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directed by Antoine Fuqua
and written by David Franzoni
. It stars Clive Owen
as the title character, Ioan Gruffudd
as Lancelot
, and Keira Knightley
as Guinevere
.
The producers of the film claim to present a historically accurate version of the Arthurian legends, supposedly inspired by new archaeological findings. The accuracy of these claims is subject to debate, but the film is unusual (though not unique) in representing Arthur
as a Roman
officer rather than a medieval knight
.
[to Gawain] Wondering at your good fortune that all your children look like me?
Arthur. This is not Rome's fight. It is not your fight. All these long years we've been together, the trials we've faced, the blood we've shed... What was it all for, if not for the reward of freedom? And now when we are so close! When it is finally within our grasp - look at me! Does it all count for nothing?
[voiceover] For two hundred years knights have fought and died for a land not our own. But on that day at Badon Hill, all who fought put our lives in service of a greater cause: Freedom. And as for the knights who gave their lives, their deaths were cause for neither mourning nor sadness. For they live forever, their names and deeds handed down from father to son, mother to daughter, in the legends of King Arthur and his knights.
O merciful God, I have such need of Your mercy now. Not for myself, but for my knights, for this is truly their hour of need. Deliver them from their trials ahead and I will pay You a thousand fold with any sacrifice You ask of me. And if in Your wisdom, You should determine that sacrifice must be my life for theirs; so that they can once again taste the freedom that is so long been denied to them, I will gladly make that covenant. My death will have a purpose. I ask no more than that.
What, that some men are born to be slaves? No, that isn't true.
Deeds in themselves are meaningless unless they are done for some higher purpose. We have waged a war to protect a Rome that doesn't exist. Is that the deed I am to be judged by?
Pelagius told me once there is no worse death than the end of hope.
You be my friend now and do not dissuade me. Seize the freedom you have earned and live it for the both of us. I cannot follow you, Lancelot. I now know that all the blood I have shed, all the lives I have taken have led me to this moment.
Knights! The gift of freedom is yours by right. But the home we seek resides not in some distant land. It's in us! And in our actions on this day! If this be our destiny, then so be it. But let history remember that as free men, we chose to make it so.
Let every man, woman, child bear witness that from this day, all Britons will be united in one common cause.