'KING ARTHUR' Film separates man from myth

This movie differs markedly from previous film versions of the legend.
By DAVID GERMAIN
ASSOCIATED PRESS
LOS ANGELES -- In "Excalibur," he held his sword aloft and cried, "Any man who would be a knight and follow a king, follow me!"
In "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," he was upbraided by a peasant proclaiming, "You can't expect to wield supreme executive power just because some watery tart threw a sword at you."
King Arthur has gone Hollywood in many guises, from noble to farcical, in live-action spectacles, musicals and cartoon tales. Now he rises again with a gritty epic that aims to take the leader back to his historical roots as a Roman-British warrior battling Saxon marauders.
"King Arthur" is Arthur without his shining city of Camelot, the solemn quest for the Grail, or the sword-and-sorcery appended to the legend by medieval romantics. Also gone is the calamitous love triangle involving Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot.
Arthur does bear the sword of his father, but an ordinary blade, not the Excalibur of myth that marked him as Britain's destined ruler, a weapon bestowed on the world of men by the otherworldly Lady of the Lake, the "watery tart" of "Monty Python."
A different take
"The take on this for me was, well, where did it all begin? Every legend starts somewhere. This idea was more about the man as opposed to the sword," said "King Arthur" director Antoine Fuqua. "Why not ground him? Why take away from his heroism by making it, 'Oh, he had a magic sword. Of course he did all these deeds,' as opposed to making him a human being, a very complex human being, who made a very big decision?"
"King Arthur" stars Clive Owen as the title character, a war-weary soldier of Rome leading a band of warriors from the Russian province of Sarmatia, who are charged with maintaining order in Britain.
With Rome pulling out of Britain as the empire crumbles, Arthur looks forward to departing for a tranquil life in Rome, while his men are eager to return to their Sarmatian homes.
Instead, Guinevere (Keira Knightley) and other native Britons fearful of encroaching Saxon hordes persuade Arthur to stay and lead the fight against the invaders. Guinevere and Merlin, Arthur's sorcerer mentor in traditional legend, are depicted as Celtic guerrilla warriors who strike up an uneasy alliance with Arthur, previously their enemy.
"It is a new version. We're never going to get away from that," Owen said. "It won't ultimately satisfy those that are passionate about the very traditional, more romantic version, but we never set out to do that."
No love triangle
Guinevere becomes Arthur's queen, but she does not strike up an affair with his best friend and lieutenant, Lancelot (Ioan Gruffudd). A few wordless glances between Guinevere and Lancelot are all that remain of the love triangle.
"When I first heard they were going to do 'King Arthur,' I thought, what's the point? Because it's been done so many times before. We all know the legend so well. And then I read it, and I thought, ooh, that's rather interesting," Knightley said. "If you want the love triangle, it's been done, there are many different movies where if you want that, you can find it. If you want something else, watch this one."
Other than character names and the notion of a unifying king, the only notable trappings left of medieval Arthur lore are his round table and a nonmagical variation on the sword in the stone that he drew to become ruler of Britain.