artzau

What's the story? Simple as that. Man's inhumanity to man? Self-realization? Redemption? An odyssey, perchance? A brutal killing machine, chained up for fighting like a dog, attended by a boy by a Viking chief with a gambling habit. Some violent, dirty scenes fought in the mud, all staged for the pleasure and gaming spirit of overlording on-lookers whose agenda is never made clear. Slight suggestions of tensions along the way. Lots of staring. Lots of going into the mind tableaux. lots of dirt, rain, discomfort and violence. Everyone's a cut-out caricature. The pagans are pagan. They despise the Christians. The Christians are Zealots, killing for Jesus. All through it, One-eyes stares, kills, spares no one and is says nothing. His thoughts are expressed through the boy. His Christian shipmates loath and fear him.

The journey, to save the Holy Land, takes them to someplace mindful of the New World. The arrows that appear from unseen sources are stone. The confusion builds and then, ... sacrifice? Man, this film had some potential but the mythic underpinnings are so convoluted, at the end, you wind up saying, "Huh?" Alas, the writer of this disappointing venture just didn't do his homework. The reason this film doesn't work is because there is no story. One-eye is a great Norse Metaphor as Odin/Woden gave his eye for wisdom. But, that's as far as it goes: One-eye had his eye taken from him, one surmises, in a fight. He's a survivor. His finding an arrow blade becomes the key to his immersion from the lower depths. But, it goes no further. His mission, after a poorly defined revenge, then is to go somewhere he's not a slave. The boy, his alter-ego, says he's looking for his "home" but also says, he's "...from Hell." The problem with that metaphor is that it doesn't fit the myth. So, we're left with a ensemble of stereotypes arrayed in a series of very boring, staring scenes, sparked by bloody violence.

It could have been better.

Christopher Plummer and Jane Alexander play the title roles in this made for TV movie of two of the most interesting artists of the 20th century. I mean, who but an art history student will remember the work of Alfred Stieglitz, the some-time, part-time husband of the great painter, Georgia O'Keefe? Likely few, if any reading this review. However, as a biopic addict, I remember seeing this with the interest of learning something about the woman who painted vaginas reflected in flowers and the sun-bleached bones of dead cattle. What emerges is an amazing story of how an early liberated woman of the 20th century married a relatively amoral man who was able to promote her work and get it in the public's eye by making it attractive to the wealthy and remain her husband at the same time he was chasing around after wealthy patrons. Less is made in this drama about the long-term relationship between O'Keefe, Stieglitz and socialite, Dorothy Norman, whose deep pockets indirectly supported O'Keefe's work largely through Stieglitz's affair with Norman. What does come through, however, is the niche that O'Keefe found in New Mexico and her association with a coterie of fellow artists like Ansel Adams. If this shows up, it's definitely worth viewing if for nothing more than seeing Plummer's portrayal of Stieglitz as a thorough-going cad.

OK, besides Ed Harris and Tom Savini, who else is in this amazing biker film from the early 80s? Well, it doesn't really matter because sometimes things just come together in a way that transcends what the likely original intent was, to patch together a biker movie about jousting knights who engage in feudal combat from motorcycles instead of horses. Yep. The costumes are a bit cheesy, the acting is a bit raw and amateurish and the story..., ah, the story: The story is the Arthurian tragedy of innocence, self sacrifice, honor and unfaithfulness. The tale works around the triad of the King, the very young Ed Harris, the villain, the wonderful Tom Savini and the knight protector, Lancelot, Gary Lahti. Each of these figures represents an archetype which very likely unbeknown to the film makers and they come through wonderfully in the way in which this tale is patched together. Billy,as the King Arthur prototype is idealistic, uncompromising loyal to his own mythology and like the legendary Arthur, ego-less. His loyal knight retainer, Alan, is Lancelot in his nobility and loyalty to his sovereign while coveting his wife all the time. Savini is purely delightful as the Modred counterpart, even taking Morgan le Fay's name as a pun. Morgan covets the crown and tries to usurp it by going off only to discover his new realm is a forest of paper tigers. The final scene and resolution of the tragedy works wonderfully, giving a the only glimpse of the famous story-teller and raconteur, Brother Blue as the wizard, Merlin.

As an anthropologist and mythologist, I saw this tale back in the early 80s and was impressed how the underlying mythology of an essentially low budget film held together in such a wonderful way in spite of a few flaws. I consider it a cult classic.