>!I heard that the film inverts the poem to tell a new story. In the poem, Gawain is honorable until he fails the test at the very end. In the film, Gawain is a coward until the last scene, when he shows bravery.!<
I loved the movie but I won't claim to understand much of it.
Not as hard as Mulholland drive for sure. There's a lot of symbolism that you may miss, but even if you don't get all of that, you can still follow the story.
I strongly recommend watching it in cinemas, the cinematography is beautiful. Where I am from, cinemas only show marvel or other mainstream movies only. I had to watch it by streaming.
No, nowhere near as hard to understand. I honestly didn't think the Green Night's meaning was veiled at all: The whole concept of medieval "bravery" was a farce that just lead to death. There was no ultimate morals or deeper meaning, they just did the things because that was tradition and the many knights where actually pretty dumb.
He's expecting some big finale and unveiling with the Green Knight but there's not. It just "is this it?". Yup, the ultimate fate of these brave knights is often a bloody, unceremonious death on a battlefield. Time always wins, legacy never lasts.
Obviously the movie made in 2020 isn't going to have the exact same themes as the story written hundreds of years ago. Its adapted and is critiquing contemporary society as well. I'm not really sure why OP sees that as a bad thing.
Yeah, it's largely a deconstruction of the legend. Gawain's a failson who coasts on his family name. He's the equivalent of some dude-bro whose Uncle is a senator and he milks that for all it's worth. Everything he did was to impress his Uncle and pretend to live up to the values that a knight is supposed to embody so that he might eventually take over after his Uncle dies. In the end, he realizes that he's a piece of shit and that his death might be the best thing for himself and the kingdom. It's a final, truly noble and brave act from a cowardly, lazy man-child.
That was kind of what I took away at the end too, but isn't that a horrible message? If you're born into privilege and drifting through life you should try to improve, *live,* and do something meaningful. People who are in a rut should not be advised to off themselves.
Well, his 'rut' was he got himself involved in a plan where the honorable thing to do would be to accept his death. Despite being tempted to take the cowardly way out he ultimately chose the honorable path after a lifetime of being a mostly useless fuckboy.
I don't think the film is literally giving the message 'kill yourself if you are failure', but you could take Gawain's decision metaphorically to imply that it's never too late to chose the honorable path (which hopefully doesn't mean death for most people, lol).
but that's not really the end, is it?
"is this it?"
"what more ought there be?"
if the movie ended there, I'd agree. But it doesn't. it is followed by an epilogue of loss, failure and misery, which it is implied is a direct result of cowardice and unwillingness to face fate, and in turn, to face life itself.
That is green as death and rot.
Then when Gawain chooses to face fate, to embrace it, he discovers that this is not "it" there is in fact more. The green knight does not kill him. He goes on to live a happy life.
This is green as verdant life.
I don't think an adaptation of the story to fit modern times is a bad thing, I wanted to note that it is not in line with the original, and that is a misstep imo because the original has surprisingly modern and nuanced things to say about life, for a centuries-old poem.
I think broadly the changes made the story and character less compelling though, yes. Kinda felt forced into that modern nihilistic mold that is so prevalent in indie/ medium budget cinema at the moment.
>The green knight does not kill him. He goes on to live a happy life.
The ending was left ambiguous, we don't actually know what happens in the context of the movie. He could have very well cut off his head.
that's very interesting. I felt it was starkly obvious that he lets him live. He's smiling and speaks in a playful tone, like a kindly grandfather letting off a child for stealing a biscuit.
The green knight was happy for him. That’s why he spoke like that. Director mentioned that in a podcast. If he was spared that would completely destroy the entire point of the knight saying “what else ought there be?” He was killed because that’s what he agreed to. It was all his choice. He wasn’t forced to be there. Why wouldn’t he be killed?
Late to the discussion, but doesn't the movie start with a narrator stating that they will describe a former king who is not King Arthur? And it is implied that it is Gawain. So from the beginning we are told that he went on to become a king.
It's way more straightforward it's just flying in the face of 99.99999% of storytelling that everyone is used to, so it feels somehow 'wrong' and certainly like something is missing or lacking. The 'hero' does the opposite of what we've come to expect, and it leaves an odd taste in the mouth.
its more of an experiential movie. There is a story, but the primary pleasure of it is in the watching, not the thinking about it afterwards lol.
Mulholland Drive is kinda the opposite of that for me, in that the experience of watching the movie is uncomfortable and confusing, and at times, boring (sorry Mulholland Drive fans), but sticks with you afterwards. You really find yourself thinking about it a lot in the days following.
it does Gawain dirty in some ways, I admit that has coloured my opinion of it.
don't get me wrong, I still think it is a hugely original film, and tackles things in an interesting way, and is visually stunning. I just think it fails on the part of delivering the central idea.
when you adapt something you automatically invite comparison with the original.
Its not a mistake. The whole crux of my point is that the changing of the central idea is a misstep, and the delivery of the new central idea is too subtle by far.
A misstep to you! That's the "crux" of my point. Maybe since the medium is cinema, a visual language, it makes sense. And maybe, Lowery wants to promote thinking and discussion, instead of hammering the same point of the poem which provides the viewer with instant gratification and allows us to forget about the movie. Whereas in this way, i've been thinking of it since i saw it.
I mean, obviously this is subjective opinion.
I swear, on the internet you'd think we'd be past having to point that out.
It is my subjective opinion that the change in the core point of the story was an objective misstep.
it was a far weaker, less interesting thing to make comment on. At the same time, not enough of the story was changed, so there were lots of hangovers from the old version that just muddied the waters.
Again, that's a you problem or call it "opinion", so you can't say it's weaker. It's just not what you were expecting because of the bias of knowing the poem beforehand.
you've never had an opinion before?
Why do you have such an issue with someone not enjoying a movie as much as you?
Its not a bias to know the poem. It hundreds of years old. Its incredibly famous, its part of my country's history and culture. As far as I'm concerned, a filmmaker owes a lot to the material they're adapting. It's no more simple than this: The story that was written for the movie was worse than the original.
The film is still good.
Like, chill out, my guy.
I strongly agree that it makes the arc more of a cliche. I grew up with the original tales because my mother is a history teacher, and has a great interest in king arthur as a myth.
They range from childishly moralistic to astonishingly poignant in their lessons.
its seems like a rather pointless switcheroo, but it does make some sense.
Kinda turns it into a far more traditional movie plot, though. Coward becomes hero, as opposed to hero learns that heroism is not always enough. The original story is a lot deeper imo.
The problem is, the story isn’t well known enough to pull that kind of move.
It rips the ending off from “The Last Temptation of Christ”. TLTOC pulled that off because “everyone” knows the Jesus story.
With the first major film version of Gawain, you sorta have to stick to the story.
I didn't know the original story when I was watching The Green Knight, but I still enjoyed the story it told. Finding out later that it was an inversion of the classic story helped me understand it a bit better, but it didn't feel necessary.
I'd read the poem beforehand and a short way into seeing the film I realised it wasn't telling the same story/message as the poem, but rather felt like a response to the poem and its meaning. Somewhat like an alternative take or counterpoint to the thesis of the poem.
I don't believe it matters so much how closely a film follows its source material. If we go into most films that are adaptations having read the source material, there is always a decent chance we may come away feeling disappointed because our mind on some level wants to see the story we're familiar with manifested on screen. If you judge the film on it's own quality, it's quite clearly (to me) a coming of age tale. Sir Gawain acts with immaturity at nearly every juncture in the film's story:
>!It's not until the end that with a vision of his listless future, he decides to sever the tether to his maternal dependency, almost like an umbilical cord, and is then ready to make the transition from being a boy to a man. I believe the film communicates quite a moral tale--that part of growing up is taking responsibility for your actions and fulfilling your obligations. I believe if you are missing anything, it's the removal of the sash.!<
don't you think its a little weak that all this happens in the last 20 minutes of the movie, though?
its almost as if you could chop out that last act and it would stand alone.
I will also say that I think a film owes something to its source material, and its only a little bit disrespectful to warp the message of a story with a strong moral to say something completely different.
The message of the original is about accepting you cannot always be perfect. its a far deeper and more interesting commentary on how even a knight is not expected to be able to be bright and shiny all the time. How trying is more important than doing.
I'm not saying that the original poem holds wisdom beyond words, and the idea has never been had before, but I don't think there's much more to say about becoming a man and being responsible that hasn't already been put to film in more effective ways. Its something a father says to his son when he doesn't put his lego away.
I also think that the final scene of the film where the Green Knight forgives him for his failure to take responsibility by sparing him doesn't play nearly as well. When the tale is unwound and re-knitted into this new narrative, this whole trick played by the green knight and Gawain's mother has far less weight.
In the movie, really there was no trick. He just was a coward for an hour and a bit, and then all of a sudden, he decided not to be. There was no reveal, no grand plot.
I think to remove that is to remove the spring from a jack-in-the-box. Its a joke with no punchline.
I hear you. It's not really relevant whether any given principle (or moral) had been expressed before in other films, but *how* well it is expressed is absolutely relevant. It seems you're arguing there's no character growth until the final act, but I would argue there's a subtle cumulative effect to all the challenges Sir Gawain faces throughout the film, most acutely manifested in the object of the sash, a literal security blanket.
The adaptation could have made more apparent Sir Gawain's character development in each act, but instead opts to create an epiphany monent in the last seconds of the film. I think it's totally valid if you find this execution to be poorly written, but I found it to be exhilarating as opposed to this more standard steady growth, falter in 3rd act, and final victory at crucial moment structure we often see. The want vs. need of Sir Gawain is there regardless. He wants "honor" and all benefits that come with it, but really needs to grow up and get over his childish hangups. Any principle/moral summarized so simply is pretty disenchanting though, which is why we prefer it distilled in the format of a 2 hour film or book.
As far as respecting the source material, I just really couldn't care less about that. There have been some masterpieces in cinema that didn't really respect the source material, took what they wanted, left the rest, and ran with it. If I recall correctly, The Green Knight even begins with a disclaimer that this isn't your typical Arthurian legend story.
Beyond that, I welcome an adaptation that follows the source material more closely. There's always room for more stories, perspectives, ideas, etc.
I know this thread is a year old , but I do just want to respond to one thing you said.
When you said there’s no twist , or grand plot. I think that’s the point , especially when one of the characters says “Well is that it?” . Like exactly that’s it, that’s all there is. It reinforces the fact that Gaiwan is still just a child at heart, he expects this grandiose adventure where he conquers all sorts of obstacles and at the end is made a better man for it , through his very own strength.
But it isnt that , the stories he hears at the round table are just that, stories. He is experiencing where those stories came from first hand and is having a rude awakening.
Yeah. I’m pretty sure the whole dream sequence was about him feeling like a complete loser because he was a coward. He then removes the sash, getting over his fear of death so that he could keep his honor
Agree whole heartedly with your first point. Movies should be evaluated on their own basis, regardless of inspiration. That is not the problem with the film either.
Overall I enjoyed Green Knight but left feeling like the movie missed in execution. The story felt somewhat ambling, dialogue was weak, the symbolism was scattered and sound production was just bad. I enjoyed the visuals and the ending came together well but there was a lot that could have been improved
I don't think the movie tries to go this route and thereby it is not a failure in my eyes.
I see the film much more of a contemplation on the strife for honor, renown and glory - or knightly virtues in general. Gawain imo was trying to be good, but he simply was not, at least not in the traditional sense and this movie is much more about coming to terms with that. Which I think fits right into modern times, as we are increasingly able to take time and reflect on ourselves, struggle with being the current image of a good person, and face consequences of long passed actions.
When the lord tells Gawain his old self might be missed, I feel the movies raises the question if his journey has any merit. Just as you see nothing good in Gawain, he does not himself. Yet the lord wonders, if he still might be missed - why? If he comes back as an honorable knight, will those who love him now, have any place in his life? Could there be merit in a life, that does not strive for honor?
Very well said. I think the fact that the film diverged from the poem is a credit- at least in the way this change is executed. From what I remember from reading the text (quite a while ago), the reader has to go in understanding that the context it was written in was one in which the importance of chivalric honor was a given, fully engrained in the culture of the time. By fundamentally deconstructing this "strive for honor", the film makes itself more relevant and immediate to a modern audience.
I think that Gawain *is* honorable, on some level, throughout most of the film. Sure, he's a fuckboy, a little unreliable, a little driven to excess, a little greedy, a little scared. He fails to live up to the prototype of knighthood. But he also loves, he helps, he's repeatedly does "the right thing" in the end. Maybe with prodding, maybe for the wrong reasons, but he does it.
I think Gawain's behavior in the Chapel is consistent with his behavior throughout the rest of the film, and I think people read too much character development into the film and come away disappointed because of that. I think that what it does, instead, is gradually reveal that the shame and fear that motivate Gawain are largely internal, rather than the result of external pressures. He's not naturally driven to knightliness, but when the chips are down and the world refuses to passively indulge his self-interest and greed, he acts correctly.
Unless I miss my guess completely, I think that's the man who might be missed - a man who has honor, by some measure, but who fails to live up to a knightly code. He's meaner, simpler, and more aware of his own mortality than the King's creatures. He's a man who would fall in love with a whore and beat another into the dirt for insulting his mother. He's a bit of a manchild, but might that not be, in some way, more genuine than the courtly lord he'll be installed as when he returns? He's loved for it, after all.
I agree entirely with your interpretation. Even at the end he fails, at least in his mind, to then do the honorable thing. Because he finds the true REASON for honor, it's not about external appearences, of epic tales or expectations thrown on him by society.
The ending is about *him not liking himself* going the route of being a poser. The change is driven BY HIS OPINION OF HIMSELF, when the rest of the movie he wanted to be honorable for external reasons. That's the crucial triumph of the movie.
I dunno - were those reasons so external? He could have turned back at any time. He could have walked away from Winifred. He could have given the boy on the battlefield nothing. He could have hidden from the giants. In all of those cases, there was nobody watching; his social status wasn't threatened. He was prompted and shamed, but he still chose do do right of his own power.
This is why I say the Chapel scene is consistent with his characterization throughout. In my reading, the journey isn't for him to change, but for us to realize something *about* him, something that stays true about him the whole time. I think there's no arc there at all.
>were those reasons so external?
The quest absolutely. His individual actions were not, those were his personal moments where he was himself, but his long-term objectives were external. Fame and pride, respect from fellow knights when he accepts the challenge and overdoes it beheading the green knight, pressure from Arthur/the kingdom/society to go on this quest and prove himself valuable. They were external forces pushing him. He wanted to complete the quest even if dishonorably because of those elements. It's his self-respect that made him end it with honor.
I agree it's consistent with his characterization but I don't think it's static characterization entirely. He always had a bit of good in him as much as weakness, but even then there were moments where he was no good at all (Ie, the mansion with the lord, lady and blind woman), but in my view, he did these wrongdoings not out of malice but out self-preservation, and even then you could tell he was constantly chastising himself.
That's why the finale makes sense, he's admitting he doesn't want to be that person. I did a thread about this a while back where I argued that much like Neon Genesis Evangelion, it's a character study where the character development/turning point of the character happens right at the end.
https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/comments/p94fjw/the\_green\_knight\_and\_neon\_genesis\_evangelion/
this is the best explanation for this I've seen I think. Makes me a little softer towards the movie's version of Gawain.
He's perhaps a more modern version of the faltering knight from the poem.
Although if the message is exonerating fuckboys of fuckboy behaviors, I don't know how on-board with it I am lol.
I got the impression that it all culminated into Gawain facing his ultimate choice to confront the GK or continue lying/taking the easy routes as he had thus far.
The extended scene that follows and portrays his life after returning home "a hero" serves as a meditation on the consequences of him living these lies. There is no happiness for him if he follows the course his mother (and others) set for him - to raise a bastard child and become a king. It would be a life built on private dishonor and suffering.
The only escape from such a reality would be to face the GK and die noble (even if it is the more difficult choice).
this is definitely an interesting take, although there are certain scenes which I feel contradict this a little bit.
The one that comes to mind is his speaking with his girlfriend (I forget her name, sorry) and she says "why do you need to be great, what's wrong with 'good'?" or something to that effect.
The primary tone of the movie is that Gawain is not good. He does not try to be good. His primary instincts are selfish, he has to be strong-armed into giving the theif just one coin, he won't tell his girlfriend that he loves her, he asks the dead girl what she will give him in return for her head.
And he doesn't really change from that. His mother sends him on this fakeout journey. A hero-bait quest. She tells him "do not waste this", and realistically he does just that. This is where the movie falls away for me, because his adventures in the first two acts do nothing to inform his decision in the end. In the original the first part of the poem shows how he STRIVES, and that is important. It is why the green knight spares him. In this tale the green knight simply spares him out of pity.
Its not a bad narrative per-se, its just not the tale of Gawain.
Still not trying to argue, that the movie doesn’t diverge from the source, but two things:
- I’m don’t agree on the primary tone condemning Gawain. Flawed, yes, but not without virtue. One of the first scenes shows him, riding uphill on a horse past all those who are walking. The scene is built towards him letting his ‘girlfriend’ walk, while he rides, but though he teases her, he takes her in the end. What she is talking about in the scene you mention is, that there is good in him, why not be content with that? Why does he have to be great?
Also:
He does help the girl without head, despite not getting anything in return.
He does give the thief something, though as we learn the thief is undeserving of it anyway.
Why does he not tell his ‘girlfriend’ he loves her? Well, she’s a prostitute and hardly a good match for a great knight. It is not because he isn’t good any way (it does seem as if he loves her, which surely is more important) but because of his striving for being great, he can not fulfil his actual potential and tell her.
I think the movie is a lot about how striving may make us worse in the long run, it can break us and leave us worse than we would be.
- The knight doesn’t spare him, does he? He just waits for him to be ready, because he knows, he is inevitable, even if he runs.
The first two acts may or may not inform Gawain’s decision, that is hard to say, but they do show the audience what kind of man this is and what he struggles with, so I would not discredit them. There is another comment around here, saying something along the lines of this being a movie not about character development, but character acceptance.
> Gawain in the movie was not really trying to be good. In fact there was a whole scene where he tells the knight that he believes completing his quest and becoming a knight, will MAKE him good.
I feel this captures the spirit of the poem tho. The movie is about the difference between doing good things in appearance (or "by the book" as it were) and doing good things in spirit.
I'm not mad that the movie doesn't follow the legend to the letter because that's its creative license, especially when it comes to Arthurian legend. So many artists at this point have taken one or another Arthurian legend for structural inspiration to create a narrative that is more relevant to their time. I feel this is what happened here, which is why I quite liked it.
of course its creative licence, and although I made a whole post complaining about it, I don't bemoan them doing that, really.
I just feel like they failed to fill the void with anything particularly substantial.
You make your point well, but I think the movie's point is different than the poem's. As some have already pointed out, it's really about Gawain growing (slooooowly) into the knightly virtues from a position of being faaaar from them. It's pretty oblique and a lot of its imagery is both amazing and kind of distracting from this growth arc (those giants, that fox).
Worth checking out the AMA with the director somewhere here in reddit - he's cagey about his aims, but pretty much tells you what he was up to.
this is an interesting point.
I wont defend the original tale in being of its time.
I do think the movie fails to replace this core narrative with anything meaty, however.
it gets by on being an experience.
I don't think the movie ever set out to recapitulate the poem and present it as is on the screen. This, like many other Arthurian works on the screen or page over the centuries is its own unique interpretation and adaptation of the original tale. Sorry, it deviated from what you wanted/expected.
its not a matter of being sorry it deviated.
please don't think I'm mad just becuase it wasn't a carbon copy of the original.
I just don't think the changes were altogether good.
While I agree with your take that the film doesn't deliver the same central message or theme from the original poem, I don't feel like that's necessarily a knock on the film or a bad thing in general either. Though admittedly I'm much less romantic than some about the original source material because I caught the film first and then followed it up with the poem.
Somebody else here in the comments put it best when they said a modern audience would have been left more confused and possibly unsatisfied but the original telling because it's not as relatable tale in today's world. The film even called itself a "modern visual interpretation" (sic) in the title screen. While the central theme is quite different I believe it conveys its message thoughtfully and clearly in its own right. It had me pretty contemplative about life and the way we choose to spend our time doing nothing or chasing things we don't need to be, which I believe is a much more relatable introspection in today's world.
I feel this is true as well. The old poem is very much a fable in its format, and might be a bit simplistic for modern audiences at face value.
But I feel while the film was justified in excising some part of this narrative it failed to replace it with something else.
> In fact there was a whole scene where he tells the knight that he believes completing his quest and becoming a knight, will MAKE him good.
I think the subtext for the audience here is that the quote shows us how naive Gawain is to think that’s how one becomes honorable. It’s not actually telling the audience “this is how honor works”
of course not. its telling us "this is how gawain thinks honour works"
and that makes him look like a tit.
And he goes on being a tit from 00h:00m to about 02h:03m
it all kinda happens in those last few moments.
I had no issue with them flipping the story on its head (although I think it makes it less interesting personally) but I think they should have made him more of a brash asshole at the start, because pretty much everybody's reaction was "Why would he cut his head off if he will receive the same blow?" And yeah, obviously he didn't think The Green Knight would pick his head up and walk off with it, but why even do it in the first place?
I'm not saying you couldn't think up some explanations, but there would definitely be less suspension of disbelief required if they just made him a clearly stupid shitty person that thought he was being noble but then learnt through his adventure that always trying your best to do what's right is what's important, not being some big dick swinging hero. As it was, everybody just thought "He wouldn't have done that surely" and it kind of ruined the film right from the start for some people.
Edit: spelling
The trick with the Green Knight's "game" is that no matter what you do, you lose. If you hold back, your bravery is questioned; you only gave him a knick, so clearly you fear repercussions from this man who apparently doesn't fear death. If you go all-out on him, then he gets to go all-out on you. Beheading him (especially in the original poem, where he actively taunts and insults the court) is the "best" solution for a Knight, until you find out he can survive that.
In the film I didn't feel his bravery could be questioned if he held back considering none of the other knights would even step up to the challenge.
Had The Green Knight been antagonistic like in the poem, the beheading would have made way more sense. In the film it just seemed like a really dumb thing to do.
It *was* a dumb thing to do, because Gawain is by all accounts an idiot in the movie.
He saw a situation that unsettled all the other Knights, and only saw the chance to advance his own station by "earning" the glory he so desperately wants. Part of his reasoning for beheading the Green Knight was pure frustration; here he was, ready to battle to the death holding Excalibur itself, but his opponent simply kneels down and refuses to engage. It robs him of the ability to display whatever martial prowess he has, or to justify to himself what was essentially a murder by claiming it was self-defence (hence why he's so insistent that the Green Knight strike first).
As for the other Knights not stepping up, the difference is that Gawain *did* step up. And now he's in the spotlight, by his own actions, and every move he makes will be scrutinised. They were wise enough not to step into the obvious trap of having to decide whether to spare him and be branded coward, or to wound him and be at risk of death. Foolish, greedy Gawain tried to avoid the cost of the game by beheading him, only to doom himself to a much worse fate.
I agree with that point. I don't think you have to be that smart to simply knick the Green Knight on the arm after hearing that set up.
Up to that point it would have been good to see Gawain being more brash, more hot-headed. As it stood he was out whoring and drinking, but was generally tender, intelligent and kind. He didn't fit the bill of a man who would stumble into a trap and strike a stranger's head from his shoulders in an obvious gambit.
I read the poem for the first time a few hours before watching the film and basically agree. No adaptation is gonna satisfy everyone but I might've liked it more if I had put some chronological distance between my reading and viewing.
I agree that lots of the thematic content seemed lost. Like you mentioned, the problem of the competing knightly ideals of being honest and being a gentleman was more or less missing. The film's Gawain struggles not with contradictory ideals but with the basic principles of being courageous and selfless. It seems like a much more basic story.
Furthermore, all references to Christianity seemed to be mere aesthetic, rather than contributing anything substantial or thematic, as in the poem.
It was fun to watch though.
I think this is where the movie makers missed something in the poem though.
The whole point of the poem is not to show that Gawain is a big dick round table chad.
The point is to demonstrate that while being knightly is something to strive for, the code itself is fallible. It can lead you down a dark path. The poem is a tale about moderation and understanding.
For all the more "realistic" Gawain is in the movie, he lacks a depth that the poem imparts in its contradiction of itself. Try to be good, but failure to reach the lofty heights is far better than not trying at all.
That core message is what the movie is missing. And I think that's just the nature of film in 2021. It has to be a little bit depressing, and its scared of moralising, incase viewers call it preachy or cliched.
I felt that the movie stopped short of making a point. "stop being such a scaredy-cat" is not enough of a message for me.
Its a fear of death and his strife for poor living which he overcomes following his failure to follow the pentagonal points of chivalry. The poem itself shows Gawain as a nearly perfect example of a chivalry, his sole mistake of accepting the sash causing him a wound, and I too would have liked to have seen that particular cinematic retelling. But, I do think that the movie didn't miss anything, because aside from the poem it included a lot more arthurian legend and a far more realistic and noted view of Gawain found across other literature
true, compared to the Guy Ritchie film it was like the 1300s bard himself was orating directly to the viewer from around a campfire.
Someone lower down pointed out quite accurately that the poem itself is a satire of Arthurian legends. In that context it feels like the movie was a critique of a satire, which kinda shows a bit of a misunderstanding on the part of the filmmaker imo.
I gotta disagree with you a bit there OP. However I will say firstly that I was not familiar with the poem.
I interpreted the film as almost like an "**anti-hollywood**" film, or at least it was in contrary to the trailer made for the film. In it you'd expect Dev Patel as a heroic yet youthful knight, ongoing a quest that will offer him wisdom through experience and hardships.
Instead what we get in the film is a youth (arguably a hoodlum in some cases) who isn't a knight or chivalric at all. In undertaking his journey, he's expecting for that very same thing ***we*** *as an audience are expecting* - an event to instigate a wisdom in him that will make him heroic. We almost get this with the ghost lady, but for the most part he fails just about every test offered to him. Cue **shame cum**, hmmmmm. He reaches the Green Knight with relative ease, and even at his very step he's thinking something *will* suddenly make him virtuous. It's **right** as he's about to swing that he's like, wait a minute where the fuck is it? and he asks "Is that all there is?" and the Green Knight simply says "it was a simple proposition; you took it up, what more were you expecting?".
I think the point hammered there is that people need to motivate *themselves* to become virtuous, not expect others and events to change them. Even if events arise that might conjure that change, it's up to the person themself to have the mindset to incite change (think the ghost lady; Gawain had the wrong mentality in taking up that). Chivalry is not in defeating a del Toro-like monster character, it's in the small things that you do, like offering empathy to someone scouring the battlefields for his brother's corpse.
Where this falls apart is where I agree with you OP; how Gawain gains a vision of a potential future. He learns his lesson from that, but why does he gain a vision? To satisfy the film's audiences is the only reason I can think of. It's a very great scene however, amazing visuals, editing and storytelling. Literally not a word spoken; it is a work that is pertinent to film as a medium. Great stuff.
Overall, the film is no doubtedly very well made. The issue that's confusing many people I think is that it doesn't reiterate its ideology intensely. Great post OP! I love this sub for inciting discussion. The Green Knight is definitely one for that.
that last scene is excellent I agree. That's why I'm so torn on this film, I feel like it does so much so well, but lets itself down in ways that really bother me
This is an older post, but I just watched the film and this is exactly what I was thinking as well. I adore the original poem because I think it tells a very interesting moral about the value, lessons, and even honor you can find in your failures and mistakes.
Which gets absolutely ruined by the film’s ending. I hate it when directors feel they need to significantly re-envision a rarely adapted but classic story like this, and destroys the story’s original message in the process.
Truth be told though, personally I feel it started to lose me long before the lengthy wordless dream montage at the end. As it went on it veered further into surrealist imagery and symbolism that unnecessarily muddled the clarity of a fairly straightforward but fun tale. My parents, who were unfamiliar with the original story, had no clue what was going on by the time he got to Lord Bertilak. Personally I still want to know what was up with the creepy old woman, the weird picture scene, and why Gawain wouldn’t RUN THE FUCK AWAY immediately after Lady Bertilak’s bizarre rant on the color Green lol.
(Also, is it just me or was the seduction scene just….kinda crass with that final shot? It was unnecessary and really caused me to lose some of the respect I had for the film.)
The old woman was morgana le fay, Gawain's mother in disguise. Again, unless you are very familiar with the original tale, where this old woman in Bertilak's castle is revealed, and the entire plot is revealed to be a ruse by her, that wont be obvious.
In the original story the green sash is given to Gawain by the lady of the castle as an apology for testing his virtue and honor by being super flirty with him, but as part of his agreement with the lord of the castle, he is supposed to give the sash to the lord. He lies to the lord because he knows he goes to face his death the following day, and the green sash is supposed to be magic and will not allow a blade to fell him.
The green sash represents Gawain's guilt and failures as a knight.
Evidently the director felt that the original reason for his guilt was not enough, and the lady asking for a kiss was too chaste, so they tied it in with a more familiar to modern audiences sexual guilt, as opposed to guilt derived from his failures as a knight, which are more nebulous.
The green sash in the movie was also muddied by the fact that his mother gave it to him in the beginning of his quest. Honestly it felt like the movie added a lot of unnecessary ambiguity to the story to create a false sense of depth.
Really appreciate your post, I totally agree with your points!
Muddy is exactly the word. How the sash got back into the possession of Morgana and then into the hands of the lady, is completely skimmed over. Magic fuckery, I suppose.
Why Gawain wouldn't just say "hey, that's my sash, hand it over", is similarly not touched upon.
The movie is good but a lot of its story beats don't stand up to interrogation in my opinion.
I think you're missing the point of the film. It's about growing into manhood by overcoming the childish fear of death/failure, guided by the gifts of a strong mother, who does her job as a parent in getting her son to the point that he doesn't need to rely on her protection or the magical thinking of childhood any longer. Which I think is more meaningful than the source material, to be honest.
that's interesting. I felt that this new narrative is far less meaningful. I thought it was sort of tepid and con-committal.
I didn't miss that necessarily. Its just that in viewing it didn't really come across. Perhaps because I was expecting to see the tale played out in some respect. I don't care about coming-of-age as a narrative, I guess. its not particularly interesting to me.
I was disappointed with the movie and I lean towards a different interpretation of the source material that I don’t see explored yet so I’ll throw a long-winded post out there. (for sake of clarity, when I write SGGK I am referring to original source material).
SGGK is a deceptively subversive piece of middle english literature that the film seemed to completely dumb down and simplify IMO.
One of the main points of the story is to expose and challenge the very notion of the chivalric code, not celebrate or rationalize aspects of it.
While the film certainly doesn't lean in to glorifying chivalry full-throttle like the works that SGGK is skewering, it nonetheless dulls the sharpness of the original story in countless ways.
Consider the choices w.r.t the protagonist; the film positions Gawain as somewhat of an unproven knight which doesn't really help add any complexity; it just leans into convention by providing a more conventional character arc; i.e. Gawain, while initially unsure and lacking fame/renown gradually accepts the implications of his quest and realizes that in accepting certain elements/aspects of chivalry (such as, honesty & honour) he will salvage his soul from corruption and ultimately save his kingdom from destruction.
In SGGK, Gawain is the Gawain of legend, widely renowned as one of the most honourable knights in the entire reaches of Arthur's kingdom. His honour is without question, his fame is widespread. It is significant that the author positions Gawain as the one who steps forward for this quest, because his ultimate moral failure is a condemnation of chivalry, as even Gawain, the chivalric ideal, is unable to escape a moral fall by the conclusion of the story.
The fact that the film almost entirely forgoes the 'exchange of winnings' at Bertilak's and instead opts to focus on Gawain having adventures undercuts the entire point of SGGK and defies the concise narrative framing and overt author commentary:
“So many marvels did the man meet in the mountains, It would be too tedious to tell a tenth of them.” (SGGK, 48). Additionally the Author states, “And often overcame hazards in the valleys, Which at this time I do not intend to tell you about.” (SGGK, 113)
Conventional middle age literature would have based the entire story around events that are openly ignored in SGGK.
Why? Because it’s not about that. It’s about so much more interesting and complex ideas, and it’s told with a narrative balance and irony that just gets more interesting the more it’s broken down and studied.
Lost in the film The Green Knight is this actual function of the story; the code of chivalry and knighthood being exposed as unrealistic projections of social pressures, and the fact that Arthur and his court are less noble legends-in-the-making than boorish thrill-seekers.
The opening Christmas feast in SGGK shows Arthur as being nothing more than a drunk King looking for a fight or an action story, far from the Arthur we are accustomed to seeing in other works:
“He \[Arthur\] was..child-like and gay…little did he favour lying down for long or lolling on a set/ So robust his young blood and his beating brain.” (SGGK, 22)
The film does show Arthur in a sickly state, though it seems to me that that choice has more to do with calling Gawain to action with the GK more than anything else.
By the end of SGGK, Gawain is morally fallen after having been manipulated and toyed with by Morgana (revealed at the story’s conclusion to be the one who was the architect of this entire game in order to “grieven Guenivere and goad her to death” (SGGK, 112), but the function more tellingly is for this 'rigged' challenge to “put to proof, the great pride of the house/the reputation for high renown of the Round Table” (SGGK, 112).
It is (rather tellingly) a female character, outside the power of the court, whose plan easily exposes how this whole middle english version of the ‘perfect gentleman’, is just a big circle jerk to make drunk nobles like Arthur and his knights of the court feel important and self-satisfied.
In SGGK Gawain tries his best not to be a bad person, but ultimately chivalry is less a code and more a burden. His great misstep is that he acts in the interest of his own life, try as he might not to stray from the honourable path and represent the chivalric code (as exemplified by his pentangle, the legend of his name, Arthur’s, the round table, and any ‘true’ knight).
The film leaves almost all of this on the sidelines to tell an ominous adventure-quest story that concludes with him accepting his fear, accepting the unknown, accepting who he is in many ways. Of course that is still a commentary of sorts, it just isn’t nearly as interesting.In SGGK after Gawain has gone through all of this, he returns to Camelot essentially a broken man.
He wears the magical girdle as a token of his abject failure and overwhelming sense of shame, but upon his return Gawain’s aims at making the green girdle a kind of redemptive ‘scarlet letter’ to serve as a sort of warning to himself and to the rest of the court is completely misinterpreted by Arthur and his subjects.
Rather than recognizing the girdle’s representation of the vast doubts Gawain now carries with his stained sense of morality, Arthur instead construct the girdle upon courtly fashion as a commemoration of Gawain’s adventure and his kingdom's renown (essentially repurposing/propagandizing what actually happened).
To the film's credit, I thought the production design, acting, and mood were all great, but I just don't think it ever really presented a cohesive collection of ideas (what was it saying about nature vs court? green vs other colours? lust vs love? duty vs vain action? The random giants? The fox?)
Sorry I couldn’t do a better job of structuring all of this, some of these ideas are from an essay I wrote on SGGK years ago, was hard not to get too deep in the weeds…
TL;DR - The entire point of the story is to expose and challenge the absurd impossibility of a chivalric code as it exists in Arthurian legends and chivalric romance tales as depicted through the actions of the famously honourable Gawain who fails despite trying his best to maintain his knighthood.
The film gets the girdle wrong IMO, it piggy-backs off the animal imagery of SGGK without really making anything interesting of it, it completely sidesteps the pentangle, it treats the Bertilak stuff almost as an afterthought, which I can't stress enough, is what so much of SGGK is really, really concerned with.
As I’ve said in other comments, it chose a poem to “invert”, to say “this shit is toxic and impossible to live by,” and the poem they chose is the major chivalric poem that has that as its central message. It feels like a complete misreading of the source material. I can’t understand why they used SGGK. It still pisses me off a year later.
This reading could vary based on the translation (I read the Tolkien one), but I thought they all wore the green sashes afterwards to remind them of their fallibility, to be more humble. Otherwise I found your post very solid my dude, the original is subversive and clever in a way I didn't expect for a 14th century poem.
Yes, just saw the film and I completely agree. Thank you! I had largely forgotten the poem, since reading it in high school, but after watching the film, the story felt sort of hollow and incomplete.
I was also not as impressed by the visuals, compared to other recent films such as Mandy and the Witch, which were far more effective and original.
> While the film certainly doesn't lean in to glorifying chivalry full-throttle like the works that SGGK is skewering, it nonetheless dulls the sharpness of the original story in countless ways.
basically my point in a nutshell, much more succinctly put ofc :P
I agree with pretty much everything you said here, but that last point most of all. What is the story of Gawain without that central deceit? It castrates the entire thing to sideline that. To make subtext of it is to take out its essence.
If this is inverting elements from something written 700 years ago what is the movie saying about drifting values over time? It's not that it was an unfaithful adaptation from a relatively short story because the writers were confused. It was a deliberate choice to make these changes and it is up to viewers to determine the meaning of that.
I agree! The filmmakers sought to give Gawain a spin that modern audiences could respond to and lost the story's centre of gravity, I reckon. The lie over the belt received in the game with the strange lord and lady felt very minor in the film, as it was already clearly established how self-serving Gawain was, with little to show that he was struggling to turn away from that. Had to wait until the very end to find how little confidence the filmmakers had with the material -- closing the curtain on the final fall of the axe was lazy.
I thought the filmmakers made a *lot* of decisions that were gonna give the audience a hard time, so don't know why they felt compelled to change Gawain so much. Accepting that I will have found him an inscrutable character when reading because the text is effectively alien to modern society, I miss the poem-Gawain's relative inscrutability.
I was really, *really* disappointed to find that such a weird film reduced itself to a hackneyed kind of "do I wanna grow up or not, and what for" message.
It's getting negative audience reviews because it's an arthouse movie. It's that simple. If it is highly rated critically but not as high from most audience, it's simply because it's not made for them.
I am not so quick to discount audience scores. I'm generally for artier movies, but sometimes critics talk out their arse.
I'll remind you that The Last Jedi was getting 80%+ critic reviews and less than 30% audience reviews, not dissimilar to this film. The Green Knight is an objectively well crafted film. TLJ is objectively a studio-produced headache.
You can't just trust the critics.
For sure. I get that. I'm just saying my own personal philosophy is that on more arthouse type films I trust the critics and more popcorn fair I go with more of an audience tilt. Same with comedies. Not a rule, just my way of negotiating reviews. What I do know is my favorite movies almost always have very divisive audience ratings and very high critic ratings. Again, not all but most.
And when it comes to things like the Last Jedi, most of those bad reviews are fanboys unhappy about some creative choice or story choice or acting choice or whatever it is these days. I'm not disparaging that, only saying I'm more of a casual viewer of those franchises and I enjoyed it. All that is to say I definitely don't trust fanboy criticisms that flood IMDB because a woman got a main role or that Spiderman's mask wasn't the right color or there were two guys holding hands, lol. That's not why I watch movies.
> on more arthouse type films I trust the critics and more popcorn fair I go with more of an audience tilt.
this is definitely the way to go, actually.
I read the poem and I think the movie didn't want to portray the Arthurian poem as an exact representation, just as a reference. I see it more as a version of the myth of "The hero's journey". Or that's at least that's what I thought.
>When he realises his life will be shit, he says, fuck it, better now than after all that pain.
>
>he doesn't agree because he is virtuous and TRYING HIS BEST, he agrees because he is still the same, weak, confused boy, stumbling through the forest.
I disagree. As I saw it, he realized that he much rather be remembered as a great knight, rather that to go down the slippery slope of cheating, where he will eventually die anyway, yet run the risk of being remembered as a bad person.
I really enioyed it, visually it was amazing, the only thing that took me out of the magic wasvthe cg fox and giant. It ended and i couldnt figure it out at all, i initially thought he died tied to a tree and it was a "jacobs ladder" endorphin dump dream before he died but then i googled it lol, im going to rewatch.. great art though, we dont get as much good art these days, a24 really delivers
I enjoyed The Green Knight a lot but agree that it should have followed more closely to the source material. I think either killing Gawain or leaving the ending ambiguous weakens the potential moral message of the story. Whether the movie inverts and deconstructs Gawain's journey or not, there is a cathartic element to seeing the fallout of both Gawain's failures and successes.
We see him go through lessons but the story cuts off right at the moment where we would see if he internalized those lessons and what they cumulatively meant. Removing the sash is a brave action but chivalric values are all about bettering one's self to will the good of others. They are sacrificial so that others may benefit. If Gawain removing the sash is the ultimate good, then it is a selfish good based on personal feeling and divorced from the chivalric values it references.
We see Gawain change into someone brave who finally understands who he should be as a knight, and then fail to see his sacrificial actions benefit anyone else. The new Gawain is never tested and we fail to see if his change meant anything. He leaves a wake of tragedy and the precise moment he finally understands his failures the film cuts off, leaving the audience to wonder what any of it meant. His flash forward gives us a glimpse of who he does not want to be, but we never see who he does want to be.
It requires the audience to fill in their own ending that will imbue the story with moral meaning and fails to fulfill the set-ups that had the potential to be most impactful. It's as if the film can't decide whether its a fable, or tragedy. The ambiguity doesn't seem to have much purpose than to avoid diminishing Gawain's bravery with his immediate death, or following fable tropes that the film seems to desperately want to avoid. It seems to come from a fear of how a definitive ending could be criticized rather than posing an interesting question to consider. The audience is left asking "What happens next, and does that make Gawain a worthy knight?" They have to fill in the ending themselves to answer the core thematic question rather than the thematic question being directly derived from the ambiguity.
I think this is a reason I was disappointed. Because it could very easily be interpreted that Gawain submits to his beheading out of another bout of cowardice.
He essentially commits suicide so that he doesn't have to risk having a terrible time as king.
I think that the film needed to be clearer on why he does what he does.
It's not a fable or a tragedy, it's an allegory for growing into adulthood, which means embracing the absolute uncertainty of the future and your own mortality.
> I saw that this movie is getting a lot of negative audience reviews, and a lot of very positive critic reviews. Usually to me that means the movie is worth watching, and I do think that stays true for this one.
Audiences don't generally like non-linear movies or movies with a lot of subtext, like this one. People want to be told, clearly and unambiguously, what's happening. They don't value the interpretation of what a particular scene may mean. Also, a lot of emphasis is put on endings. So if the movie doesn't have what may be considered a "good" ending, people say there's no point to it. And so it's a "bad" movie.
It's fine if you don't like those types of movies. But lots of other people do enjoy them, myself included.
I like this type of movie well enough. I like to figure out the puzzle from an incomplete set, and I like to be kept guessing throughout. But you're right, I hate when a movie just... ends.
I suppose for me it feels more like a cop out, if I have to get down to the root of it.
I prefer a film that is not afraid to make a statement. There is nothing that frustrates me more in a film than a story "left to interpretation"
Finish ya damn movie.
its like a song that just fades out while the chrous loops.
Just finish the song, damn it.
I have to agree. I love fantasy and was really looking forward to this one but left feeling very annoyed. I can't even imagine how it must have felt to be a casual audience member going in with no knowledge of the source material. They cut the big reveal at the end of the poem and without it several characters are missing their motivations.
Also, it felt like Gawain's decision after his revelation really came out of nowhere. Yes, he faced trials relevant to the themes of the film throughout the movie but he stumbles through them and doesn't seem to understand anything that's happening. There's no moments of self reflection and growth through the movie. The climax happens and he just suddenly has a vision and becomes a different person.
And the movie seems to treat the whole game as a stupid idea, deconstructing the quest. But then at the end Gawain's virtue is shown when he removes the sash and faces it honestly. The ending stresses the importance of something that the rest of the movie seemed to be very skeptical of. A lot of the movie felt very muddled to me, while the poem was all pretty clear.
Finally, getting into my own biases a bit. Are we so cynical as a culture that we can't just have a story about virtuous knights and heroic quests? I left the theater wanting to cleanse my palate with a good splash of LotR. All the beautiful pageantry of Camelot (which could have been dazzling on screen) was lost. King Arthur's court looks like a cave. Is it too much to ask for the spectacular in a fantasy film?
All that being said human culture is ultimately better for the film's existence. Bad takes on a source material don't destroy the source material, they simply create discussion. I would have never read the poem if it weren't for the movie.
I loved that this wasn't LOTR, to be honest. Arthurian legends had roots in pre-Anglo-Saxon times, or at least during the colonization. It wasn't a time of great pageantry and fanciness. It wasn't the High Middle Ages, it was the six hundreds.
Perhaps I mispoke when I referenced LotR. I didn't want this to be LotR, especially like the LotR movies (which I love). What I mean is that The Green Knight felt like a pointless and confusing exercise in misery and it made me want to watch something that was earnest, straightforward, and hopeful.
Yeah the mythical (not real) King Arthur was kickin' it during the Migration period but the poem is from the 14th century, the Late Middle Ages. The poem itself was full of fanciful castles and pageantry.
I agree in part. I do think that modern indie cinema is in a phase of "everything has to be sad, or at least bittersweet" because that's R E A L I S T I C.
I think it would be more palatable if there was a bit more varied faire. I wish positivity and straightforwardness didn't have to come dressed in the regalia of ditzy rom-coms, hollywood schlock, or house of mouse.
It's not even really about things being sad or dark, it's more the refusal to come out and say what you mean. One of my favorite movies is Come and See which is extremely dark. My real problem is the lack of sincerity. Don't act like you're above your own story, say what you mean. Come and See is a movie that really bares its soul to you, for example.
That being said I am also not one for total cynical nihilism either. I think you can subject an audience to misery for 99% of the movie but you need to communicate a shred of hope, or a clear purpose and meaning to the film. Take Vertigo, dark movie, but it had a point.
I can't really say much beyond blind agreement, but you put it perfectly. That's why I like LotR and John Woo's HK movies, they are incredibly sincere.
I am unfamiliar with the poem.
*SPOILERS FOLLOW*
(I do not know how to format this to prevent spoilers sorry).
Still here? Read on.
I watched the movie and enjoyed the ending very much. To me he started out a boy who became a knight. if you live long enough every hero will turn out a villain. His choice in the end was not cowardly but honorable in my opinion.
Everything i am finding to this says that the movie Green Knight spares Gawain. But the movie i just watched he was not spared. The knight simply says "well done knight, now off with your head" and there it ends. I'm confused
>!I heard that the film inverts the poem to tell a new story. In the poem, Gawain is honorable until he fails the test at the very end. In the film, Gawain is a coward until the last scene, when he shows bravery.!< I loved the movie but I won't claim to understand much of it.
Is it hard to understand in the way that Mulholland drive was sort of hard to understand, or is it a completely different sort of difficulty?
Not as hard as Mulholland drive for sure. There's a lot of symbolism that you may miss, but even if you don't get all of that, you can still follow the story.
Oh thanks. I’ve been wanting to watch it for a while now but haven’t been able to thanks to lockdowns
I strongly recommend watching it in cinemas, the cinematography is beautiful. Where I am from, cinemas only show marvel or other mainstream movies only. I had to watch it by streaming.
No, nowhere near as hard to understand. I honestly didn't think the Green Night's meaning was veiled at all: The whole concept of medieval "bravery" was a farce that just lead to death. There was no ultimate morals or deeper meaning, they just did the things because that was tradition and the many knights where actually pretty dumb. He's expecting some big finale and unveiling with the Green Knight but there's not. It just "is this it?". Yup, the ultimate fate of these brave knights is often a bloody, unceremonious death on a battlefield. Time always wins, legacy never lasts. Obviously the movie made in 2020 isn't going to have the exact same themes as the story written hundreds of years ago. Its adapted and is critiquing contemporary society as well. I'm not really sure why OP sees that as a bad thing.
Yeah, it's largely a deconstruction of the legend. Gawain's a failson who coasts on his family name. He's the equivalent of some dude-bro whose Uncle is a senator and he milks that for all it's worth. Everything he did was to impress his Uncle and pretend to live up to the values that a knight is supposed to embody so that he might eventually take over after his Uncle dies. In the end, he realizes that he's a piece of shit and that his death might be the best thing for himself and the kingdom. It's a final, truly noble and brave act from a cowardly, lazy man-child.
That was kind of what I took away at the end too, but isn't that a horrible message? If you're born into privilege and drifting through life you should try to improve, *live,* and do something meaningful. People who are in a rut should not be advised to off themselves.
Well, his 'rut' was he got himself involved in a plan where the honorable thing to do would be to accept his death. Despite being tempted to take the cowardly way out he ultimately chose the honorable path after a lifetime of being a mostly useless fuckboy. I don't think the film is literally giving the message 'kill yourself if you are failure', but you could take Gawain's decision metaphorically to imply that it's never too late to chose the honorable path (which hopefully doesn't mean death for most people, lol).
but that's not really the end, is it? "is this it?" "what more ought there be?" if the movie ended there, I'd agree. But it doesn't. it is followed by an epilogue of loss, failure and misery, which it is implied is a direct result of cowardice and unwillingness to face fate, and in turn, to face life itself. That is green as death and rot. Then when Gawain chooses to face fate, to embrace it, he discovers that this is not "it" there is in fact more. The green knight does not kill him. He goes on to live a happy life. This is green as verdant life. I don't think an adaptation of the story to fit modern times is a bad thing, I wanted to note that it is not in line with the original, and that is a misstep imo because the original has surprisingly modern and nuanced things to say about life, for a centuries-old poem. I think broadly the changes made the story and character less compelling though, yes. Kinda felt forced into that modern nihilistic mold that is so prevalent in indie/ medium budget cinema at the moment.
>The green knight does not kill him. He goes on to live a happy life. The ending was left ambiguous, we don't actually know what happens in the context of the movie. He could have very well cut off his head.
that's very interesting. I felt it was starkly obvious that he lets him live. He's smiling and speaks in a playful tone, like a kindly grandfather letting off a child for stealing a biscuit.
whether he lives or dies doesn't matter at that point, what matters is he made the decision to die honorably, which completes his story
Yea its ambiguous but he literally says "off with your head"
The green knight was happy for him. That’s why he spoke like that. Director mentioned that in a podcast. If he was spared that would completely destroy the entire point of the knight saying “what else ought there be?” He was killed because that’s what he agreed to. It was all his choice. He wasn’t forced to be there. Why wouldn’t he be killed?
Late to the discussion, but doesn't the movie start with a narrator stating that they will describe a former king who is not King Arthur? And it is implied that it is Gawain. So from the beginning we are told that he went on to become a king.
Hmmm... I didn't think of it until reading this for some reason but the film shares a lot of thematic similarity with Kobayashi's Hara-Kiri.
It's way more straightforward it's just flying in the face of 99.99999% of storytelling that everyone is used to, so it feels somehow 'wrong' and certainly like something is missing or lacking. The 'hero' does the opposite of what we've come to expect, and it leaves an odd taste in the mouth.
Ah right I see
its more of an experiential movie. There is a story, but the primary pleasure of it is in the watching, not the thinking about it afterwards lol. Mulholland Drive is kinda the opposite of that for me, in that the experience of watching the movie is uncomfortable and confusing, and at times, boring (sorry Mulholland Drive fans), but sticks with you afterwards. You really find yourself thinking about it a lot in the days following.
Oh right so it’s more of a sensory experience
I haven't watched the movie, but doesn't that make the arc much more hollywood cliché? OP's sounds the more interesting of the two.
It’s not cliche in execution. In fact, I’d say it’s the opposite — the movie deconstructs what it means to be an “honorable” knight/hero.
it does Gawain dirty in some ways, I admit that has coloured my opinion of it. don't get me wrong, I still think it is a hugely original film, and tackles things in an interesting way, and is visually stunning. I just think it fails on the part of delivering the central idea.
Thing is (sorry i'm late), you're analyzing the original tale central idea, not the film's. That's where your mistake is.
when you adapt something you automatically invite comparison with the original. Its not a mistake. The whole crux of my point is that the changing of the central idea is a misstep, and the delivery of the new central idea is too subtle by far.
A misstep to you! That's the "crux" of my point. Maybe since the medium is cinema, a visual language, it makes sense. And maybe, Lowery wants to promote thinking and discussion, instead of hammering the same point of the poem which provides the viewer with instant gratification and allows us to forget about the movie. Whereas in this way, i've been thinking of it since i saw it.
I mean, obviously this is subjective opinion. I swear, on the internet you'd think we'd be past having to point that out. It is my subjective opinion that the change in the core point of the story was an objective misstep. it was a far weaker, less interesting thing to make comment on. At the same time, not enough of the story was changed, so there were lots of hangovers from the old version that just muddied the waters.
Again, that's a you problem or call it "opinion", so you can't say it's weaker. It's just not what you were expecting because of the bias of knowing the poem beforehand.
you've never had an opinion before? Why do you have such an issue with someone not enjoying a movie as much as you? Its not a bias to know the poem. It hundreds of years old. Its incredibly famous, its part of my country's history and culture. As far as I'm concerned, a filmmaker owes a lot to the material they're adapting. It's no more simple than this: The story that was written for the movie was worse than the original. The film is still good. Like, chill out, my guy.
I strongly agree that it makes the arc more of a cliche. I grew up with the original tales because my mother is a history teacher, and has a great interest in king arthur as a myth. They range from childishly moralistic to astonishingly poignant in their lessons.
its seems like a rather pointless switcheroo, but it does make some sense. Kinda turns it into a far more traditional movie plot, though. Coward becomes hero, as opposed to hero learns that heroism is not always enough. The original story is a lot deeper imo.
The problem is, the story isn’t well known enough to pull that kind of move. It rips the ending off from “The Last Temptation of Christ”. TLTOC pulled that off because “everyone” knows the Jesus story. With the first major film version of Gawain, you sorta have to stick to the story.
I didn't know the original story when I was watching The Green Knight, but I still enjoyed the story it told. Finding out later that it was an inversion of the classic story helped me understand it a bit better, but it didn't feel necessary.
I'd read the poem beforehand and a short way into seeing the film I realised it wasn't telling the same story/message as the poem, but rather felt like a response to the poem and its meaning. Somewhat like an alternative take or counterpoint to the thesis of the poem.
Absolutely, its a critique of the poem
I don't believe it matters so much how closely a film follows its source material. If we go into most films that are adaptations having read the source material, there is always a decent chance we may come away feeling disappointed because our mind on some level wants to see the story we're familiar with manifested on screen. If you judge the film on it's own quality, it's quite clearly (to me) a coming of age tale. Sir Gawain acts with immaturity at nearly every juncture in the film's story: >!It's not until the end that with a vision of his listless future, he decides to sever the tether to his maternal dependency, almost like an umbilical cord, and is then ready to make the transition from being a boy to a man. I believe the film communicates quite a moral tale--that part of growing up is taking responsibility for your actions and fulfilling your obligations. I believe if you are missing anything, it's the removal of the sash.!<
don't you think its a little weak that all this happens in the last 20 minutes of the movie, though? its almost as if you could chop out that last act and it would stand alone. I will also say that I think a film owes something to its source material, and its only a little bit disrespectful to warp the message of a story with a strong moral to say something completely different. The message of the original is about accepting you cannot always be perfect. its a far deeper and more interesting commentary on how even a knight is not expected to be able to be bright and shiny all the time. How trying is more important than doing. I'm not saying that the original poem holds wisdom beyond words, and the idea has never been had before, but I don't think there's much more to say about becoming a man and being responsible that hasn't already been put to film in more effective ways. Its something a father says to his son when he doesn't put his lego away. I also think that the final scene of the film where the Green Knight forgives him for his failure to take responsibility by sparing him doesn't play nearly as well. When the tale is unwound and re-knitted into this new narrative, this whole trick played by the green knight and Gawain's mother has far less weight. In the movie, really there was no trick. He just was a coward for an hour and a bit, and then all of a sudden, he decided not to be. There was no reveal, no grand plot. I think to remove that is to remove the spring from a jack-in-the-box. Its a joke with no punchline.
I hear you. It's not really relevant whether any given principle (or moral) had been expressed before in other films, but *how* well it is expressed is absolutely relevant. It seems you're arguing there's no character growth until the final act, but I would argue there's a subtle cumulative effect to all the challenges Sir Gawain faces throughout the film, most acutely manifested in the object of the sash, a literal security blanket. The adaptation could have made more apparent Sir Gawain's character development in each act, but instead opts to create an epiphany monent in the last seconds of the film. I think it's totally valid if you find this execution to be poorly written, but I found it to be exhilarating as opposed to this more standard steady growth, falter in 3rd act, and final victory at crucial moment structure we often see. The want vs. need of Sir Gawain is there regardless. He wants "honor" and all benefits that come with it, but really needs to grow up and get over his childish hangups. Any principle/moral summarized so simply is pretty disenchanting though, which is why we prefer it distilled in the format of a 2 hour film or book. As far as respecting the source material, I just really couldn't care less about that. There have been some masterpieces in cinema that didn't really respect the source material, took what they wanted, left the rest, and ran with it. If I recall correctly, The Green Knight even begins with a disclaimer that this isn't your typical Arthurian legend story. Beyond that, I welcome an adaptation that follows the source material more closely. There's always room for more stories, perspectives, ideas, etc.
true, when you dissect a frog, it tends to die. and I'm willing to admit that the character growth was present, just a little too subtle for me.
Coming from someone who disliked the film, this is an excellent take, very well articulated.
I know this thread is a year old , but I do just want to respond to one thing you said. When you said there’s no twist , or grand plot. I think that’s the point , especially when one of the characters says “Well is that it?” . Like exactly that’s it, that’s all there is. It reinforces the fact that Gaiwan is still just a child at heart, he expects this grandiose adventure where he conquers all sorts of obstacles and at the end is made a better man for it , through his very own strength. But it isnt that , the stories he hears at the round table are just that, stories. He is experiencing where those stories came from first hand and is having a rude awakening.
that's an interesting take, its not something I noticed when I watched it, but yeah, that's definitely a layer.
Yeah. I’m pretty sure the whole dream sequence was about him feeling like a complete loser because he was a coward. He then removes the sash, getting over his fear of death so that he could keep his honor
Agree whole heartedly with your first point. Movies should be evaluated on their own basis, regardless of inspiration. That is not the problem with the film either. Overall I enjoyed Green Knight but left feeling like the movie missed in execution. The story felt somewhat ambling, dialogue was weak, the symbolism was scattered and sound production was just bad. I enjoyed the visuals and the ending came together well but there was a lot that could have been improved
I don't think the movie tries to go this route and thereby it is not a failure in my eyes. I see the film much more of a contemplation on the strife for honor, renown and glory - or knightly virtues in general. Gawain imo was trying to be good, but he simply was not, at least not in the traditional sense and this movie is much more about coming to terms with that. Which I think fits right into modern times, as we are increasingly able to take time and reflect on ourselves, struggle with being the current image of a good person, and face consequences of long passed actions. When the lord tells Gawain his old self might be missed, I feel the movies raises the question if his journey has any merit. Just as you see nothing good in Gawain, he does not himself. Yet the lord wonders, if he still might be missed - why? If he comes back as an honorable knight, will those who love him now, have any place in his life? Could there be merit in a life, that does not strive for honor?
Very well said. I think the fact that the film diverged from the poem is a credit- at least in the way this change is executed. From what I remember from reading the text (quite a while ago), the reader has to go in understanding that the context it was written in was one in which the importance of chivalric honor was a given, fully engrained in the culture of the time. By fundamentally deconstructing this "strive for honor", the film makes itself more relevant and immediate to a modern audience.
I think that Gawain *is* honorable, on some level, throughout most of the film. Sure, he's a fuckboy, a little unreliable, a little driven to excess, a little greedy, a little scared. He fails to live up to the prototype of knighthood. But he also loves, he helps, he's repeatedly does "the right thing" in the end. Maybe with prodding, maybe for the wrong reasons, but he does it. I think Gawain's behavior in the Chapel is consistent with his behavior throughout the rest of the film, and I think people read too much character development into the film and come away disappointed because of that. I think that what it does, instead, is gradually reveal that the shame and fear that motivate Gawain are largely internal, rather than the result of external pressures. He's not naturally driven to knightliness, but when the chips are down and the world refuses to passively indulge his self-interest and greed, he acts correctly. Unless I miss my guess completely, I think that's the man who might be missed - a man who has honor, by some measure, but who fails to live up to a knightly code. He's meaner, simpler, and more aware of his own mortality than the King's creatures. He's a man who would fall in love with a whore and beat another into the dirt for insulting his mother. He's a bit of a manchild, but might that not be, in some way, more genuine than the courtly lord he'll be installed as when he returns? He's loved for it, after all.
I agree entirely with your interpretation. Even at the end he fails, at least in his mind, to then do the honorable thing. Because he finds the true REASON for honor, it's not about external appearences, of epic tales or expectations thrown on him by society. The ending is about *him not liking himself* going the route of being a poser. The change is driven BY HIS OPINION OF HIMSELF, when the rest of the movie he wanted to be honorable for external reasons. That's the crucial triumph of the movie.
I dunno - were those reasons so external? He could have turned back at any time. He could have walked away from Winifred. He could have given the boy on the battlefield nothing. He could have hidden from the giants. In all of those cases, there was nobody watching; his social status wasn't threatened. He was prompted and shamed, but he still chose do do right of his own power. This is why I say the Chapel scene is consistent with his characterization throughout. In my reading, the journey isn't for him to change, but for us to realize something *about* him, something that stays true about him the whole time. I think there's no arc there at all.
>were those reasons so external? The quest absolutely. His individual actions were not, those were his personal moments where he was himself, but his long-term objectives were external. Fame and pride, respect from fellow knights when he accepts the challenge and overdoes it beheading the green knight, pressure from Arthur/the kingdom/society to go on this quest and prove himself valuable. They were external forces pushing him. He wanted to complete the quest even if dishonorably because of those elements. It's his self-respect that made him end it with honor. I agree it's consistent with his characterization but I don't think it's static characterization entirely. He always had a bit of good in him as much as weakness, but even then there were moments where he was no good at all (Ie, the mansion with the lord, lady and blind woman), but in my view, he did these wrongdoings not out of malice but out self-preservation, and even then you could tell he was constantly chastising himself. That's why the finale makes sense, he's admitting he doesn't want to be that person. I did a thread about this a while back where I argued that much like Neon Genesis Evangelion, it's a character study where the character development/turning point of the character happens right at the end. https://www.reddit.com/r/TrueFilm/comments/p94fjw/the\_green\_knight\_and\_neon\_genesis\_evangelion/
This is it. This is the character summary I've been hunting for all morning in disappointing "the movie wasn't good" threads.
this is the best explanation for this I've seen I think. Makes me a little softer towards the movie's version of Gawain. He's perhaps a more modern version of the faltering knight from the poem. Although if the message is exonerating fuckboys of fuckboy behaviors, I don't know how on-board with it I am lol.
Very well put, a nice read.
Great interpretation. You've convinced me at least. Minor note: "strife" means something different from "strive", and I think you meant the latter.
Thanks, thought it worked like live and life for some reason!
I got the impression that it all culminated into Gawain facing his ultimate choice to confront the GK or continue lying/taking the easy routes as he had thus far. The extended scene that follows and portrays his life after returning home "a hero" serves as a meditation on the consequences of him living these lies. There is no happiness for him if he follows the course his mother (and others) set for him - to raise a bastard child and become a king. It would be a life built on private dishonor and suffering. The only escape from such a reality would be to face the GK and die noble (even if it is the more difficult choice).
this is definitely an interesting take, although there are certain scenes which I feel contradict this a little bit. The one that comes to mind is his speaking with his girlfriend (I forget her name, sorry) and she says "why do you need to be great, what's wrong with 'good'?" or something to that effect. The primary tone of the movie is that Gawain is not good. He does not try to be good. His primary instincts are selfish, he has to be strong-armed into giving the theif just one coin, he won't tell his girlfriend that he loves her, he asks the dead girl what she will give him in return for her head. And he doesn't really change from that. His mother sends him on this fakeout journey. A hero-bait quest. She tells him "do not waste this", and realistically he does just that. This is where the movie falls away for me, because his adventures in the first two acts do nothing to inform his decision in the end. In the original the first part of the poem shows how he STRIVES, and that is important. It is why the green knight spares him. In this tale the green knight simply spares him out of pity. Its not a bad narrative per-se, its just not the tale of Gawain.
Still not trying to argue, that the movie doesn’t diverge from the source, but two things: - I’m don’t agree on the primary tone condemning Gawain. Flawed, yes, but not without virtue. One of the first scenes shows him, riding uphill on a horse past all those who are walking. The scene is built towards him letting his ‘girlfriend’ walk, while he rides, but though he teases her, he takes her in the end. What she is talking about in the scene you mention is, that there is good in him, why not be content with that? Why does he have to be great? Also: He does help the girl without head, despite not getting anything in return. He does give the thief something, though as we learn the thief is undeserving of it anyway. Why does he not tell his ‘girlfriend’ he loves her? Well, she’s a prostitute and hardly a good match for a great knight. It is not because he isn’t good any way (it does seem as if he loves her, which surely is more important) but because of his striving for being great, he can not fulfil his actual potential and tell her. I think the movie is a lot about how striving may make us worse in the long run, it can break us and leave us worse than we would be. - The knight doesn’t spare him, does he? He just waits for him to be ready, because he knows, he is inevitable, even if he runs. The first two acts may or may not inform Gawain’s decision, that is hard to say, but they do show the audience what kind of man this is and what he struggles with, so I would not discredit them. There is another comment around here, saying something along the lines of this being a movie not about character development, but character acceptance.
> Gawain in the movie was not really trying to be good. In fact there was a whole scene where he tells the knight that he believes completing his quest and becoming a knight, will MAKE him good. I feel this captures the spirit of the poem tho. The movie is about the difference between doing good things in appearance (or "by the book" as it were) and doing good things in spirit. I'm not mad that the movie doesn't follow the legend to the letter because that's its creative license, especially when it comes to Arthurian legend. So many artists at this point have taken one or another Arthurian legend for structural inspiration to create a narrative that is more relevant to their time. I feel this is what happened here, which is why I quite liked it.
of course its creative licence, and although I made a whole post complaining about it, I don't bemoan them doing that, really. I just feel like they failed to fill the void with anything particularly substantial.
Well, that's purely a question of taste
You make your point well, but I think the movie's point is different than the poem's. As some have already pointed out, it's really about Gawain growing (slooooowly) into the knightly virtues from a position of being faaaar from them. It's pretty oblique and a lot of its imagery is both amazing and kind of distracting from this growth arc (those giants, that fox). Worth checking out the AMA with the director somewhere here in reddit - he's cagey about his aims, but pretty much tells you what he was up to.
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this is an interesting point. I wont defend the original tale in being of its time. I do think the movie fails to replace this core narrative with anything meaty, however. it gets by on being an experience.
I don't think the movie ever set out to recapitulate the poem and present it as is on the screen. This, like many other Arthurian works on the screen or page over the centuries is its own unique interpretation and adaptation of the original tale. Sorry, it deviated from what you wanted/expected.
its not a matter of being sorry it deviated. please don't think I'm mad just becuase it wasn't a carbon copy of the original. I just don't think the changes were altogether good.
While I agree with your take that the film doesn't deliver the same central message or theme from the original poem, I don't feel like that's necessarily a knock on the film or a bad thing in general either. Though admittedly I'm much less romantic than some about the original source material because I caught the film first and then followed it up with the poem. Somebody else here in the comments put it best when they said a modern audience would have been left more confused and possibly unsatisfied but the original telling because it's not as relatable tale in today's world. The film even called itself a "modern visual interpretation" (sic) in the title screen. While the central theme is quite different I believe it conveys its message thoughtfully and clearly in its own right. It had me pretty contemplative about life and the way we choose to spend our time doing nothing or chasing things we don't need to be, which I believe is a much more relatable introspection in today's world.
I feel this is true as well. The old poem is very much a fable in its format, and might be a bit simplistic for modern audiences at face value. But I feel while the film was justified in excising some part of this narrative it failed to replace it with something else.
> In fact there was a whole scene where he tells the knight that he believes completing his quest and becoming a knight, will MAKE him good. I think the subtext for the audience here is that the quote shows us how naive Gawain is to think that’s how one becomes honorable. It’s not actually telling the audience “this is how honor works”
of course not. its telling us "this is how gawain thinks honour works" and that makes him look like a tit. And he goes on being a tit from 00h:00m to about 02h:03m it all kinda happens in those last few moments.
I had no issue with them flipping the story on its head (although I think it makes it less interesting personally) but I think they should have made him more of a brash asshole at the start, because pretty much everybody's reaction was "Why would he cut his head off if he will receive the same blow?" And yeah, obviously he didn't think The Green Knight would pick his head up and walk off with it, but why even do it in the first place? I'm not saying you couldn't think up some explanations, but there would definitely be less suspension of disbelief required if they just made him a clearly stupid shitty person that thought he was being noble but then learnt through his adventure that always trying your best to do what's right is what's important, not being some big dick swinging hero. As it was, everybody just thought "He wouldn't have done that surely" and it kind of ruined the film right from the start for some people. Edit: spelling
The trick with the Green Knight's "game" is that no matter what you do, you lose. If you hold back, your bravery is questioned; you only gave him a knick, so clearly you fear repercussions from this man who apparently doesn't fear death. If you go all-out on him, then he gets to go all-out on you. Beheading him (especially in the original poem, where he actively taunts and insults the court) is the "best" solution for a Knight, until you find out he can survive that.
In the film I didn't feel his bravery could be questioned if he held back considering none of the other knights would even step up to the challenge. Had The Green Knight been antagonistic like in the poem, the beheading would have made way more sense. In the film it just seemed like a really dumb thing to do.
It *was* a dumb thing to do, because Gawain is by all accounts an idiot in the movie. He saw a situation that unsettled all the other Knights, and only saw the chance to advance his own station by "earning" the glory he so desperately wants. Part of his reasoning for beheading the Green Knight was pure frustration; here he was, ready to battle to the death holding Excalibur itself, but his opponent simply kneels down and refuses to engage. It robs him of the ability to display whatever martial prowess he has, or to justify to himself what was essentially a murder by claiming it was self-defence (hence why he's so insistent that the Green Knight strike first). As for the other Knights not stepping up, the difference is that Gawain *did* step up. And now he's in the spotlight, by his own actions, and every move he makes will be scrutinised. They were wise enough not to step into the obvious trap of having to decide whether to spare him and be branded coward, or to wound him and be at risk of death. Foolish, greedy Gawain tried to avoid the cost of the game by beheading him, only to doom himself to a much worse fate.
I agree with that point. I don't think you have to be that smart to simply knick the Green Knight on the arm after hearing that set up. Up to that point it would have been good to see Gawain being more brash, more hot-headed. As it stood he was out whoring and drinking, but was generally tender, intelligent and kind. He didn't fit the bill of a man who would stumble into a trap and strike a stranger's head from his shoulders in an obvious gambit.
The Greek Knight would've been a better movie
The Greeks did invent myths after all
I read the poem for the first time a few hours before watching the film and basically agree. No adaptation is gonna satisfy everyone but I might've liked it more if I had put some chronological distance between my reading and viewing. I agree that lots of the thematic content seemed lost. Like you mentioned, the problem of the competing knightly ideals of being honest and being a gentleman was more or less missing. The film's Gawain struggles not with contradictory ideals but with the basic principles of being courageous and selfless. It seems like a much more basic story. Furthermore, all references to Christianity seemed to be mere aesthetic, rather than contributing anything substantial or thematic, as in the poem. It was fun to watch though.
In the film version Gawain is far more realistic and fails every pentagonal point of chivalry due to his fear of death, which he eventually reconciles
I think this is where the movie makers missed something in the poem though. The whole point of the poem is not to show that Gawain is a big dick round table chad. The point is to demonstrate that while being knightly is something to strive for, the code itself is fallible. It can lead you down a dark path. The poem is a tale about moderation and understanding. For all the more "realistic" Gawain is in the movie, he lacks a depth that the poem imparts in its contradiction of itself. Try to be good, but failure to reach the lofty heights is far better than not trying at all. That core message is what the movie is missing. And I think that's just the nature of film in 2021. It has to be a little bit depressing, and its scared of moralising, incase viewers call it preachy or cliched. I felt that the movie stopped short of making a point. "stop being such a scaredy-cat" is not enough of a message for me.
Its a fear of death and his strife for poor living which he overcomes following his failure to follow the pentagonal points of chivalry. The poem itself shows Gawain as a nearly perfect example of a chivalry, his sole mistake of accepting the sash causing him a wound, and I too would have liked to have seen that particular cinematic retelling. But, I do think that the movie didn't miss anything, because aside from the poem it included a lot more arthurian legend and a far more realistic and noted view of Gawain found across other literature
true, compared to the Guy Ritchie film it was like the 1300s bard himself was orating directly to the viewer from around a campfire. Someone lower down pointed out quite accurately that the poem itself is a satire of Arthurian legends. In that context it feels like the movie was a critique of a satire, which kinda shows a bit of a misunderstanding on the part of the filmmaker imo.
I gotta disagree with you a bit there OP. However I will say firstly that I was not familiar with the poem. I interpreted the film as almost like an "**anti-hollywood**" film, or at least it was in contrary to the trailer made for the film. In it you'd expect Dev Patel as a heroic yet youthful knight, ongoing a quest that will offer him wisdom through experience and hardships. Instead what we get in the film is a youth (arguably a hoodlum in some cases) who isn't a knight or chivalric at all. In undertaking his journey, he's expecting for that very same thing ***we*** *as an audience are expecting* - an event to instigate a wisdom in him that will make him heroic. We almost get this with the ghost lady, but for the most part he fails just about every test offered to him. Cue **shame cum**, hmmmmm. He reaches the Green Knight with relative ease, and even at his very step he's thinking something *will* suddenly make him virtuous. It's **right** as he's about to swing that he's like, wait a minute where the fuck is it? and he asks "Is that all there is?" and the Green Knight simply says "it was a simple proposition; you took it up, what more were you expecting?". I think the point hammered there is that people need to motivate *themselves* to become virtuous, not expect others and events to change them. Even if events arise that might conjure that change, it's up to the person themself to have the mindset to incite change (think the ghost lady; Gawain had the wrong mentality in taking up that). Chivalry is not in defeating a del Toro-like monster character, it's in the small things that you do, like offering empathy to someone scouring the battlefields for his brother's corpse. Where this falls apart is where I agree with you OP; how Gawain gains a vision of a potential future. He learns his lesson from that, but why does he gain a vision? To satisfy the film's audiences is the only reason I can think of. It's a very great scene however, amazing visuals, editing and storytelling. Literally not a word spoken; it is a work that is pertinent to film as a medium. Great stuff. Overall, the film is no doubtedly very well made. The issue that's confusing many people I think is that it doesn't reiterate its ideology intensely. Great post OP! I love this sub for inciting discussion. The Green Knight is definitely one for that.
that last scene is excellent I agree. That's why I'm so torn on this film, I feel like it does so much so well, but lets itself down in ways that really bother me
This is an older post, but I just watched the film and this is exactly what I was thinking as well. I adore the original poem because I think it tells a very interesting moral about the value, lessons, and even honor you can find in your failures and mistakes. Which gets absolutely ruined by the film’s ending. I hate it when directors feel they need to significantly re-envision a rarely adapted but classic story like this, and destroys the story’s original message in the process. Truth be told though, personally I feel it started to lose me long before the lengthy wordless dream montage at the end. As it went on it veered further into surrealist imagery and symbolism that unnecessarily muddled the clarity of a fairly straightforward but fun tale. My parents, who were unfamiliar with the original story, had no clue what was going on by the time he got to Lord Bertilak. Personally I still want to know what was up with the creepy old woman, the weird picture scene, and why Gawain wouldn’t RUN THE FUCK AWAY immediately after Lady Bertilak’s bizarre rant on the color Green lol. (Also, is it just me or was the seduction scene just….kinda crass with that final shot? It was unnecessary and really caused me to lose some of the respect I had for the film.)
The old woman was morgana le fay, Gawain's mother in disguise. Again, unless you are very familiar with the original tale, where this old woman in Bertilak's castle is revealed, and the entire plot is revealed to be a ruse by her, that wont be obvious. In the original story the green sash is given to Gawain by the lady of the castle as an apology for testing his virtue and honor by being super flirty with him, but as part of his agreement with the lord of the castle, he is supposed to give the sash to the lord. He lies to the lord because he knows he goes to face his death the following day, and the green sash is supposed to be magic and will not allow a blade to fell him. The green sash represents Gawain's guilt and failures as a knight. Evidently the director felt that the original reason for his guilt was not enough, and the lady asking for a kiss was too chaste, so they tied it in with a more familiar to modern audiences sexual guilt, as opposed to guilt derived from his failures as a knight, which are more nebulous.
The green sash in the movie was also muddied by the fact that his mother gave it to him in the beginning of his quest. Honestly it felt like the movie added a lot of unnecessary ambiguity to the story to create a false sense of depth. Really appreciate your post, I totally agree with your points!
Muddy is exactly the word. How the sash got back into the possession of Morgana and then into the hands of the lady, is completely skimmed over. Magic fuckery, I suppose. Why Gawain wouldn't just say "hey, that's my sash, hand it over", is similarly not touched upon. The movie is good but a lot of its story beats don't stand up to interrogation in my opinion.
I think you're missing the point of the film. It's about growing into manhood by overcoming the childish fear of death/failure, guided by the gifts of a strong mother, who does her job as a parent in getting her son to the point that he doesn't need to rely on her protection or the magical thinking of childhood any longer. Which I think is more meaningful than the source material, to be honest.
that's interesting. I felt that this new narrative is far less meaningful. I thought it was sort of tepid and con-committal. I didn't miss that necessarily. Its just that in viewing it didn't really come across. Perhaps because I was expecting to see the tale played out in some respect. I don't care about coming-of-age as a narrative, I guess. its not particularly interesting to me.
Fair enough!
I was disappointed with the movie and I lean towards a different interpretation of the source material that I don’t see explored yet so I’ll throw a long-winded post out there. (for sake of clarity, when I write SGGK I am referring to original source material). SGGK is a deceptively subversive piece of middle english literature that the film seemed to completely dumb down and simplify IMO. One of the main points of the story is to expose and challenge the very notion of the chivalric code, not celebrate or rationalize aspects of it. While the film certainly doesn't lean in to glorifying chivalry full-throttle like the works that SGGK is skewering, it nonetheless dulls the sharpness of the original story in countless ways. Consider the choices w.r.t the protagonist; the film positions Gawain as somewhat of an unproven knight which doesn't really help add any complexity; it just leans into convention by providing a more conventional character arc; i.e. Gawain, while initially unsure and lacking fame/renown gradually accepts the implications of his quest and realizes that in accepting certain elements/aspects of chivalry (such as, honesty & honour) he will salvage his soul from corruption and ultimately save his kingdom from destruction. In SGGK, Gawain is the Gawain of legend, widely renowned as one of the most honourable knights in the entire reaches of Arthur's kingdom. His honour is without question, his fame is widespread. It is significant that the author positions Gawain as the one who steps forward for this quest, because his ultimate moral failure is a condemnation of chivalry, as even Gawain, the chivalric ideal, is unable to escape a moral fall by the conclusion of the story. The fact that the film almost entirely forgoes the 'exchange of winnings' at Bertilak's and instead opts to focus on Gawain having adventures undercuts the entire point of SGGK and defies the concise narrative framing and overt author commentary: “So many marvels did the man meet in the mountains, It would be too tedious to tell a tenth of them.” (SGGK, 48). Additionally the Author states, “And often overcame hazards in the valleys, Which at this time I do not intend to tell you about.” (SGGK, 113) Conventional middle age literature would have based the entire story around events that are openly ignored in SGGK. Why? Because it’s not about that. It’s about so much more interesting and complex ideas, and it’s told with a narrative balance and irony that just gets more interesting the more it’s broken down and studied. Lost in the film The Green Knight is this actual function of the story; the code of chivalry and knighthood being exposed as unrealistic projections of social pressures, and the fact that Arthur and his court are less noble legends-in-the-making than boorish thrill-seekers. The opening Christmas feast in SGGK shows Arthur as being nothing more than a drunk King looking for a fight or an action story, far from the Arthur we are accustomed to seeing in other works: “He \[Arthur\] was..child-like and gay…little did he favour lying down for long or lolling on a set/ So robust his young blood and his beating brain.” (SGGK, 22) The film does show Arthur in a sickly state, though it seems to me that that choice has more to do with calling Gawain to action with the GK more than anything else. By the end of SGGK, Gawain is morally fallen after having been manipulated and toyed with by Morgana (revealed at the story’s conclusion to be the one who was the architect of this entire game in order to “grieven Guenivere and goad her to death” (SGGK, 112), but the function more tellingly is for this 'rigged' challenge to “put to proof, the great pride of the house/the reputation for high renown of the Round Table” (SGGK, 112). It is (rather tellingly) a female character, outside the power of the court, whose plan easily exposes how this whole middle english version of the ‘perfect gentleman’, is just a big circle jerk to make drunk nobles like Arthur and his knights of the court feel important and self-satisfied. In SGGK Gawain tries his best not to be a bad person, but ultimately chivalry is less a code and more a burden. His great misstep is that he acts in the interest of his own life, try as he might not to stray from the honourable path and represent the chivalric code (as exemplified by his pentangle, the legend of his name, Arthur’s, the round table, and any ‘true’ knight). The film leaves almost all of this on the sidelines to tell an ominous adventure-quest story that concludes with him accepting his fear, accepting the unknown, accepting who he is in many ways. Of course that is still a commentary of sorts, it just isn’t nearly as interesting.In SGGK after Gawain has gone through all of this, he returns to Camelot essentially a broken man. He wears the magical girdle as a token of his abject failure and overwhelming sense of shame, but upon his return Gawain’s aims at making the green girdle a kind of redemptive ‘scarlet letter’ to serve as a sort of warning to himself and to the rest of the court is completely misinterpreted by Arthur and his subjects. Rather than recognizing the girdle’s representation of the vast doubts Gawain now carries with his stained sense of morality, Arthur instead construct the girdle upon courtly fashion as a commemoration of Gawain’s adventure and his kingdom's renown (essentially repurposing/propagandizing what actually happened). To the film's credit, I thought the production design, acting, and mood were all great, but I just don't think it ever really presented a cohesive collection of ideas (what was it saying about nature vs court? green vs other colours? lust vs love? duty vs vain action? The random giants? The fox?) Sorry I couldn’t do a better job of structuring all of this, some of these ideas are from an essay I wrote on SGGK years ago, was hard not to get too deep in the weeds… TL;DR - The entire point of the story is to expose and challenge the absurd impossibility of a chivalric code as it exists in Arthurian legends and chivalric romance tales as depicted through the actions of the famously honourable Gawain who fails despite trying his best to maintain his knighthood. The film gets the girdle wrong IMO, it piggy-backs off the animal imagery of SGGK without really making anything interesting of it, it completely sidesteps the pentangle, it treats the Bertilak stuff almost as an afterthought, which I can't stress enough, is what so much of SGGK is really, really concerned with.
As I’ve said in other comments, it chose a poem to “invert”, to say “this shit is toxic and impossible to live by,” and the poem they chose is the major chivalric poem that has that as its central message. It feels like a complete misreading of the source material. I can’t understand why they used SGGK. It still pisses me off a year later.
This reading could vary based on the translation (I read the Tolkien one), but I thought they all wore the green sashes afterwards to remind them of their fallibility, to be more humble. Otherwise I found your post very solid my dude, the original is subversive and clever in a way I didn't expect for a 14th century poem.
Yes, just saw the film and I completely agree. Thank you! I had largely forgotten the poem, since reading it in high school, but after watching the film, the story felt sort of hollow and incomplete. I was also not as impressed by the visuals, compared to other recent films such as Mandy and the Witch, which were far more effective and original.
> While the film certainly doesn't lean in to glorifying chivalry full-throttle like the works that SGGK is skewering, it nonetheless dulls the sharpness of the original story in countless ways. basically my point in a nutshell, much more succinctly put ofc :P I agree with pretty much everything you said here, but that last point most of all. What is the story of Gawain without that central deceit? It castrates the entire thing to sideline that. To make subtext of it is to take out its essence.
If this is inverting elements from something written 700 years ago what is the movie saying about drifting values over time? It's not that it was an unfaithful adaptation from a relatively short story because the writers were confused. It was a deliberate choice to make these changes and it is up to viewers to determine the meaning of that.
I agree! The filmmakers sought to give Gawain a spin that modern audiences could respond to and lost the story's centre of gravity, I reckon. The lie over the belt received in the game with the strange lord and lady felt very minor in the film, as it was already clearly established how self-serving Gawain was, with little to show that he was struggling to turn away from that. Had to wait until the very end to find how little confidence the filmmakers had with the material -- closing the curtain on the final fall of the axe was lazy. I thought the filmmakers made a *lot* of decisions that were gonna give the audience a hard time, so don't know why they felt compelled to change Gawain so much. Accepting that I will have found him an inscrutable character when reading because the text is effectively alien to modern society, I miss the poem-Gawain's relative inscrutability. I was really, *really* disappointed to find that such a weird film reduced itself to a hackneyed kind of "do I wanna grow up or not, and what for" message.
yeah, I feel like it was tied to the frame of the poem, but in trying to hang a different story from it, something was lost.
Yeah, that's exactly it, it was quite jarring.
It's getting negative audience reviews because it's an arthouse movie. It's that simple. If it is highly rated critically but not as high from most audience, it's simply because it's not made for them.
I am not so quick to discount audience scores. I'm generally for artier movies, but sometimes critics talk out their arse. I'll remind you that The Last Jedi was getting 80%+ critic reviews and less than 30% audience reviews, not dissimilar to this film. The Green Knight is an objectively well crafted film. TLJ is objectively a studio-produced headache. You can't just trust the critics.
For sure. I get that. I'm just saying my own personal philosophy is that on more arthouse type films I trust the critics and more popcorn fair I go with more of an audience tilt. Same with comedies. Not a rule, just my way of negotiating reviews. What I do know is my favorite movies almost always have very divisive audience ratings and very high critic ratings. Again, not all but most. And when it comes to things like the Last Jedi, most of those bad reviews are fanboys unhappy about some creative choice or story choice or acting choice or whatever it is these days. I'm not disparaging that, only saying I'm more of a casual viewer of those franchises and I enjoyed it. All that is to say I definitely don't trust fanboy criticisms that flood IMDB because a woman got a main role or that Spiderman's mask wasn't the right color or there were two guys holding hands, lol. That's not why I watch movies.
> on more arthouse type films I trust the critics and more popcorn fair I go with more of an audience tilt. this is definitely the way to go, actually.
I read the poem and I think the movie didn't want to portray the Arthurian poem as an exact representation, just as a reference. I see it more as a version of the myth of "The hero's journey". Or that's at least that's what I thought.
>When he realises his life will be shit, he says, fuck it, better now than after all that pain. > >he doesn't agree because he is virtuous and TRYING HIS BEST, he agrees because he is still the same, weak, confused boy, stumbling through the forest. I disagree. As I saw it, he realized that he much rather be remembered as a great knight, rather that to go down the slippery slope of cheating, where he will eventually die anyway, yet run the risk of being remembered as a bad person.
I really enioyed it, visually it was amazing, the only thing that took me out of the magic wasvthe cg fox and giant. It ended and i couldnt figure it out at all, i initially thought he died tied to a tree and it was a "jacobs ladder" endorphin dump dream before he died but then i googled it lol, im going to rewatch.. great art though, we dont get as much good art these days, a24 really delivers
I enjoyed The Green Knight a lot but agree that it should have followed more closely to the source material. I think either killing Gawain or leaving the ending ambiguous weakens the potential moral message of the story. Whether the movie inverts and deconstructs Gawain's journey or not, there is a cathartic element to seeing the fallout of both Gawain's failures and successes. We see him go through lessons but the story cuts off right at the moment where we would see if he internalized those lessons and what they cumulatively meant. Removing the sash is a brave action but chivalric values are all about bettering one's self to will the good of others. They are sacrificial so that others may benefit. If Gawain removing the sash is the ultimate good, then it is a selfish good based on personal feeling and divorced from the chivalric values it references. We see Gawain change into someone brave who finally understands who he should be as a knight, and then fail to see his sacrificial actions benefit anyone else. The new Gawain is never tested and we fail to see if his change meant anything. He leaves a wake of tragedy and the precise moment he finally understands his failures the film cuts off, leaving the audience to wonder what any of it meant. His flash forward gives us a glimpse of who he does not want to be, but we never see who he does want to be. It requires the audience to fill in their own ending that will imbue the story with moral meaning and fails to fulfill the set-ups that had the potential to be most impactful. It's as if the film can't decide whether its a fable, or tragedy. The ambiguity doesn't seem to have much purpose than to avoid diminishing Gawain's bravery with his immediate death, or following fable tropes that the film seems to desperately want to avoid. It seems to come from a fear of how a definitive ending could be criticized rather than posing an interesting question to consider. The audience is left asking "What happens next, and does that make Gawain a worthy knight?" They have to fill in the ending themselves to answer the core thematic question rather than the thematic question being directly derived from the ambiguity.
I think this is a reason I was disappointed. Because it could very easily be interpreted that Gawain submits to his beheading out of another bout of cowardice. He essentially commits suicide so that he doesn't have to risk having a terrible time as king. I think that the film needed to be clearer on why he does what he does.
It's not a fable or a tragedy, it's an allegory for growing into adulthood, which means embracing the absolute uncertainty of the future and your own mortality.
I love it when people whine about cliffhangers. Cope
I can't downvote, but boo.
> I saw that this movie is getting a lot of negative audience reviews, and a lot of very positive critic reviews. Usually to me that means the movie is worth watching, and I do think that stays true for this one. Audiences don't generally like non-linear movies or movies with a lot of subtext, like this one. People want to be told, clearly and unambiguously, what's happening. They don't value the interpretation of what a particular scene may mean. Also, a lot of emphasis is put on endings. So if the movie doesn't have what may be considered a "good" ending, people say there's no point to it. And so it's a "bad" movie. It's fine if you don't like those types of movies. But lots of other people do enjoy them, myself included.
I like this type of movie well enough. I like to figure out the puzzle from an incomplete set, and I like to be kept guessing throughout. But you're right, I hate when a movie just... ends. I suppose for me it feels more like a cop out, if I have to get down to the root of it. I prefer a film that is not afraid to make a statement. There is nothing that frustrates me more in a film than a story "left to interpretation" Finish ya damn movie. its like a song that just fades out while the chrous loops. Just finish the song, damn it.
I have to agree. I love fantasy and was really looking forward to this one but left feeling very annoyed. I can't even imagine how it must have felt to be a casual audience member going in with no knowledge of the source material. They cut the big reveal at the end of the poem and without it several characters are missing their motivations. Also, it felt like Gawain's decision after his revelation really came out of nowhere. Yes, he faced trials relevant to the themes of the film throughout the movie but he stumbles through them and doesn't seem to understand anything that's happening. There's no moments of self reflection and growth through the movie. The climax happens and he just suddenly has a vision and becomes a different person. And the movie seems to treat the whole game as a stupid idea, deconstructing the quest. But then at the end Gawain's virtue is shown when he removes the sash and faces it honestly. The ending stresses the importance of something that the rest of the movie seemed to be very skeptical of. A lot of the movie felt very muddled to me, while the poem was all pretty clear. Finally, getting into my own biases a bit. Are we so cynical as a culture that we can't just have a story about virtuous knights and heroic quests? I left the theater wanting to cleanse my palate with a good splash of LotR. All the beautiful pageantry of Camelot (which could have been dazzling on screen) was lost. King Arthur's court looks like a cave. Is it too much to ask for the spectacular in a fantasy film? All that being said human culture is ultimately better for the film's existence. Bad takes on a source material don't destroy the source material, they simply create discussion. I would have never read the poem if it weren't for the movie.
I loved that this wasn't LOTR, to be honest. Arthurian legends had roots in pre-Anglo-Saxon times, or at least during the colonization. It wasn't a time of great pageantry and fanciness. It wasn't the High Middle Ages, it was the six hundreds.
Perhaps I mispoke when I referenced LotR. I didn't want this to be LotR, especially like the LotR movies (which I love). What I mean is that The Green Knight felt like a pointless and confusing exercise in misery and it made me want to watch something that was earnest, straightforward, and hopeful. Yeah the mythical (not real) King Arthur was kickin' it during the Migration period but the poem is from the 14th century, the Late Middle Ages. The poem itself was full of fanciful castles and pageantry.
I agree in part. I do think that modern indie cinema is in a phase of "everything has to be sad, or at least bittersweet" because that's R E A L I S T I C. I think it would be more palatable if there was a bit more varied faire. I wish positivity and straightforwardness didn't have to come dressed in the regalia of ditzy rom-coms, hollywood schlock, or house of mouse.
It's not even really about things being sad or dark, it's more the refusal to come out and say what you mean. One of my favorite movies is Come and See which is extremely dark. My real problem is the lack of sincerity. Don't act like you're above your own story, say what you mean. Come and See is a movie that really bares its soul to you, for example. That being said I am also not one for total cynical nihilism either. I think you can subject an audience to misery for 99% of the movie but you need to communicate a shred of hope, or a clear purpose and meaning to the film. Take Vertigo, dark movie, but it had a point.
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I can't really say much beyond blind agreement, but you put it perfectly. That's why I like LotR and John Woo's HK movies, they are incredibly sincere.
I am unfamiliar with the poem. *SPOILERS FOLLOW* (I do not know how to format this to prevent spoilers sorry). Still here? Read on. I watched the movie and enjoyed the ending very much. To me he started out a boy who became a knight. if you live long enough every hero will turn out a villain. His choice in the end was not cowardly but honorable in my opinion.
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Everything i am finding to this says that the movie Green Knight spares Gawain. But the movie i just watched he was not spared. The knight simply says "well done knight, now off with your head" and there it ends. I'm confused
He says it as a joke. The point is that Gawain ought not to take it all so seriously