My fictional tastes are becoming increasingly emo. I blame Clamp.
Today’s adventure into Arthuriana on film was Lovespell, a Tristan and Isolde movie from 1979 featuring Richard Burton as Mark. Which would probably explain why it sometimes felt more like a Mark movie.
It tries to be low scale and mythic at the same time, with mixed results. In particular, the low scale aspect makes some of the more melodramatic bits seem a bit out of place. Of the various Arthuriana adaptations I’ve been watching, though, this one may be the one that comes closest being faithful to the myth it’s based on, though it still takes liberties.
Researching it when I was trying to find any other Tristan and Isolde movie besides the one with James Franco and Sophia Miles (actually, there are several, I just can‘t watch any more of them unless I want to watch a German one without subs), I learned that a lot of people apparently find this to be something of a confusing jumble, though I didn’t really. But then, my fiction is rather prone to people dying of love, flinging themselves from cliffs because the sails were the wrong color, drinking love potions, and randomly ending up getting nursed by someone who just happens to have the same name as the person they were exiled for having an affair with.
Ok, I did raise my eyebrows a lot bit when, after Mark learns about the affair and throws Tristan in a cell, Isolde runs off to join a leper colony. Then Tristan escapes and comes to get her and she’s all “We can never be together and can never touch again because I may be a leper now!” Then he says they should run away together so she grabs his hand and off they go and it’s never mentioned again.
Yeah. I dunno.
Also, Wikipedia says the Franco and Miles version is based on this and I…do not see that at all and am assuming that someone who assumes that anything based on the same story something else is based on is based on the other adaptation and not the original story. They do both feature Isolde as the strongest willed-character and romantic aggressor and a more sympathetic Mark (Burton less consistently than Sewell, but still) but that’s about it. Oh, and Tristan has emo curls.
Incidentally, this is the extent of Tristan’s facial expressions:
and
Mostly the first. Just add a half-smile sometimes, and that’s about it. Not that I had anything against him before, but it made me appreciate Franco a bit more! (I wonder if he had more expressions as Lancelot? I ditched Excalibur before he showed up. TBH, dude wasn't bad, just...there-ish?)