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John Boorman

Parsifal (Boorman)

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Parsifal (Boorman)
Excalibur (John Boorman, 1981)

Boorman's Mythic Sources

     Like Richard Wagner when he composed his opera, John Boorman attempts to root his version of the Arthurian legends in mythic sources, going back even before Thomas Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (1485) to Minnesinger and poet Wolfram von Eschenbach's 13th century Parzival.
    Heavily informed by the work of Jessie Weston, Boorman links the plight of Arthur to the Wasteland. Only Perceval can find the Grail because he recognizes that, as in Weston's Fisher King narratives, "The king and the land are one."
    Boorman later connects it directly to Romantic depictions of Celtic ruins and mythic spaces like Stonehenge. His debt to German Expressionism and the architectonic imagery of Fritz Lang is particularly evident in these sequences.

John Boorman on Myth (See Chapter 4)
Parsifal (Boorman)
Excalibur (John Boorman, 1981)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
John Boorman's storyboards for the scene above, here labeled "Stonhenge" (Courtesy John Boorman and the Lilly Library, University of Indiana)
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