"But that's not quite right, because the film implicitly suggests that there is no hillside, no sleeping knights, and no magical horn to call them forth. The only world is the one we're in, bashed about and bent out of shape, and the only heroes the people around us: frail and fearful, sometimes misguided, and coping as best they can."
It chokes me every time I see it. I adore it on so many levels.
I don't think Powell was a particularly good critic of his own work. He loved Battle of the River Plate (which is a piece of shite as far as I am concerned) while not giving full worth to this or several others. It's almost as if he needed the critic's validation to like something.
As Xan Brooks says it's the very brokenness of A Canterbury Tale that makes it so great. Powell was constantly labouring after a high strangeness in his films; this is where he achieved it.
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2011-10-25 03:12 pm (UTC)Yes.
Yay.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-26 07:33 am (UTC)I don't think Powell was a particularly good critic of his own work. He loved Battle of the River Plate (which is a piece of shite as far as I am concerned) while not giving full worth to this or several others. It's almost as if he needed the critic's validation to like something.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-26 08:48 am (UTC)