”The Mists of Avalon” is a TNT miniseries offering a feminist take on the Arthurian legend. It’s based on the 1983 novel by the prolific Marion Zimmer Bradley. It stars Julianna Marguiles as Morgaine and Samantha Mathis as Gwenhwyfar, as well as Joan Allen, Caroline Goodall, Anjelica Huston and Edward Atterton.
Part one airs at 8 p.m., 10 p.m. and midnight Sunday night; part two airs at the same times Monday night.
The Hollywood Reporter says:
The Hollywood Reporter says:
“Evocative locations, costuming and art direction fill out the rest of the tasty ingredients for this highly engaging epic … TNT's new magical miniseries ought to spellbind audiences and bring in high numbers. Evocative locations, costuming and art direction fill out the rest of the tasty ingredients for this highly engaging epic … This is more than a fairy tale thrown into teleplay form -- it's a chronicle of spirituality, innocence lost, family relationships destroyed and the end of an era.”
Variety says:
“Filled with incest, sorcery and violence, this adaptation of Marion Zimmer Bradley's novel has an awful lot going for it on the entertainment front, including Anjelica Huston and Joan Allen as battling sisters. But even great concepts and strong casting give way to mediocre execution. Despite some exciting sequences toward the end, this mini is dominated by a plodding pace and long stretches of muddy storytelling.”
Here’s new Coax spy “Spanky McGillicuddy” with his take:
Living in the center of the Midwest, it’s a very rare thing to be able to view movies or TV programs before they are released. So when an advance copy of TNT’s The Mists of Avalon, based on the novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley, literally fell into my lap, I jumped at the chance to take a look at it a full month before it is broadcast. I have always been interested in the legend of King Arthur, and have read a large number of the literary works that make up that legend, so I have a fairly good idea of what is essential to the story. While I have not read Bradley’s entire book, I am wading my way through it—it’s over 870 pages long.
What both the novel and the miniseries have in common is that they are a retelling of the life of King Arthur, from birth to death, told from a feminist perspective. This works remarkably well. The historical Arthur most likely lived in the pre-Christian era of England, when pagan religions were the order of the day. It only makes sense that when telling a story set in a time when the Goddess was most often worshipped, that one would tell the story from the point of view of the Goddess’s priestesses. This perspective also allows for a much more sympathetic portrayal of some of the female characters, especially Morgaine.
Overall, the TNT’s version of The Mists of Avalon is very good. Most viewers will enjoy it quite a bit, especially the performances. Anjelica Houston plays Viviane, leader of the cult of Avalon, and (to some) the most powerful woman in England. Joan Allen, giving her usual excellent performance, plays Morgause, Viviane’s sister, and a highly ambitious woman. Finally, ER’s Julianne Margulies plays Morgaine, daughter Igraine—who is a third sister of Viviane and Morgause—and herself sister of King Arthur. The rest of the characters are equally impressive, but one can tell that the miniseries is about these three women.
The story itself is not new, and that’s a good thing. When dealing with a story as well-known as that of King Arthur, making too many radical changes can be dangerous. This is not to say that some liberties are not taken, but on the whole they are quite minor. Launcelot, in this version, is cousin to Arthur, making his adultery all the more painful for the king. Most of the changes along these lines are for the better—but more on that later.
Also worth noting are the cinematography, done by Vilmos Zsigmond (Close Encounters of the Third Kind) and the special effects. The miniseries looks great thanks to Vilmos, and I doubt that Prague has ever looked so much like England. The effects are very good, and on at least one occasion are used very well to show something that is patently impossible. The fact that this is done without looking downright hokey (as so many made-for-TV projects do) makes it all the more impressive.
But there are a few things that aren’t so great about the Mists of Avalon. In discussing these shortcomings a few spoilers are unavoidable, though to anyone who has encountered King Arthur before—say, in John Boorman’s Excaliber—there is nothing too new. First of all, four hours is not nearly long enough to do justice to the source material. This leads to some confusion about why characters are acting as they do. For instance, at one point Joan Allen’s Morgause places a curse on Guenivere, to prevent her from bearing the king a son. A very well done scene, and it helps to explain why Arthur never had any legitimate children, though it is never fully explained why Allen’s character has such a grudge against the queen. We are only given hints through the remainder of the miniseries. Another example of this problem is Mordred, Arthur’s son and the bane of his existence. When he learns who his father really is, he delivers a short monologue about how he wants to only bring honor to the king. However, for the rest of the miniseries he fights his father and sows strife throughout the kingdom. Why the sudden reversal? We are never told.
The other major problem with The Mists Of Avalon is that it takes one unforgivable liberty with the Arthurian Legend. In the miniseries, when the love of Launcelot and Guenevere is finally consummated, it is done so not only at the king’s request, but with his participation. That’s right, a midreview threesome. While most authors show Arthur as having knowledge of the adultery between his wife and best friend, to claim that he would encourage it, or participate, is ludicrous.
Despite these shortcomings, The Mists of Avalon is a pretty good miniseries. Certainly nothing to plan your week around, but if you need something to watch, check it out. Fans of the legend of King Arthur will probably get the most out of it, but by all means it should be enjoyable fur just about anyone.
And here’s a review from a fan of the book:
Last night, I had the dubious honor of seeing the special screening of The Mists of Avalon, the TNT miniseries that will air this Sunday and Monday night. Someone at TNT thought it would be a good idea to show it to all of us pagan/fantasy/Arthurian-legend/whatever-your-poison-is freaks in New York at the beautiful and enormous Ziegfeld Theater. Standing in line to see something outside the Ziegfeld has become something of a tradition for me since I moved to New York five years ago. However, this is the first time I have waited in line to see a movie that was going to be on television in a week anyways.
So, what I'm trying to make you aware of here is that perhaps my expectations were too high. I go to the best of the New York movie theaters to see a TNT mini-series. This makes no sense, and I would've realized that, if it wasn't that I was blinded by my unceasing love of the Mists of Avalon. I know that other people consider the most significant book of their adolescence to be something all intellectually and pretentious like The Catcher in the Rye. No, the Mists of Avalon was quite possibly the most significant read of my adolescence, and I say this without shame.
That said, of course the movie was going to fail me. Who thinks they can take a 900-page book and turn into one 3-hour made for TV movie anyways? Who actually would hire such terrific actresses like Anjelica Huston and Joan Allen and stick them in the pathetically written one-dimensional cameo roles of Viviane (the Lady of the Lake) andMorgause (the evil wife to Lot of Orkney)? Who, I ask you, could take what I consider to be the best of the Arthurian legends and turn it into a crappy TNT film?
Okay, the mini-series has its good points. It's a mini-series. If your expectations aren't too high, and you're like me (as in you were going to watch it any way), by all means watch it. However, a friend of mine who didn't read the book thought the mini-series was incoherent. Those of us who had read the book felt betrayed by all that they removed and all that they deemed worthy of change. However, if you are a Julianna Margulies fan, and I wasn't before last night, this show might actually be worth committing two of your nights too. Nah, just put the VCR on timer record. Julianna Margulies was amazing. Fortunately, she was actually written a role. As it is actually Morgaine's (Morgan Le Fey) story, that shows they weren't totally incompetent. Unlike the other two actresses whose faces appear on the posters, she was on screen for more than 10 minutes, and she provided real depth and grace to the role.
On the plus side, there were a few moments where the movie maintained some of the magic of the book. Since the overall weakness of the movie overwhelmed me, I don't know if I can remember too many of them right now, but there were a few.
The movie is a demonstration of the rather unfortunate combination of bad screenwriting and bad direction. Hell, the movie was just a bad idea, trying to cover the scope of the book in three hours is like trying to make a two-hour movie out of the entire Bible.And I think the latter might be an easier task. The opening dialogue between Igraine, mother to Morgaine and Arthur, and with Viviane and Merlin is stilted because they are trying to cram the entire first 150 pages into a five-minute dialogue. They would do the cheesiest camera interaction shots when Igraine, then just wife of the Duke of Cornwall and mother of Morgaine, meets Uther, who will be Arthur's father. They do these ridiculous zooms on their faces to demonstrate the strength of their love. They would have Morgaine narrate at the most unnecessary times.
Like when Uther rides into Tintagel, the child Morgainerealizes everything is about to change, Julianna Margulies narrates that, and then young Morgaine and Morgause just talk about it anyway in the next scene. Then they would have bizarre flashbacks. I could have seen this as a technique to integrate things you couldn't fully put into the film, but they used these odd unnecessary flashbacks of things we had just seen. These strange flashbacks haunt the rest of the movie. Thinking back,the flashbacks could've worked if they had been 1. fewer innumber and 2. had been added in with a modicum of timing and finesse of direction. The epitome of bad direction and screen writing comes in the latter part of the movie. When Viviane kneels at the bedside of the dying Merlin, he speaks for what feels like a decade. I got so bored it was unbelievable. And then when you see the mists filling Viviane's home, you realize that his death is supposed to signify the death of Avalon, but you just missed his big speech because it was dull and incoherent.
Later Viviane rejoins Morgaine and rides to Camelot, now under Mordred's (son of Arthur by Morgaine) control. Anjelica Huston speaks truly of the movie when she says, “This is an abomination.” (even though that line was ridiculous and melodramatic at that point of the film, and may even be melodramatic here). For those of you who loved significant themes and features of the book, this movie will leave you feeling betrayed. I fell in love with paganism because of this book, and I am a staunch follower of no religion. The book's main theme is the struggle for paganism to survive before the insurmountable intolerance of Christianity, and Bishop Patricius and Gwenhwyfar(Guinivere) do everything in their power to destroy the old Goddess religion. There is no bow to Christianity in the novel, just the understanding that there are many truths and paths, and that the Goddess works in mysterious ways, you might say. But the movie is so overwhelmed by its need to appease Ted Turner that it reads like a narrative on realizing that paganism has transcended the past and moved into the “new wisdom,” that of Christianity. The movie would have you believe the Goddess had always intended to exist in people's minds as the Virgin Mary.
I believe this bow to Christianity and family values shows itself by ruining the grand narrative of the relationship between brother and sister, between Arthur and Morgaine. In a fertility ritual,the young priestess Morgaine, by then separated from Arthur for ten years of her childhood, plays the part of the Virgin Huntress. She is the consort to the great hunter that kills the King Stag. It is tradition that the hunter sleeps with the Virgin Huntress. For those of you who haven't read the book, I hate to spoil this for you, but the hunter isArthur, and he sleeps with Morgaine. Neither of them knows each other at first.
However, in the book, they discover the next morning and it is devastating to both. But the crux of their relationship for the next 600 or so pages of the book is that they knew what had happened. That Arthur knowingly loves the first woman he was with, even though it is his sister, is central to his life story. Now, I understand how unpalatable incest is to everyone, but that is the crux of the story, and to remove it is to remove one of the key motivations. However, it is a demonstration of this book's need to turn the Mists of Avalon into a Christian fairy tale, rather than a great epic of the death of the Goddess religion in Britain.
Critiquing the movie version of a book I hold so dear exhausts me. I would say there was some nice cinematography, especially for a TV movie, because I think there was. But I'm afraid that there needs to be more to a good book adaptation than some pretty pictures.
