August 2001

The Mists of Avalon Comes to Life this Summer in a New TNT Miniseries

It begins with the white mists that hover over the slowly rippling waters of the lake. Gradually, a small boat emerges through the mist. A dark-haired woman stands stoically at the prow as the strange, silent oarsmen behind her slip their paddles into the water. She is Morgaine, sister of King Arthur and mother of Mordred, the man who ultimately brings about the demise of Camelot and King Arthur's Round Table, and the death of the Arthurian dream.

Thus beings TNT's four-hour miniseries, The Mists of Avalon, slated to premiere in July. Based on the well-loved novel by Marion Zimmer Bradley, The Mists of Avalon tells not only the story of the women who brought King Arthur to power, but of the struggle between Christianity and Druidism in medieval times. It is a retelling of the Arthurian legend from a woman's point of view, underlined by the clash between one religion that restricted women and another religion that honored them.

The Mists of Avalon is primarily the story of Morgaine, played by Emmy-winner Julianna Margulies (Dinosaur and TV's ER). As a young girl, Morgaine is the only child of Igraine and her Roman warrior husband, Gorlois. Morgaine is, at first, a source of comfort to her mother, who had married Gorlois in an effort to strengthen allegiances between her people and Rome. However, Igraine is a daughter of the Holy Isle, Avalon, which is a magic place that serves as a safe haven for Druid priestesses, and yet co-exists on the border of the same time and space of a Christian convent.

The fates of both Igraine and Morgaine take a drastic turn at the hands of Merlin and Viviane, the Lay of the Lake, who see that Britain is in danger -- the Romans, who could protect them, are withdrawing their support. Without a leader who can command all of Britain as a single nation, its people risk being overcome by Saxon barbarians. Merlin and Viviane have looked into the future to discover that the not yet born Arthur will be the king who must lead Britain and save its people. Igraine is destined to be Arthur's mother. But her husband will not be Arthur's father. Believing the the different tribes of Britain will only follow one of their own, Merlin and Viviane inform Igraine that the father of the next king of England will be Uther Pendragon.

The wheels are set in motion, and Igraine eventually marries Pendragon and bears their son, Arthur. But when they're still children, Arthur is sent to a foster family and Morgaine is sent to Avalon, where she learns to be a Druid priestess. She doesn't see her brother again until they're both adults. And when they meet they don't recognize each other until it's too late.

In traditional Arthurian legend, Moraine (known as Morgan Le Fey) is painted as an evil sorceress who seduces Arthur. But here, we come to know and understand Morgaine as a woman who is struggling to live her life the best way she knows how. Her encounter with Arthur is part of a Druidic tradition, and their roles are determined, once again, by Merlin and Viviane. And from that point on, the destiny of King Arthur slowly unravels.

Filmed in Prague, The Mists of Avalon is a lush, rich production that showcases three of the finest female actors of our time in the most pivotal roles: Anjelica Huston (The Witches, The Addams Family and Ever After) plays Viviane, The Lady of the Lake; Joan Allen (Pleasantville, The Crucible and The Contender) plays Morgaine's aunt Morgause; and Julianna Margulies is cast perfectly as Morgaine.

Margulies not only grew up in England, but her parents read stories of King Arthur to her at bedtime. She describes why she decided to accept the role of Morgaine and how she prepared. "I was interested mostly because the King Arthur tales had never been told from the woman's point of view. I thought that the new millennium was a great time to tell the story all over again.

"I read the script, and then when I decided to take the role, I got Marion Zimmer Bradley's book and read it. I also read up on the Druids, and the other King Arthur tales. I read about Glastonbury and those times. Men who knew I was taking the part kept giving me The Once and Future King. 'Here's the real story,' they would say, which I thought was kind of interesting. Men see the legend very differently.

"What I tried hardest to do was to hear Morgaine's voice and her soul. I wanted to bring spirit to her life, and I hope that comes through."

Huston, who grew up in Ireland where she lived in 10th-century Norman castles, also has a personal interest in the Arthurian legend. "We didn't have television," she says. "We read a lot, and the tales of Merlin were often read in our household. My brother was a huge Arthur and Merlin aficionado. I wasn't that interested at the time, but when this movie came along it revived my interest in the whole subject. My brother is actually a master falconer -- probably as a result of being so interested in Arthurian tales." But the actor with perhaps the deepest interest is Samantha Mathis (How to Make an American Quilt, and TV's Harsh Realm), who plays Gwenhwyfar. "I read the book The Mists of Avalon about 10 years ago and fell in love with it. After I finished it, I called my agent and said it had to be made into a movie. There are just so many extraordinary roles for women of all ages. I followed it through the years, inquiring about what was happening with it and who was making it. My role in the film was meant to be, I suppose."

So how did The Mists of Avalon come to the screen?

It began with executive producer Lisa Alexander, who worked in development for the production company of fellow executive producer James Coburn (Affliction). She loved the book and brought it to Coburn's attention. "It's interesting because he has such a tough-guy image -- you know, Westerns and all of that," Alexander says. "But Jim has long had an interest in Eastern religion. I think that's what appealed to him about this project. For me, he's very much symbolized the Merlin and Druid point of view in this. I feel it has been very good for the project, too, because I didn't think that only women should see it through."

To that end, director Uli Edel (Last Exit to Brooklyn and TNT's Purgatory) was brought on board. "[This project is] a great dream come true," Edel says. "Because I knew this was a very passionate story. The legend of King Arthur is most likely the greatest story in Europe.

"Many years ago, a friend of mine brought me a sword he had used in a movie. So I put the sword on the wall above the fireplace in my home and told my two boys that it was actually Excalibur. I made up a story that, in a dream, King Arthur had appeared and brought me Excalibur. They believed this story over the years. Now they know I made it up, but they tell their friends the story like I told them, because they want to believe in the myth, not the truth.

"Most of the movies that deal with King Arthur are set in the 13th century in the High Middle Ages. But there was a man named King Arthur, and he lived much earlier. He lived in he real Dark Ages. So our movie plays in the Dark Ages, right after the Romans left Britain. It takes place around 600-700 AD, a time when Christianity and Paganism were still in a fight. A new religion was coming up and many people were holding on to the old religion.

"The clash of the religions was what interested me most about this tale. However, we cannot really say 'Paganism.' There was a religion existed -- a Celtic religion which was connected with a Druid religion. Most of it is lost for us, because the Druids never wrote anything down. But it was a religion that existed for thousands of years. It was only seen from the Christian's standpoint as Paganism."

One of the greatest strengths of TNT's The Mists of Avalon is the attention that's paid to the struggle between the religions. Executive Producer Mark Wolper (L.A. Confidential, Murder in the First) talks about the role that religion plays in the story. "King Arthur's great goal was to keep a balance between Christianity and Paganism. The only way England could hold its place against the Saxons was for all the Christians and all the Pagans to fight them off. They were unable to do that. The two religions could not co-exist. Arthur failed, and Camelot failed because of it. I don't think Paganism and Christianity could ever survive together, and it was a hopeless, romantic dream to think that they could. That's what this film is about. It's about a moment when it no longer worked, and the tragedy of the loss."

Mathis describes how her roles as Gwenhwyfar plays into the religious conflict of the story. "In some ways she starts out quite sweet and naive and kind of angelic. But she grows into a strong woman who's really fighting for her belief in Christianity. She's surrounded by people who bow down to the goddess of magic, which is very disturbing to her. She doesn't intend to be evil and malicious, but she becomes so, and really loses sight of her Christian ideals, thinking she's doing god's work. So I think she's a bit more complicated than the Guineveres we have seen before.

"She believes that being a mother is her only worth and value, and everyone knows she can't have a child. She keeps miscarrying, and it's devastating to her. She loves Arthur and feels that the only way she can keep a bond with him is to give him a son. And being a devout Christian, she doesn't understand why she keeps being punished." One of the aspects that delineates the Druids from the Christians is the use of magic. The women of Avalon -- Viviane, Morgaine, and Igraine -- all have the Sight. They can see into the future. They can communicate with each other from great distances. The film ratchets the notion of magic up a notch or two , but not to the point of being overwhelming.

"We could have made The Mists of Avalon with spectacular effects," Alexander says. "Instead, we really took our cue from the story and have made it much subtler. This is a story that says that magic is not necessarily unknowable.

"In the story, magic is not considered evil. It is much more a source of strength and knowledge. The women are strong and independent. They know about herbs. They know about healing. They know how nature can help them, and that was often seen as a threat, just like it was with the Salem witch trials. It was really ignorance that saw magic as threatening and evil."

Margulies adds, "I think this movie is more about spirituality and believe than it is about sorcery and witchcraft. I really think this story is about Paganism versus Christianity, and the fears that we have about just allowing the Earth to be and not manipulating it."

Another strength of the production is the look and feel of the film. It has a strong medieval appearance and a great beauty at the same time.

Joan Allen says, "Uli, the director, wanted a primal, pagan aspect to infiltrate the film, the story, and the way people looked. The look of it is very gritty, grimy, and its not romanticized."

Uli Edel's desire was to find a magical place to film the story. "I found it in Prague," Edel says. "There were great rock formations, which look very primal and very ancient. We also went there to build the castles. The castles we found in England were much too late -- they are from the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries. So we had to create a whole world, and found a place in Prague where we could build Camelot."

Wolper adds, "This is one of the biggest sets that I've built on any film, and it represents the brilliance of our production designer who, along with Uli and myself, tried to conceive of a castle that was somewhat in keeping historically with what might have been Camelot. We had to build it from scratch.."

Devout fans of Bradley's novel need to prepare themselves for one problem with the film. Although it stays true in many ways to the novel, the characters are sometimes watered down and sanitized. For example, in Bradley's novel, Igraine, little more than a child herself when Morgaine is born, takes refuge in her love for Morgaine while married to Gorlois. While Igraine appreciates that Gorlois tries to treat her fairly, she doesn't love him. She has essentially sacrificed herself by marrying him for the sake of her people.

And then Uther Pendragon enters the picture. Igraine is resistant to him at first. Even though she has no great love for Gorlois, Igraine takes her marriage vows seriously. However, she has a vision in which she sees herself in a past life with Pendragon, and she soon yields to an overpowering love for him. Once Gorlois is dead and Igraine is in Uther Pendragon's arms, he replaces Morgaine as the object of Igraine's affection. Igraine falls so madly and deeply in love with Pendragon that she ignores her daughter. Therefore, when Viviane takes Morgaine away to Avalon, Igraine isn't even directly in the picture -- Viviane barters with Uther Pendragon, not Igraine, for custody of Morgaine. Because Igraine has ignored Morgaine so much, it's difficult to imagine that Igraine would even notice Morgaine's absence for a while.

This is much of the power of Bradley's work. Her characters are deeply flawed and very human. Much of who Morgaine becomes is a result of her mother's sudden emotional abandonment.

However, this doesn't happen in TNT's miniseries. While we see that Igraine is drawn to Pendragon, we never see her transformation to hopeless, passionate love for him. Likewise, we never see a change in her relationship with Morgaine. In fact, Morgaine's departure for Avalon is tearful -- Igraine dashes after Morgaine and is utterly distraught that she's leaving. It's a scene that's better suited for a daytime soap opera than a story based on a complex and intelligent novel.

While TNT's The Mists of Avalon is peppered with such dilution, it also strives to keep the story as true to the novel as possible. Doing true justice to the novel probably would have required a minimum of a 10-hour miniseries, and it was quite a feat to distill the story into a mere four hours. All things considered, it's a project that's well done and worth watching. And the filmmakers did make attempts to please fans of the novel.

Wolper says, "We had a lot of diehard fans read the script and give us their response to it. Across the board, they were all ecstatic about it. They regretted that we had to leave a lot out, but they did not dislike anything that we left in, so we feel extremely confident that they are going to love it. But our task is to get new fans for the book." Alexander adds, "I hope they will like what we've done. A lot of them have approached me, and I'm aware that there is a huge following for this book. It's not just a big adventure story -- it has a message. Avalon stands for nature, and living in harmony with nature, and these are values that we need to live by now. I think that is why it struck a chord with so many people. It isn't just another romantic tale. Everyone involved has tried very hard to stay with the essence of the book, and I'm really pleased with what we've accomplished.

"It's definitely not only a woman's film. The book is really weighted toward the women, and we were concerned that it would become a woman's piece. But Uli Edel is very much a guy. He has a wonderful sense of women, but he also really looked at the story and brought out the men. He approached it in such a way that he could make the men stronger, yet not have them become the story that's already been told. He also has chosen a very particular look with this piece. It's gritty and dark and dirty, which I think makes it more manly. There are also some great fight scenes, and we have a wonderful team of horses. So we have a lot of things that will appeal to men in the audience, as well."

Caroline Goodall (Hook, Cliffhanger and Schindler's List), who plays Igraine, offers her take on the Arthurian legend. "All the Celtic stories were handed down mouth to mouth, so no one really knows for sure if Arthur really existed. If you go to Glastonbury, there is a well they call the Chalice Well, which is also known as the red spring. This is included in the book The Mists of Avalon. The water comes out red, because there is a lot of iron in it. But the water s supposed to have magical healing powers, and even in the 16th century there were pilgrims who would go there to drink the water for healing.

They say that Avalon is the island that included Glastonbury. There is an extraordinary hill called the Bride's Mound that has these wonderful curves, and within these curves you are meant to be able to see the body of the fire goddess giving birth. It's a very female kind of place, and it is said to have been the gateway to Avalon. There are remains of a settlement there that they've dated back to 400 AD. So who knows? There were definitely priests and priestesses of the old religion living there."

Thanks to vartanetc.!

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