...stark naked, being raped by a power-hungry king. Hot scene, but it must have taken a bizarre mix of nepotism and cold-heartedness for John Boorman to have directed it.
shareit is hot and she looks like a real good *beep* toy
shareYeah, I just finished watching the film and I came to IMDB to check out the actor list since I recognized a whole slew of now-superstar actors (Helen Mirren, Liam Neeson, Gabriel Byrne, Patrick Stewart, etc) and a few not-so-superstar but good actors (Ciaran Hinds, Clive Swift) in their younger days. When I saw she was Boorman's daughter, it was a WTF moment.
Seriously, WTF?
I wrote on the actress' board that it's not even as if this sex scene was one of those "artistic" ones with lots of slanting shadows and metaphorical camera shots and so on. Although brief, it was pretty down n' dirty.
Not really sure how people (the director and his daughter) were able to do this without wincing. I mean, there are famous actors who go on Jay Leno all the time claiming that they don't "let" their parents even watch their movies that show off their nudity or explicit sex scenes. It might seem weird to the rest of us-- "Uh, you know the WHOLE WORLD is seeing you naked and faking orgasm, right?"--but I've found that it's usually those nearest and dearest to a performer that provide the most mental block, not the unwashed masses.
Well, I was watching the director's commentary on the DVD and this is a close paraphrase of what he says:
"A lot of people ask me 'well, how did you feel about directing your daughter being raped?' Well, she wasn't being raped, of course. I think it was just a scene. She didn't mind, and nor did I. Now, this was a marvelous set that was designed by..."
Okey dokey, then.
From what I've read, what bothered the daughter was NOT that she was being filmed by her father stark naked. What bothered her was being too close to that roaring fire. A spark could have set her hair aflame.
shareYou're right, in his commentary, he actually did mention that shortly after he said the one I quoted above. He said (while watching the actual moment of the "rape"--i.e. Uther in full plate armor, ramming into Igraine) it was physically uncomfortable for the actors because he wanted them as close to the fire as possible.
Actually, although it's not up with there with the best DVD commentaries, it's not a terrible one, and we learn some interesting tidbits about how he used his whole family (not just the two credited children) in the movie. He seems to have been a very expedient filmmaker, pressing into service any friends or family he could to make the picture on a low budget and in a time when computers couldn't do the special effects.
For instance, one of his other daughter, Tilse (sp?) I think, is an extra throughout the great hall/dance scenes as well as doing the voice for the 10-year old Mordred when he taunts Perceval for the first time on horseback. She also did some effects (I guess they could be called stunts, as, when asked, no actor wanted to do them) for The Lady of the Lake. One of the Lady scenes was the one where Arthur and Lancelot have their introductory duel and Arthur throws the broken Excalibur into the pond. Apparently. that pond was #$@!ing freezing and Tilse had to lie under the surface of the frigid water, holding her breath, for "long minutes," while the scene was shot (and all over again on subsequent takes) so that she could raise her disembodied hand above the water, wielding Excalibur for Arthur to take back.
With characteristic unflappability, Boorman says only, "Yes, Tilse could hold her breath for a long time." Cool as a cucumber, that fatherly director!
OP, I think your wording is extremely significant: you write "The director's daughter... stark naked, being raped by a power-hungry king." Either it's "the director's daughter acting in a rape-scene", or it's "IGRAINE, stark naked, being raped by a king". If you look at the brutality of the scene from the ficitonal POV, then we're talking about characters. If you look at it from the artistic POV, then it's just an actress pretending to be raped, while the director is busy watching whether the scene plays out the way he wants it in terms of lights and shadows and colours and patterns etc... I really don't see how the fact that the actress in question is his daughter should change anything, or should say anything about his heart.
"Occasionally I'm callous and strange."
Matter of opinion. I’ve never been a filmmaker and my daughter has never been an actress, but if we were both in such a situation, I could never bring myself to do what Boorman did. Not necessarily knocking him for doing it, just saying (and knowing) that I never could. Any good director has to be coldblooded to a certain extent to crank out the film he or she was hired to make and Boorman was no exception here.
shareThat was GREAT acting by Boorman's daughter.
shareWe watched this film in English class my junior year of high school. Before we watched it, the teacher warned us about "The Terrible Rape Scene", and she wouldn't show it. This was 1983 - no DVDs yet, so she had 2 VHS tapes, the second one cued up to just after The Terrible Rape Scene. She stopped #1 just as Uther grabbed the shoulder of Igrayne's dress to tear it off. Most of us had already seen it, but she wanted no part of it.
Of course, men being impaled to trees, and getting their arms hacked off, and having chunks of their intestines falling off lances after being run through were all OK.
What about the implied sex scene with Lancelot and Guineveer? Did she cue up twice for that also?
shareNope, that we got to watch. Because it wasn't a Terrible Rape Scene.
share
Technically, as viewers, we knew it was a rape, but she thought she was "making love" with her husband, as she says shortly after. So, it is a non-violent rape scene in that sense, and she was obviously enjoying it. The only thing risque about it is the alternating shots of the Duke's death being tied to it.
It is a hot scene, mostly thanks to context, but if you view it closely, it only has one real money shot. That is the one of the Duke rutting on her as she lies naked on the bed. She lifts her leg and puts it around him, which is hot.
However, he is fully clothed, meaning the actor was. Also, if you look close enough, you can see there is a blanket or cloth between her legs and between them, which wasn't even necessary since he was fully clothed. It was probably just there to protect her tender parts from his armor.
That shot only lasts a couple seconds. The rest of it is alternating shots between her moaning on the bed naked from the waist up, Gabriel Bryne grunting as he thrusts, and the Duke dying.
Its erotic because we know what's going on, but the shots themselves are no big deal. You don't even see Uther and Egraine in the same frame. The brief shot with the Duke is the only one that needed two actors in it. Otherwise, they could have shot her moaning and Uther's grunting separately.
So, was shooting it really that big of a deal for Boorman? I imagine not.
Aaaand Morgana rapes her own brother the very same way.... :)
shareFor most people violence is WAY more acceptable than sex!
shareFor most people violence is WAY more acceptable than sex!
Rape isn't sex, it's the most horrific form of violence.
I would agree that rape is sexual violence, but in the context of that movie, even though it is not her husband, she does not know that at the time, and it is filmed as a sex scene, not a rape scene. Hence my comment about people finding violence more acceptable than sex. I was not making a comment on rape being a non violent act.
shareRape isn't sex, it's the most horrific form of violence.
by esskayess (Wed Feb 27 2013 15:55:54)
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...stark naked, being raped by a power-hungry king. Hot scene, but it must have taken a bizarre mix of nepotism and cold-heartedness for John Boorman to have directed it.
"Then again I wonder if it really was his daughter, or he was just making it up."
Why would you think that??? And how do you explain nobody ever exposing that fib if that were the case?
"Occasionally I'm callous and strange."
It was his daughter. Boorman used his kids whenever he could. See also "The Emerald Forest" and "Hope and Glory."
My people skills are fine. It's my tolerance of morons that needs work.
Yeh, this is kinda weird tbh, although I don't personally think that its that weird letting his daughter act in a rape scene (it isn't real after all). What I do find odd is the nepotism in casting her for the role in the first place. She is clearly a woeful actress (sorry, but its true). Admittedly I might have been a little aggressive about this in the review I did of the film (http://www.gashfilms.com/filmreviews/excalibur/ ;)) but yeh, really bad bit of casting.
Also worth pointing out that his nephew Charley Boorman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charley_Boorman also plays the weird young version of Mordred. Despite the nepotism here this bit of casting actually works well as the young Charley looks quite, erm incesty.
Katarina Boorman cast as Igraine though is just bad. It really stretches credibility when she is supposedly the cause of Uther abandoning the treaty and does that dance...
Uther and Igraine don't exist. Gabriel Byrne and Katrine Boorman are real human beings. What ever John Boorman thought of directing his daughter in such a sexual scene, only he knows.
shareThe film didn't invent the story of the ravishment of Igrayne, it's there in Malory's Le Morte D'Arthur. It's the centuries-old original creation myth behind the Arthurian legend - the backstory of how King Arthur came to be conceived and born.
This is a fictitious scene with brief nudity featuring three actors. It's not some degenerate, morally reprehensible and pornographic slice of filth. People do rather need to calm down and try to understand the scene within the context of the film.
Katrine Boorman has no regrets about having filmed this scene. She recently made a television documentary about her father, his work, and their extended family. Charley Boorman (who of course played young Mordred, as well as having acted in his father's other films) appeared in this documentary, and brother and sister chatted together about what it was like to act for their dad.
They are a very close (and very eccentric) family, with no particular hangups about nudity. All of Boorman's children hail from an artistic, almost hippy commune background (born and raised in the era of the Age of Aquarius), where they ran around naked together as children and posed au naturel for artist relatives etc. They never saw anything shameful in that. There was nothing dirty or sexual about it. As a result they grew up relatively unihibited about such things, and had no qualms about acting in their dad's films.
Katrine was seventeen when she did Excalibur, but is emphatic that she was never exploited or coerced into doing anything she felt uncomfortable with. She remains very close to her dad and family to this day, and now makes her living as a photographer and documentary film maker. She has no issues about having played Igrayne, or of having shot this particular scene.... So why do some viewers today have such issues with it?