Yet another King Arthur incarnation. “King Arthur: Legend of the Sword” filmed by director Guy Ritchie in 2017 will air on HBO March 25 to April 1. It is a testament to the staying power of the legendary King Arthur, his Knights of the Round Table, and Camelot that Ritchie, who is known for crime and mystery films not for fantasy or adventure films, decided to take on the storied topic.
Yet, Ritchie’s choice is also not surprising. The Western imagination can never seem to escape Arthur, nor does it seem to want to. Even the 17th-century English poet John Milton, famous for his epic “Paradise Lost,” at one time planned to make his great epic Arthurian rather than biblical. Outside of religious or spiritual beliefs, no set of stories seems to resonate so vividly, or cinematically, if you will, across the English-speaking world as those of King Arthur. The fact that historians still debate whether or not a real King Arthur even existed is largely irrelevant. He exists in our hearts and minds without a doubt.
