This is a thread dedicated to one of the greatest questions of our time: why hasn't Steven Greydanus reviewed Neil LaBute's remake of The Wicker Man yet? It's been resting under the "Other Coming Adds" banner on his website for nearly ten months now. Has he simply been occupied with other projects, or is there a darker, more cryptic answer?

I have been silent on this subject for too long. Now we shall touch the bottom of this swamp.

Um, ahem? Wouldn't this question be more appropriate for either the thread on the 1973 film or the thread on the 2006 remake?

Au contraire, this topic is of such vital importance that anything but its own topic would be tantamount to intellectual mass Kool-Aid consumption.

One theory:

The Wicker Man was so thoroughly awful, so utterly corrupt, that it broke Steven's traditional moral-spiritual scale (+4, -4) and rendered itself ineligible for reviewing. That, or it required a paradigm shift which involved redefining beauty to encompass the grotesque (which, prior to viewing, Steven would have rejected on principle).

Oh dear. Please don't go on, or your theories will become so much more interesting than the truth.

I will try to address this burning issue in an upcoming Decent Films Mail column.

The man has spoken. Mods, you may now delete this thread.

Well, why hasn't Nate reviewed it?

Okay. Okay.

(Still to come: the remake.)

Good review...you articulated a lot of the thoughts I have had on the film. I do think it's ambiguous nature is a bit to it's benefit though...it allows for more discussion than films that might choose a clear "side".

Thanks. Yes, my comments on that point, including the last sentence, are descriptive, not critical.

The other shoe.

Huzzah! Thanks for the update, Steven.

So, you believe the forces of good and evil fight to a stalemate, eh? Nothing wrong with that interpretation, although your moral-spiritual rating suggests that the film tips slightly in favor of the pagans. Is that correct? It might be worth noting that all the Wicker Man fans I've read or spoken to side with the Summerisle folks. To them, the villagers are a generally happy lot, while Howie is repressed and dull, unwilling to realize his full potential. The humiliation he endures is the most troubling aspect of the film (he is dressed as a fool during the May Day celebration) because it invites the audience to jeer at him. Just whom are the filmmakers (particularly screenwriter Anthony Shaffer) siding with?

As usual, a well-articulated review, although strictly speaking, The Wicker Man is not a Hammer film. It was produced by British Lion Film Corporation.

Nate, many thanks for your kind comments, your appreciation, and your factual correction, which I've revised the review to note. (I'm not sure where I picked up the idea that the film was actually produced by Hammer; I do remember an interview with Hardy mentioning deliberately going against the conventions of the Hammer films.) I'm gratified by your interest.

It obviously wouldn't be accurate to say that "good and evil fight to a stalemate." In a sense, it's the story of the "death of God" in the Nietzschean sense, i.e., the Christian worldview has lost its cultural ascendancy, and, here at least, something else has supplanted it. But I don't find that the film "sides" with that something else over the Christian worldview.

Certainly, the film allows the pagans to be cheerful and unrepressed, and in that sense more attractive representatives of their worldview than Howie is of his. I'm not convinced that we are actually invited to jeer at Howie with the villagers, though that's certainly a reasonable interpretation. I think it's just as reasonable to take that scene as deliberately troubling, as you find it troubling.

If Howie were more sympathetic and admirable, I can't see how the film would play as anything other than a Christian polemic against paganism. As it is, I think most normal viewers will agree on the heinous wrongness of the climactic action, and to that extent the pagans will be found to be clearly in the wrong. The very cheeriness of the pagans in that scene may reasonably be felt to tell against them. I would thus be more inclined to see the film as anti-religious in general, or at least anti-fanatical, than pro-pagan.

Ultimately, I think the film leaves the whole question open. The inclusion of that last line from Summerisle that I quoted in the end of my review seems to be a significant acknowledgement (from the film, not Summerisle) of the Christian worldview: What is happening here can be seen either of two ways.

Having said all that about the film's lack of resolution, does it tip one way rather than another? Yeah, maybe. I don't think the film "sides" with the villagers, but it's fair to say its sympathies lean -- I wouldn't want to use a stronger word than that -- in their direction. The moral-spiritual rating does reflect that sense. It's also partly for Willow's nude dance, which as noted in the review crosses the line into exploitation.

Nate,

Thank you for speaking out. This mystery has given me months of silent suffering, and I appreciate your courage in speaking out. Now, at last, I am free to go on with my life.

FWIW, I once heard a Christian screenwriter extol the remake of The Wicker Man as powerfully pro-Christian, although he didn't elaborate. Or if he did, I was too busy guffawing to hear him.

I'll be curious to read your comments on the remake, Steven.

Christian wrote:
: FWIW, I once heard a Christian screenwriter extol the remake of The Wicker Man as powerfully pro-Christian, although he didn't elaborate. Or if he did, I was too busy guffawing to hear him.

Hey now! This is the thread for discussing SDG's thoughts on the movies! We've already discussed Brian Godawa's thoughts on the remake in the remake's actual thread! (But what if SDG has thoughts on Godawa's thoughts? Does he post them in the thread on his thoughts, or in the thread on other people's thoughts? Oh, the tension, the tension...)

Also, for those who may have missed it above, link to the thread on the original film.

Yes, it was Godawa, and thanks for the link. I didn't realize he was still publishing reviews at the linked site at the time the remake came out. He made his remarks at a conference I attended at which the conference organizer ordered "No blogging" afterward. I think the statute of limitations has long since passed, but I was trying to be discrete. Godawa also mentioned Apocalypto in the same breath with this movie, and I couldn't hold back. I shared that I disliked both movies intensely, for different reasons. He looked at my like I had two heads, while the other conference organizers, hearing my thoughts, quietly shook their heads in disbelief that anyone seriously into films and film criticism could see both films in a negative light. So, as I shared my dislike, I tried to make the point that God gives us freedom to come down in different places as to the merit of various films. I just didn't want the other attendees to rush out and see both films on Godawa's recommendation, only to scratch their heads or run sceaming from the theater.

I'm looking forward to Godawa's revision of Hollywood Worldviews. I'm guessing both of these films will be discussed within its pages.

FWIW, I just noticed that Nathaniel started this thread on my birthday last year. Strange. At least I got the reviews up before my next birthday...


Heh. I do have a thought, but I think I'll post it in the movie thread, since that's where Peter has documented the Godawa quote. (And the bear costume controversy.)


No. You were trying to be discreet. Please note the distinction.

Bust-ed. Thanks.

SDG wrote:
: FWIW, I just noticed that Nathaniel started this thread on my birthday last year. Strange. At least I got the reviews up before my next birthday...

Seriously? Your birthday is exactly seven days after mine? You and I have the same star sign? (Not that that matters!) Your birthday is identical to my friend Doug's from Sunday school? Interesting, interesting, interesting.

: No. You were trying to be discreet. Please note the distinction.

So glad to see someone ELSE get busted for this, for once.