Gawain and the Green Knight

Bravely incorporates alliterations from the original text. Only the early analepsis hampers this concise and faithful adaptation.

Having just watched back-to-back two version of Gawain and the Green Knight, that of Stephen Weeks (1973) and that of David Rudkin/John Phillips (1991) it seemed like a good idea to write one review covering both. The difference is basic and simple: Rudkin's is a faithful and highly literate rendering of the text, while Weeks's is more of a fun romp based loosely on the same material. I find both equally enjoyable in their different ways, and can't understand the opprobrium heaped on the 1973 version. It's charming and delightful, with nice music and graphics, and features some great one-off (if over the top) performances from the likes of Nigel Green (who seemed born to play his namesake the Green Knight), Geoffrey Bayldon and Murray Melvin. Both benefit from some marvellous Welsh locations with which I am personally familiar. Perhaps one of the greatest advantages I have in appreciating it is the fact that I'm probably the only person in the world who has never seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, and has no intention of ever doing so. Rudkin's more earnest and serious screenplay, with its hypnotically alliterative iambs, has made me want to go back and reread the original.

This feels faithful to the old story and this is what I watched it for. But it is slow as hell, and unnecessarily so because the animated 2002 version had all the same information in it and even I would say highlighted the themes and the moral of the story better. It's available on YouTube and is only an hour. I wouldn't recommend it per se, just watch the 2002 version. However, I am very saddened that such classic English folklore is so underadapted and at risk of being lost to modern audiences, or if not themselves lost then the opportunity to keep them relevant and part of our cultural fabric to be proud of is lost. So I recommend watching it if only for this reason.

Several screen adaptations of Gawain & the Green Knight exist, and out of the one's I've seen, this one comes out on top. The theatrically released films "Sword of the Valiant" (1984) and "The Green Knight" (2021) attempt to adapt the medieval poem, but both deviate from the original tale's story too much. Plus the production value for "Sword of the Valiant" makes me cringe.

The pacing for this version feels a little slow, but it's not boring ... and although I wouldn't expect it to win an award for best adapted screenplay, it definitely gets an A+ for remaining faithful to the source material.