur that does not feature a round table, Excalibur, Merlin or knights.

The series, which is due to be shot in Britain next year, will oppose the traditional view of Camelot as a cloud-covered city of towers and battlements by portraying it as a simple Roman fort.

Perhaps most contentiously, King Arthur will be a humble blacksmith who does not become king by drawing the sword Excalibur from a stone, as depicted in legend - instead he is feted because he can create steel from iron ore.

"At that time a blacksmith who could cast iron skillfully was regarded highly and would have had the same funeral honours as a king," said David Leland, the film's scriptwriter and director.

"The process of casting iron and creating good weapons was a secret and the blacksmiths kept their secrets very close to their chest. I think the idea of how you get iron from a stone - how you get a good sword from a stone - was one of the secrets that explains the Excalibur legend."

Mr Leland said that the series, which will cost £85 million to make, will be filmed in the West Country next spring. It will "de-evolve", he says, the story that has captivated writers and artists since the early Middle Ages.

It will attempt to recreate the "historical reality" of what life was like in ad500, when King Arthur is thought to have reigned.

He said: "I am not interested in mysticism. I am not setting out to create magic. There's no point in making this film unless you get under the skin of it and to the reality as it would have been at that time."

As a result, there will be no round table in the series, nor any Excalibur scene, Mr Leland said, and he was circumspect about the fate of Merlin, the magician.

King Arthur will be known as Artos, Sir Lancelot as Bwyr and Guinivere as Gwenever in keeping with the Romano-Celtic translations of those names.

"Sir Lancelot is an invention of medieval poets so we wouldn't have a Lancelot figure, but maybe have some essence of who he was instead," said Mr Leland, who is known for his work on the Second World War series Band of Brothers.

Instead of the knights there will be a "brotherhood of companions" wearing leather jerkins and woolly cloaks rather than the armour of the Crusaders in which they are usually portrayed.

Spielberg will come to Britain next spring to oversee the project, which is backed by the American production company HBO. Negotiations are under way to show it the BBC. Casting will start in January.

The legend of King Arthur is primarily based on Le Morte D'Arthur by Sir Thomas Malory, written in the 1400s. Malory's works were the inspiration for a number of paintings, particularly those by the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood in the 19th Century.

However, Spielberg has competition: Jerry Bruckheimer, another Hollywood director, is starting work next year on his film King Arthur, which he is shooting in Ireland, and Warner Brothers are bringing out a film based on T H White's book The Once and Future King.

Like Spielberg, Bruckheimer has stated a desire to concentrate on historical accuracy rather than legends - even though his grasp on the history of the period seems slightly askew.

Describing his film recently, he said: "It happened much earlier than movies or the English have put it. They changed the way it was told. Arthur was really Roman and the Knights of the Round Table were Russian and great horsemen."

jakerupe wrote:Sounds to much like to many other stories from my western civ class witout the mysthism??? (is that a word? )