1 Jonathan Bignell Music and the Politics of Maculinity in Excalibur NOTE: This paper originated as a presentation at the 1999 SERCIA conference in Urbino, Italy and a longer version was translated by Corinne Maugras as: Bignell, J., ‘Masculinité, musique et politique dans Excalibur’, in D. Sipière and A. Cohen (eds), Les autres arts dans l’art du cinéma (Rennes: University of Rennes Press, 2007), pp.141-151. This is a slightly modified English version of the French chapter. There is a list of nearly all my published work at http://www.reading.ac.uk/ftt/about/staff/j-bignell.aspx John Boorman’s Excalibur (1981) is epic in its scope, telling the much of the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. It begins with the battle that establishes Uther as king, and details his seduction of Igraine and their rule as king and queen. The magical sword Excalibur is obtained by Merlin from the Lady of the Lake, thrust into a stone by Uther at his death then drawn out by the young Arthur. Arthur’s rule in Camelot is shown, and the love triangle between Arthur, Guinevere and Lancelot, together with the sinister machinations of Morgana le Fay, lead to the collapse of Arthur’s rule. Arthur’s power, and with it the kingdom, are redeemed by Perceval, who discovers the Holy Grail, and Arthur’s knights confront Morgana and her son Mordred in a final battle in which Arthur and Mordred are killed. Perceval returns the sword to the Lady of the Lake, and Arthur’s body is carried to the Isle of Avalon. Visually, the grand sweep of the film’s mythic chronology is shown by techniques like cutting from one time to another in the same space, for example one cut takes us from the sword plunged into the stone by Uther, directly to a scene in the same location eighteen years later. The change in time is signaled by the first scene being shot in winter and the next in spring, as well as by the presence of an encampment at this now magical spot. Boorman, and his collaborator on the screenplay Rospo Pallenberg, have developed consistent and economical systems like these in order to produce narrative momentum and clarity in this massive mythological saga. The use of Wagner’s music is highly organized, and is another of the systems that hold the disparate elements of the film together. ‘Siegfried’s Death’ from Götterdämmerung is the main theme, heard at the start of the film, and is associated with the sword Excalibur, the character of Arthur and