Niall Buggy | Through the Shattered Lens

Welcome to the year 2293. Savages known as the Brutals live in a wasteland and worship a giant stone head named Zardoz, who comes out of the sky, tells them to shoot guns and not have sex, and then dumps hundreds of firearms on them. One Brutal, Zed (Sean Connery, wearing what appears to be a big red diaper) jumps into Zardoz’s mouth and discovers that Zardoz is actually a spaceship that is piloted by Arthur Frayn (Niall Buggy). Zed shoots Arthur and then flies with Zardoz to the Vortex, where a bunch of overdressed and overaffected Immortals are having a perpetual garden party.

The Immortals, who can live forever because they’ve mentally learned how to slow the aging process, take an immediate interest in Zed. They want to know where Arthur is. Zed wants to explore the Vortex and learn what’s going on. The Immortals assign Zed to do menial tasks. Consuela (Charlotte Rampling) falls in love with Zed but keeps trying to kill him. If you could live forever, the film asks, wouldn’t you eventually want to die? I would not.

John Boorman, you nut! Boorman is one of the greatest directors ever, responsible for Point Blank, Deliverance, and Excalibur. Zardoz shows what happens when a great filmmaker falls so in love with his vision that no one can tell him that it’s not working. Zardoz is pure Boorman, obsessed with nature, curious about paganism, and cynical about religion. Boorman had something that he wanted to say about nature and humanity and he deserves a lot of credit for that. He had just directed Deliverance and could have had his pick of projects in 1974. He could have directed an action spectacular or he could have just gone home to Europe and counted his money. Instead, Boorman decided to go with a dream project that he had been trying to put together for years.

Did it work? No, it did not. A few stunning images (that stone head!) aside, the movie itself is slow and talky and Sean Connery, with his deep brogue, is miscast as Zed. (As Lisa said last night, “I’m glad to see Scotland survived the apocalypse.”) With his pony tail and his handle-bar mustache, Connery seemed like he was doing a dry run for his Highlander character. Charlotte Rampling is beautiful as Consuela and some viewers — mostly men — will appreciate her costumes, but the society of the Immortals is never as interesting as Boorman seems to think it is.

Zardoz is bad but still compelling because Boorman was so dedicated to whatever it was he thought the message of the movie was. Watch it with a bud and try to figure it out,

A film about David, the young shepherd and musician who eventually became the second king of Israel?

That sounds like a great idea!

After all, David is one of the most compelling figures in history. Whether it’s the slaying of Goliath or his ill-fated friendship with Jonathan or his uneasy relationship with Saul, every detail about David’s youth feels perfect for cinematic drama. And then, once David become king of Israel, the drama doesn’t end. David finds himself dealing with both politics and temptation. He falls in lust with Bathsheba and, in a moment of terrible weakness, he arranges for her husband to be killed in battle. His own son, Absalom, turns against him and then, despite David’s very clear orders to the contrary, Absalom is executed while he helplessly hangs from a tree. For every triumph in David’s life (like the time he used a slingshot to take down Goliath), there’s a tragedy. For all of David’s attempts to be a good and wise king, he still struggles with his own weaknesses. Every detail of David’s life seems like it belongs on the big screen.

So, now that we’ve agreed that the life of David would be perfect for a movie, consider this: A film about David, a master of both poetry and politics who was known for his deep emotions, starring Richard Gere?

Uhmmmm….

The 1985 film, King David, has all the potential to be a great film but it’s pretty much doomed by the fact that David is played by Richard Gere. Today, of course, Richard Gere is an above average character actor who is well-cast as older, seemingly successful men who have never quite conquered their own self-doubt. That’s not the Richard Gere who shows up in King David. The Richard Gere who shows up in King David is the blank-faced, youngish Richard Gere who was best-known for films like An Officer and a Gentleman and American Gigolo. Richard Gere is so miscast as David that just the sight of him takes you out of the film’s reality. While the film plays out, you find yourself saying, “Richard Gere just killed Goliath. Richard Gere just spied on Bathsheba. Richard Gere is dancing through the streets of Jerusalem.”

There are a few good things about King David. Edward Woodward gives a good performance as Saul, who has always been overshadowed David but who was, in his own way, almost as compelling a character. The film does a credible-enough job recreating the ancient world and it’s entertaining to see the iconic Italian actor George Eastman show up as Goliath. Far too often, though, King David becomes one of those films where every big action scene is shown in slow motion and there’s too many close-ups of swords being tossed into the air.

According to Wikipedia (that’s right, I did some “serious” research for this review), King David was actually made because it was felt that the film would be able to draw in the same audience that loved Star Wars. That turned out to not be true as the film was a huge flop and apparently damaged a lot of careers. But, flop or not, it was still on TV last night, which just proves that movies are forever.