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shadowfax!!
It's almost Halloween--wee! I had a nice choice of horror movies on TV last night, all of which I already owned, and decided to go with IFC's showing of The Wicker Man. I was hoping to get the longer version, which legend has it is better, but I got the version I've already seen. Not that this is a bad thing. The Wicker Man is one of the most wonderfully weird horror movies ever, with Christopher Lee in a truly groovy zone. Also, it's essentially a musical--how many horror movies can you say that about?
The thing about the movie that makes it memorable rather than just plain silly, imo, is that like many great horror movies it takes a simple idea and follows it to its logical conclusion. In this case, it presents you with an extreme religious situation, and yet never really sides with one side or another. I can't help but make you think. That's why I never regret it when I decide to
For those who haven't seen the film, the story is simple. Scottish policeman Sgt. Howie (Edward Woodward) receives an anonymous letter from the Island of Summerisle, known for its amazing produce, claiming that young Rowan Morrison has been missing for several months. Arriving to investigate, Howie is annoyed by the villagers' lies about the girl--first they pretend not to know her, then say that she's dead, but her coffin contains only the body of a hare. Howie, a very strict Christian, is also repulsed by the Island's openly pagan and very sexual religious life, not to mention their propensity to break into musical numbers at the drop of a hat. The innkeeper's daughter, Willow, (a very-necessarily-dubbed Britt Eckland) tries her best to tempt him into sex, but he "doesn't believe in it before marriage."
Eventually Howie deduces that Rowan Morrison was this year's Crop Maiden, and this year the crops failed badly. He guesses she is not dead yet but is going to be sacrificed come May Day to appease the Sun God. Howie does find Rowan and save her-he thinks-until it's revealed that Rowan, too, is part of the plot to lure him to the Island. It's Sgt. Howie Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee) has chosen to sacrifice by burning in the giant wicker man. He's the perfect sacrifice, as he not only comes with the power of a king and as a virgin, but plays the role of King for the Day in the May Day celebration (Howie thinks he's just going undercover to find Rowan). There's no last minute rescue for Howie in the end. He's burned alive in the Wicker Man, after warning Summerisle that next year, if the crops fail again, it will probably be he who is sacrificed.
What probably makes the story work is the easy symmetry of the crazy villagers and their religious convictions and Howie's own convictions. Howie's rigid beliefs keep him from ever being fully sympathetic until he's actually facing death, despite the fact that the villagers are sly and kooky themselves, and Howie is trying to save an innocent girl. I remember meeting a Neo-Pagan once who, amazingly, liked to point to this movie as a great portrayal of her beliefs--yeah, because that's all Neo-Pagans need is for people thinking they do human sacrifices. Human sacrifices aside, there's another potential difference between the villagers here and Neo-Pagans in life which is that in general Neo-Pagans tend to be very self-conscious about what they're doing. They're often big readers and students of folklore, and it's not uncommon for them to openly talk about rituals and gods as symbols that have only the power people give them.
It's hard not to suspect the villagers of Summerisle of similarly playing a bit of a game here, perhaps because it's very hard for a modern mind to believe modern-day Scots honestly decided a few decades ago to believe human sacrifice will make apples grow. But that's why Sgt. Howie makes such a compelling antagonist for them, because he is, in fact, just as rigid in his beliefs, just as incapable of looking at his religion objectively. Sometimes this is directly challenged in the movie. For instance, when Howie expresses disgust over naked girls jumping over a fire in the hopes that they will be impregnated through parthenogenesis and decries their lack of knowledge of the "true god" Jesus Christ Lord Summerisle points out that he, too, was the son of a virgin impregnated "by a ghost." Howie is incapable of seeing any similarity between the two beliefs. He assumes Christianity is essentially intelligent and logical in ways other religions are not.
Howie refers to the Island's practices as "fake religion" and "fake biology." The latter, at least, is certainly true. Putting a toad in your mouth will not cure a sore throat and it's frightening to see someone in the 20th century claiming it will. Watching the movie today it's hard not to remember that one of the biggest modern threats to "real biology" and science today comes in the form of things like Intelligent Design, representing the same kind of rejection of the facts.
Although the villagers are clearly the ultimate villains (for all Howie's faults he's not cruelly murdering anyone) the battle between him at the villagers is always curiously more about religion and tradition than actual morals, which makes Howie sound a lot more like the villagers than he believes himself to be. The things that really anger him on the island aren't bad at all, they just offend his delicate sensibilities. When Willow comments on his not coming to see her the night before at her invitation (that invitation being a big naked dance number performed at the wall separating their rooms) Howie, who barely managed to not take her up on her offer, explains that although he is engaged, it is "nothing personal" but he just "doesn't believe in it before marriage." Iow, the bigger problem is in pre-marital sex, not his fiancé's feelings. It's just about keeping his own soul pure.
When the villagers break into a bawdy song about "The Landlord's Daughter" Howie is offended on his own behalf, not for Willow, who takes the song in the spirit it is intended, as a warm celebration of her sexuality. Later he describes a schoolteacher's lecture about the May pole as a phallic symbol representing the penis and celebrated for its connection to the life force as "filth" when there's nothing filthy about what she's saying at all. He even threatens to have her reported on the mainland. And of course he demands to know if they learn of Christianity, but doesn't mind they're not learning about any other belief system (the teacher says they do learn of it as a comparative religion). Most interesting, to me, when he discovers a girl in the class has tied a beetle to a nail so that it will walk around in a circle until it's all tied up tight he angrily asks her why she does it and slams the desk shut--without actually rescuing the poor beetle.
There is no logical common ground between Howie and the villagers, just the assertion that one religion or the other is true. Howie stubbornly demands to know where the minister lives despite there being no need for a minister here. He expresses approval over older names in the town register simply because they come from the Bible. In the end his beliefs really do fit all too perfectly with the villagers. Lord Summerisle correctly suggests that Howie's death will be glorious for him as well as the villagers, because he will die a martyr, a part Howie plays to the hilt to the very end. Howie's own religious obsession with sex is the very thing that makes him an appealing sacrifice to the pagans. Howie is not an accidental virgin; he literally has been keeping himself pure so as to be more pleasing to a deity.
Through it all that deity, along with the Sun God, remains completely silent. I think it's one of the things that make the movie more compelling in its realism. When Howie, burning to death in the wicker man, cries out to Christ we know there's no hope Jesus will intervene on his behalf. His faith that he will go straight to heaven at his death is just that--his faith. It's not presented as particularly believable (unless you the viewer, like Howie, takes it as a fact in life I guess). Nor does the villager's sacrifice of Howie seem a success. Yes, they've killed him, but Howie is right in saying the crops failed because the strains failed, and not because any Sun God needed appeasing. The movie really does not suggest that Howie's sacrifice will have any affect on the crops whatsoever. They really are no different than any religious person today praying for divine intervention about something and finding a way to fit the results in with their beliefs.
I think in the end, much of the power of The Wicker Man lies in its utter lack of the supernatural--something that probably makes it unique amongst fertility cult movies. When you get down to it, it's just a story about crops failing due to completely mundane reasons.
shadowfax!!It's almost Halloween--wee! I had a nice choice of horror movies on TV last night, all of which I already owned, and decided to go with IFC's showing of The Wicker Man. I was hoping to get the longer version, which legend has it is better, but I got the version I've already seen. Not that this is a bad thing. The Wicker Man is one of the most wonderfully weird horror movies ever, with Christopher Lee in a truly groovy zone. Also, it's essentially a musical--how many horror movies can you say that about?
The thing about the movie that makes it memorable rather than just plain silly, imo, is that like many great horror movies it takes a simple idea and follows it to its logical conclusion. In this case, it presents you with an extreme religious situation, and yet never really sides with one side or another. I can't help but make you think. That's why I never regret it when I decide to
For those who haven't seen the film, the story is simple. Scottish policeman Sgt. Howie (Edward Woodward) receives an anonymous letter from the Island of Summerisle, known for its amazing produce, claiming that young Rowan Morrison has been missing for several months. Arriving to investigate, Howie is annoyed by the villagers' lies about the girl--first they pretend not to know her, then say that she's dead, but her coffin contains only the body of a hare. Howie, a very strict Christian, is also repulsed by the Island's openly pagan and very sexual religious life, not to mention their propensity to break into musical numbers at the drop of a hat. The innkeeper's daughter, Willow, (a very-necessarily-dubbed Britt Eckland) tries her best to tempt him into sex, but he "doesn't believe in it before marriage."
Eventually Howie deduces that Rowan Morrison was this year's Crop Maiden, and this year the crops failed badly. He guesses she is not dead yet but is going to be sacrificed come May Day to appease the Sun God. Howie does find Rowan and save her-he thinks-until it's revealed that Rowan, too, is part of the plot to lure him to the Island. It's Sgt. Howie Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee) has chosen to sacrifice by burning in the giant wicker man. He's the perfect sacrifice, as he not only comes with the power of a king and as a virgin, but plays the role of King for the Day in the May Day celebration (Howie thinks he's just going undercover to find Rowan). There's no last minute rescue for Howie in the end. He's burned alive in the Wicker Man, after warning Summerisle that next year, if the crops fail again, it will probably be he who is sacrificed.
What probably makes the story work is the easy symmetry of the crazy villagers and their religious convictions and Howie's own convictions. Howie's rigid beliefs keep him from ever being fully sympathetic until he's actually facing death, despite the fact that the villagers are sly and kooky themselves, and Howie is trying to save an innocent girl. I remember meeting a Neo-Pagan once who, amazingly, liked to point to this movie as a great portrayal of her beliefs--yeah, because that's all Neo-Pagans need is for people thinking they do human sacrifices. Human sacrifices aside, there's another potential difference between the villagers here and Neo-Pagans in life which is that in general Neo-Pagans tend to be very self-conscious about what they're doing. They're often big readers and students of folklore, and it's not uncommon for them to openly talk about rituals and gods as symbols that have only the power people give them.
It's hard not to suspect the villagers of Summerisle of similarly playing a bit of a game here, perhaps because it's very hard for a modern mind to believe modern-day Scots honestly decided a few decades ago to believe human sacrifice will make apples grow. But that's why Sgt. Howie makes such a compelling antagonist for them, because he is, in fact, just as rigid in his beliefs, just as incapable of looking at his religion objectively. Sometimes this is directly challenged in the movie. For instance, when Howie expresses disgust over naked girls jumping over a fire in the hopes that they will be impregnated through parthenogenesis and decries their lack of knowledge of the "true god" Jesus Christ Lord Summerisle points out that he, too, was the son of a virgin impregnated "by a ghost." Howie is incapable of seeing any similarity between the two beliefs. He assumes Christianity is essentially intelligent and logical in ways other religions are not.
Howie refers to the Island's practices as "fake religion" and "fake biology." The latter, at least, is certainly true. Putting a toad in your mouth will not cure a sore throat and it's frightening to see someone in the 20th century claiming it will. Watching the movie today it's hard not to remember that one of the biggest modern threats to "real biology" and science today comes in the form of things like Intelligent Design, representing the same kind of rejection of the facts.
Although the villagers are clearly the ultimate villains (for all Howie's faults he's not cruelly murdering anyone) the battle between him at the villagers is always curiously more about religion and tradition than actual morals, which makes Howie sound a lot more like the villagers than he believes himself to be. The things that really anger him on the island aren't bad at all, they just offend his delicate sensibilities. When Willow comments on his not coming to see her the night before at her invitation (that invitation being a big naked dance number performed at the wall separating their rooms) Howie, who barely managed to not take her up on her offer, explains that although he is engaged, it is "nothing personal" but he just "doesn't believe in it before marriage." Iow, the bigger problem is in pre-marital sex, not his fiancé's feelings. It's just about keeping his own soul pure.
When the villagers break into a bawdy song about "The Landlord's Daughter" Howie is offended on his own behalf, not for Willow, who takes the song in the spirit it is intended, as a warm celebration of her sexuality. Later he describes a schoolteacher's lecture about the May pole as a phallic symbol representing the penis and celebrated for its connection to the life force as "filth" when there's nothing filthy about what she's saying at all. He even threatens to have her reported on the mainland. And of course he demands to know if they learn of Christianity, but doesn't mind they're not learning about any other belief system (the teacher says they do learn of it as a comparative religion). Most interesting, to me, when he discovers a girl in the class has tied a beetle to a nail so that it will walk around in a circle until it's all tied up tight he angrily asks her why she does it and slams the desk shut--without actually rescuing the poor beetle.
There is no logical common ground between Howie and the villagers, just the assertion that one religion or the other is true. Howie stubbornly demands to know where the minister lives despite there being no need for a minister here. He expresses approval over older names in the town register simply because they come from the Bible. In the end his beliefs really do fit all too perfectly with the villagers. Lord Summerisle correctly suggests that Howie's death will be glorious for him as well as the villagers, because he will die a martyr, a part Howie plays to the hilt to the very end. Howie's own religious obsession with sex is the very thing that makes him an appealing sacrifice to the pagans. Howie is not an accidental virgin; he literally has been keeping himself pure so as to be more pleasing to a deity.
Through it all that deity, along with the Sun God, remains completely silent. I think it's one of the things that make the movie more compelling in its realism. When Howie, burning to death in the wicker man, cries out to Christ we know there's no hope Jesus will intervene on his behalf. His faith that he will go straight to heaven at his death is just that--his faith. It's not presented as particularly believable (unless you the viewer, like Howie, takes it as a fact in life I guess). Nor does the villager's sacrifice of Howie seem a success. Yes, they've killed him, but Howie is right in saying the crops failed because the strains failed, and not because any Sun God needed appeasing. The movie really does not suggest that Howie's sacrifice will have any affect on the crops whatsoever. They really are no different than any religious person today praying for divine intervention about something and finding a way to fit the results in with their beliefs.
I think in the end, much of the power of The Wicker Man lies in its utter lack of the supernatural--something that probably makes it unique amongst fertility cult movies. When you get down to it, it's just a story about crops failing due to completely mundane reasons.
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I think this--this not being about things that are SCARY, but being about things that are human--is one of the hallmarks of some of the greatest horror films. I was thinking about sort of the same thing with regard to Carrie - it's probably one of the most well-known horror films, and really, nothing scary happens in it until the very end. The blood and the knives aren't what engage you.
And I think that's where remakes of these films fail so badly. It seems like the directors or writers or whoever only don't get where the power comes from - they seem to think it comes from the AAAAH! moment instead of the pyschology of the film's world & characters. Not that's there's anything wrong with an AAAH if that the kind of film you're making, but that's not what a film like The Wicker Man is about.
All of which is by way of saying: have you seen that they're remaking The Wicker Man? Nicholas Cage in the Sgt. Howie role. I really do not have a good feeling about it.
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Seriously, I think that with all the best horror movies what you find at the center is someone who knows exactly what is scary about the situation and how to exploit it. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if the remake does indeed add supernatural elements--in fact, in today's climate I wouldn't be surprised if Howie survived through being a good Christian *or* if he wasn't Christian at all and just a skeptic going up against supernatural people. I'm thinking more Children of the Corn than the Wicker Man. I suspect the only reason it's being done is because somebody noticed that people know this movie and like it.
Carrie is another great example. On my DVD there's a documentary where they talk to the cast and it's great the way they talk about how really the whole thing comes down to that scene in the locker room, which in itself is an extension of that first volleyball game.
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In the clip I saw they had this poor Indian doctor having to, with a straight face, explain that the girl in the movie died because certain "electrolytes" were released in the brain during an Exorcism, only that didn't happen with this girl because the bad doctors had given her anti-convulsion medication. Um, yeah. (The whole show was ridiculous==a lot of people not showing any supernatural experiences whatsoever while a narrator tries to make it seem like something is actually happening.)
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It's inspired plenty of imitations in horror short story anthologies, though, which I read a lot of (most notably, iirc, Stephen King's "Children of the Corn" is fairly similiar in it's basis - human sacrifices enable crops to grow. In fact, I was really surprised to read this as the background of the movie:
it's very hard for a modern mind to believe modern-day Scots honestly decided a few decades ago to believe human sacrifice will make apples grow.
Since I always presumed that the islanders were intended to have carried on Druidic traditions for centuries, and being so isolated, just never really stopped them. (Although IRL, apparently that's been debunked as myth - Druids are forbidden to 'raise a sword' against fellow humans, according to Google! Animals get ritually sacrificed around the time of harvest, though...)
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Yeah, the story Christopher Lee gives is that his grandfather or great grandfather basically "gave them back" their happier religion, but up until then the island was just like the rest of Scotland. So their church is no longer used for Christianity, but they do have a church.
The pair of slugs mating--perhaps in the graveyard? There's a lot of naked people getting it on, but they look like real naked people, so it's not particularly attractive. That's the other thing that makes the movie seem so real, I think.:-)
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This is such a cool horror sampler.
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I'm currently re-watching "The Devil's Backbone," which I was first reminded to rent after that Bravo thing.
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Yeaaah, the metaphors fit my mental rubric a bit too well. And even more resonant because I can't remember the details, like some half-forgotten racial memory or something. I should have words for it, and if there's a word for something, it, well, might not belong in the box. Meanwhile I'm pretty sure there's no word for flukeman, so he's okay.
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delicious schadenfreude for the neo- or ex-pagan soul...
When I considered myself a Pagan, I too felt weirdly possessive of it. A lot of people who are Pagan who are my age or older are anti-Christian because it was not cool to be Pagan when we were growing up. Some of them didn't even hear about it until they were in their 20s. I agree that the last thing Pagans need is for people to think that they suck on frogs to get rid of sore throats (though, honestly, from a sympathetic magick perspective, it couldn't hurt to suck on a frog as long as it's not poisonous--it might help and it's way better than taking antibiotics if you have a virus that they won't cure) and practise human sacrifice. But if you are a baby Pagan have had some genuine bad experiences at the hands of actual Christians, what the movie does for you is to put the shoe on the other foot--imagine, if instead of you being in danger of losing your children or your job (this still happens in places and was very common then) if you were the majority and you had one of Them at your mercy.
And people wonder why I think theocracy is a bad idea, period, and that pagans wouldn't be any better than Christians or Muslims...
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Re: delicious schadenfreude for the neo- or ex-pagan soul...
It's just you have to be careful saying to somebody that it's a great example of how your religion works. It would be a little too much like showing somebody a movie about the Spanish Inquisition or witch burnings and saying this is what Christianity is all about.
But yes, what's great about it too is it's not at all about paganism being bad and thinking it is is totally wrong. It's about people's ability to pretty much do wrong with every religion.
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It's quite a crack-filled movie, but the one thing I loved about it was that the villagers, as well as gaslighting Howie quite spectacularly, were *sincere* in their beliefs. They had almost all been raised as pagans, and for them that was reality.
The only change I'd have made would have been Lord Summerisle should have made it quite clear that he would have no problems being the May Day sacrifice next year if the crops failed again -- because I got the impression that he wouldn't hesitate to walk into the flames if he had to.
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Giggling and squeeing is essential, though. Christopher Lee is just so groovy and the songs get stuck in your head. The last shot is brilliant too.
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On the other hand, this is a great essay too. It’s true, the film makes no judgement on either religious belief, but shows the rigidness and blindness of both. It is a powerful story, not just because it doesn’t refer to the supernatural at all, but also because it shows events that can’t be changed by just one person. Whether or not the crops fail is outside the control of any one individual, just as Howie’s destiny is out of his control. And his destiny is determined the moment he opens the letter asking for him to go to the island to investigate Rowan Morrison’s disappearance. (This chills me a bit because it implies that Summerisle actually selected him for his purity and it makes it into an even more deliberate murder, if that’s possible.)
Howie is so repressed – even his world seems to be shades of grey. If I recall correctly, the scenes of him away from Summerisle are all overcast and raining in contrast to the sunshine and swirling colours of the island. You only see his fiancée briefly, but you can see how frigid they are, how painfully not-sensual their relationship would be.
I hate (in a ‘isn’t this such a nightmare’ kind of way) the final scenes, when you know that Howie is completely doomed, and you have to stay and watch him sing so desperately, and then listen to him scream. Even the clash of music makes the point – the rhythmic sway of ‘Sumer’ against the fervent ‘Lord’s My Shepherd’.
Howie was a virgin, and the King, but also the Fool wasn’t he? He had to be all three things? Or he was the King because he was the Fool? I forget. I tend to agree with Howie because I do have the impression that the paganism on the island was rather artificial, rather than being the old religion revived. It had only been re-introduced about a dozen years before the date of the story, so that would mean that it was only the younger people who had been raised in that environment. The songs and the customs all had a slightly manufactured look to me, as if Lord Summerisle and the character played by Diane Cilento had sat down and mapped it all out, borrowing from all sorts of folk as well as pagan customs to replace old customs long since forgotten under Christianities influence. In that way it was like Howie’s version of Christianity, full of ritual and form, but not necessarily questioning faith itself.
We have this on video – obviously it’s time to dig it out and watch it again!
As a bit of trivia, M and I spent some time in Scotland years ago, and on one of our trips about we visited Achiltibuie on the north west coast which has a very good view out to the Summer Isles. We looked, but we didn’t go out and visit.
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Howie was a virgin, and the King, but also the Fool wasn’t he? He had to be all three things? Or he was the King because he was the Fool? I forget.
Yes, when he goes undercover at the May Day celebration he takes Mr. MacGregor's costume, which is the fool, and the fool is King for a Day on May Day. (Best Christopher Lee line: You call that dancing, MacGregor? Cut some capers, man!) Plus he's obviously played for a fool the whole time.
I tend to agree with Howie because I do have the impression that the paganism on the island was rather artificial, rather than being the old religion revived. It had only been re-introduced about a dozen years before the date of the story, so that would mean that it was only the younger people who had been raised in that environment.
Yes, it's established that this tradition doesn't go back very far at all, and was consciously introduced onto the island (as all neo-Pagan religion is kind of pieced together by modern people). But then, the same could be said about Christianity. Howie keeps talking about it as if it is the true religion of the island, as if it sprung naturally out of Scottish soil when that's not true either. So both of them are just writing their own story, making up things to suit the way they want them to be. Plus we know the islanders *are* being artificial most of the time. Like when Diane Cilento is explaining how Rowan "doesn't exist" because she's dead and they don't believe in death she's lying--Rowan isn't dead and she does exist. And Howie is understandably impatient when he says she's either dead or she's not dead, so enough with pretending you don't know how to express the idea in your belief system. Particularly a nature-based belief system, after all. Death is a part of nature.
As a bit of trivia, M and I spent some time in Scotland years ago, and on one of our trips about we visited Achiltibuie on the north west coast which has a very good view out to the Summer Isles. We looked, but we didn’t go out and visit.
Lol--understandably!
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I think you put your finger right on what's so compelling about the film. I am filled with dread about the remake. If nothing else, the music will probably be a limp joke compared to the brilliant soundtrack of the original.
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suddenly we were all supposed to take up knitting to prove that we weren't evil at all.
Naturally.
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What an excellent point. I really enjoy reading about your views, they seem so much clearer and more logical than my hazy impressions of movies or books. Some day, when asked about a text, I'm going to take a deep breath and think "WWSMD?" :)
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There has been a famine for three years. God tells King David it's because the late King Saul had killed some people he shouldn't have killed, so now Saul's family is under a blood guilt. Seven men are sacrificed to settle the guilt.
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