Gawain and the Green Knight

I vaguely remember this from being around 7 years old at the time. The combination of time since, my age at the time, seeing it in a strange old-fashioned cinema, having an inter- mission(!), and the weird and dark storyline, have kept me perplexed to this day – with weird flashbacks.

I remember little detail I'm afraid, other than a general green tinge to the whole film and the Green Knight's head (I think), played by Nigel Green (born for the role, obviously), being lopped off by a sword in a finalé fight sequence. I think I was completely bamboozled by the whole affair, but not necessarily bored. If anything, I think it encouraged my liking of strange and weird films, and furthered my interest in the appearance of things – ending up as a graphic designer.

I do remember Nigel Green though and think I was aware of him at the time, maybe having seen him in Jason and the Argonauts earlier (as Hercules). In spite of his theatrical larger-than- life acting style, I remember him being a gripping person to watch – at least as a kid. A shame it was his last film.

I'd love to see again some day...

I dunno why I wrote "the knights who say ni!" as my summary. I suppose it was to be creative. Anyway, this movie is very close to the original story, but another half hour of this crap I would've been ripping my hair out. Well, at least I think that is what I might have done had I not been a huge fan of Murray Head.

But Murray's the man, so I watched and I got a kick out of him running about punching people and hitting them with sticks, rocks, himself, swords, and anything else he found laying about. The cinematography is stinky and the script/ interpretation of the tale is sorta crappy. But if you like Murray, by all means go ahead and watch.

Atmospheric is the first word I'd use to describe this movie. With the thick rolling fog, deep forest, dark castles and rocky seacoast; this movie delivers on locations. The filth is fantastic. When characters get dirty, they stay dirty. Their clothes look worn. When Gawain falls ill, he looks it. There are sweat stains on most of the cast. I don't know about you guys, but I appreciate touches like that.

In this version of Gawain, everything, no matter how bizarre or with a touch of silly, is deadly serious for the players. From the moment the movie starts it wraps itself in the period and surreal imagery and grimly marches on to a very well done conclusion.

Though it gets a lot of bad reviews, I genuinely like this movie. In fact, I like it much more than the remake "Sword of the Valiant"-- whose characters come off as not taking their environment, or each other, seriously.

This film has to be one of the most underrated films ever. And in some ways I think this could be due to it being a British film made with a reasonably low budget...in other words a prejudice against it.

I admit it does have it's flaws such as some of the fight scenes (but not all) being a little silly, a few deviations from the plot of the poem, and the occasional line of cheesy dialogue (though on this count we there is not that much of this at all).

This film had a small budget however the filmmakers accomplish a great deal despite this. The set designs I have to say are rather good. As for the costumes, they do indeed look like 'Monty Python And The Holy Grail' costumes in some cases. There are two reasons for this that are over looked...these are the facts that Monty Python spoofed this film (aswell as others) with their film...The other fact is that the costumes are based on Medieval Costumes and so it's obvious that some will look similar.

I have seen a lot of people on this site say how bad the effects are, and I have to respectfully say that their comments are baloney on this matter. The effects are no worse than most other films of that time and genre.

Also it should be noted that this is a British film and most of the cast were fairly well known in the UK at the time, so they are only a 'No Name' cast to people abroad (not in the UK) in the USA...etc...People forget that films are always predominately made for their own countries and not generally foreign markets...and this film is the same.

Over all this is quite a good film...I will give it full marks just because everyone else are giving this film such ridiculous marks on these reviews.

These reviews heighten my need to get hold of a copy of this film. I've been looking for it ever since the videotape was invented, hoping to relive the glorious three weeks spent as an extra on Gawain and the Green Knight during my art-school days in Cardiff Wales. Costumes? how can you criticise chain mail knitted from silver sprayed string? Combat scenes? bad acting! I was personally involved in hand to hand combat with Murray Head! Awful scenery? Don't let the Welsh hear that.. mainly Cardiff and Caerphilly castles. Terrible SFX? How about covering the set in artificial snow only to have to delay filming because it snowed for real. A masterpiece.