The director's daughter…
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shawneuser — 12 years ago(June 09, 2013 01:36 AM)
Technically, as viewers, we knew it was a rape, but she thought she was "making love" with her husband, as she says shortly after. So, it is a non-violent rape scene in that sense, and she was obviously enjoying it. The only thing risque about it is the alternating shots of the Duke's death being tied to it.
It is a hot scene, mostly thanks to context, but if you view it closely, it only has one real money shot. That is the one of the Duke rutting on her as she lies naked on the bed. She lifts her leg and puts it around him, which is hot.
However, he is fully clothed, meaning the actor was. Also, if you look close enough, you can see there is a blanket or cloth between her legs and between them, which wasn't even necessary since he was fully clothed. It was probably just there to protect her tender parts from his armor.
That shot only lasts a couple seconds. The rest of it is alternating shots between her moaning on the bed naked from the waist up, Gabriel Bryne grunting as he thrusts, and the Duke dying.
Its erotic because we know what's going on, but the shots themselves are no big deal. You don't even see Uther and Egraine in the same frame. The brief shot with the Duke is the only one that needed two actors in it. Otherwise, they could have shot her moaning and Uther's grunting separately.
So, was shooting it really that big of a deal for Boorman? I imagine not. -
TheHungryAndAngryShow — 10 years ago(October 27, 2015 08:59 AM)
I would agree that rape is sexual violence, but in the context of that movie, even though it is not her husband, she does not know that at the time, and it is filmed as a sex scene, not a rape scene. Hence my comment about people finding violence more acceptable than sex. I was not making a comment on rape being a non violent act.
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Blueghost — 12 years ago(May 10, 2013 06:43 PM)
by esskayess (Wed Feb 27 2013 15:55:54)
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stark naked, being raped by a power-hungry king. Hot scene, but it must have taken a bizarre mix of nepotism and cold-heartedness for John Boorman to have directed it.
I'll tell you this right now, I wouldn't do it. I don't care what was at steak. Then again I wonder if it really was his daughter, or he was just making it up. -
pol-edra — 12 years ago(June 09, 2013 04:30 AM)
"Then again I wonder if it really was his daughter, or he was just making it up."
Why would you think that??? And how do you explain nobody ever exposing that fib if that were the case?
"
Occasionally
I'm callous and strange." -
SkaterDave — 11 years ago(March 31, 2015 12:17 AM)
That's just ridiculous. He had no reason to make up a story like that. Besides that, how do you know that certain directors and film crews then to lie a lot? Do you work in the business? Have you been in many films?
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robert-103-233419 — 11 years ago(September 22, 2014 06:22 AM)
Yeh, this is kinda weird tbh, although I don't personally think that its that weird letting his daughter act in a rape scene (it isn't real after all). What I do find odd is the nepotism in casting her for the role in the first place. She is clearly a woeful actress (sorry, but its true). Admittedly I might have been a little aggressive about this in the review I did of the film (
http://www.gashfilms.com/filmreviews/excalibur/
;)) but yeh, really bad bit of casting.
Also worth pointing out that his nephew Charley Boorman
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charley_Boorman
also plays the weird young version of Mordred. Despite the nepotism here this bit of casting actually works well as the young Charley looks quite, erm incesty.
Katarina Boorman cast as Igraine though is just bad. It really stretches credibility when she is supposedly the cause of Uther abandoning the treaty and does
that
dance -
duke-verity — 10 years ago(August 05, 2015 04:18 AM)
The film didn't invent the story of the ravishment of Igrayne, it's there in Malory's
Le Morte D'Arthur
. It's the centuries-old original creation myth behind the Arthurian legend - the backstory of how King Arthur came to be conceived and born.
This is a fictitious scene with brief nudity featuring three actors. It's not some degenerate, morally reprehensible and pornographic slice of filth. People do rather need to calm down and try to understand the scene within the context of the film.
Katrine Boorman has no regrets about having filmed this scene. She recently made a television documentary about her father, his work, and their extended family. Charley Boorman (who of course played young Mordred, as well as having acted in his father's other films) appeared in this documentary, and brother and sister chatted together about what it was like to act for their dad.
They are a very close (and
very
eccentric) family, with no particular hangups about nudity. All of Boorman's children hail from an artistic, almost hippy commune background (born and raised in the era of the
Age of Aquarius
), where they ran around naked together as children and posed
au naturel
for artist relatives etc. They never saw anything shameful in that. There was nothing dirty or sexual about it. As a result they grew up relatively unihibited about such things, and had no qualms about acting in their dad's films.
Katrine was seventeen when she did
Excalibur
, but is emphatic that she was never exploited or coerced into doing anything she felt uncomfortable with. She remains very close to her dad and family to this day, and now makes her living as a photographer and documentary film maker. She has no issues about having played Igrayne, or of having shot this particular scene. So why do some viewers today have such issues with it? -
lazarillo — 10 years ago(February 02, 2016 05:56 AM)
She wasn't raped in real-life and even in the context of the movie she thought the guy was her husband and did not really UNWILLINGLY have sex with him. That's not quite the same thing as forcible rape. Seeing this movie as a teenager, I was just impressed he did it in full armor.
It is kinda weird to film your teen daughter in a nude sex scene, rape or not, but a few European directors have done itDario and Asia Argento in "Trauma", Serg and Charlotte Gainsbourg in "Charlotte Forever", and Andrew Birkin and his son and niece (Charlotte Gainsbourg again) in "The Cement Garden". These are just MOVIES though after all, and I don't pass judgment on their real-life relationships. I also don't think Americans puritanical weirdness towards sex and nudity is necessarily any healthier. . .
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