Johnny Quest

[Joseph Cerrato]

Catching up as usual with several days of unread messages, I come across the
quest thread, Galahad and the Grail usw... I agree with most of Diana's posting
although the cycle of round table medieval romances may offer more  complexity
and ambiguity than what Galahad's successul quest of the Grail suggests. After
all most of these stories deal with the loss of meaning in a world where even
the best of men, like say  Arthur or Lancelot, find themselves progressively cut
off from the magic  which had originally brought them together and made them
heroes. Well for sure, it's the repetition of the Christian founding myth, all
men seem to repeat Adam's destiny of fall from paradise, but we may read it
differently. It's the "end of the heroic times" in the "post-quest" world. The
times are ripe  for Mordred and other such "They" characters. 
 An interesting and to my mind, excellent, development of this theme is to be
found in Robert Bresson's movie, Lancelot du Lac. All the knights but Galahad
have returned from their unsuccessful quest, In this universe loaded with signs
and meaning no truth seems to emerge. The characters themselves seem to be
different , they all confess to their being tired, they can no longer ride their
horses unaided...  Failing has changed them, and this change is manifested by
their inability to tinterpret signs. They lose their human quality, they  are
mere puppets in armours with an occasional leak of blood when theyget hurt or
die.   The last scene of the film shows the corpses (or should we say the
hardware) of Arthur and his knights heaped up on a moor over which grey birds of
prey keep circling  in an overcast, silent, sky. 
I haven't seen the film for years but it's one of my favourites, the quest
thread brought it to mind.

Joseph

Joseph