Indulge Me in this Game: Deconstructing the Epic in David Lowery’s The Green Knight (2021)
Courtesy of A24
By Trevor Ruth
In his extrapolation of his posthumously published translation of the epic fourteenth century narrative, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, linguist and fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien called Sir Gawain the most difficult character to interpret. It’s an honest response worthy of any poet (let alone a translator of ancient poetry); the narrative of such ancient texts such as Beowulf and Sigurd and Gudrin are certainly dense reads, but only to the extent that they are translations, which also makes the statement mildly confusing. The plots of these stories are relatively simple and invite much in way of tone and style, so to an extent, the character of Sir Gawain is whatever the interpreter or reader makes him out to be. Some look towards the gender roles of the era and derive the poem’s meaning from this, in their own peculiar way, while some find the poem lost in translation due to dialectical dissonance and structure. Director and writer David Lowery saw the opportunity for play with this story and ran with it in his own way. The result is a sluggishly crafted, though visually arresting art house fantasy simply known as The Green Knight (2021). Lowery is a difficult creative mind to place, with regards to style. His 2017 film, A Ghost Story, is a slow-burning drama that acts more as a kind of surreal still life, though he is also responsible for the remake of the Disney classic Pete’s Dragon in 2016, so there’s clearly an eclectic repertoire that Lowery works within, though whatever current project he seems to work on is sure to be visually idealistic regardless. The Green Knight is no different, though how you might feel about Lowery’s vision of the epic poem depends on your understanding of Lowery’s essential deconstruction of the Arthurian romance.
On Christmas Eve in old England (or, ancient rural Ireland passing for old England), Sir Gawain (Dev Patel, who is always fantastic) attends a ceremony with his uncle, King Arthur. On this night, Arthur asks Gawain to tell a story, but Gawain has lived a life so unexciting that he doesn’t have an enthralling tale to tell. Arthur calls upon the rest of the hall for some entertainment before the doors bust down and enters the titular Green Knight (a stoic and incredible Ralph Ineson) who brings forth a challenge; whoever strikes him down will have to be struck down in similar fashion one year later. Gawain accepts the challenge. The knight is struck down but his body rises up and carries his head off, reminding Gawain of his promise. The rest of the film is Gawain travelling towards his fate as he comes across many different magisterial occurrences in his journey. On its surface, this is a very basic story with elements of high fantasy, akin to The Hobbit (1937); the threat of adventure being the catalyst for the experiences one accumulates over time. However, The Green Knight exists as a mock-epic and instead chooses to eliminate the romantic nature attributed to the ancient poetic fable. It’s fascinating to me that a big influence for Lowery in the making of this film was Ron Howard’s Willow (1988) given that Willow, though an incredible cinematic endeavor in its own right, was a blockbuster film (just as the Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit trilogies by Peter Jackson were blockbuster series, marketed more for their fantastic imagery and entertainment value). There is always something eccentric to find in the otherwise emblazoned visuals of Middle Earth or the tactile beauty of Nelwyn, but while fantastic things occur in The Green Knight the film itself is very grounded in its stark realism.
Courtesy of A24
Visually, the film keeps to mostly natural lighting; there are moments where there will be a sudden glowing studio lamp from behind characters during a surreal underwater sequence or during a dream, but since the majority of the film is exterior and was shot in ancient locations, it appears very dark and gloomy overall. Every scene seems somehow beaten by a passing wave of rain and the interiors of castle grounds are so dark it’s almost impossible to make out what is even happening half the time. That being said, the story also does not waste time in setting its tone. The opening sequence begins with an image of Patel posing on a throne and his head being lit on fire (which is awesome, by the way). We then cut directly to a grey courtyard where pigs and chickens mess around with a passed-out man in the corner, and the audience’s eyes are meant to relocate to the slowly growing fire blooming from the rooftop of a house in the background (nothing comes of this fire, by the way). We then pull out from the image and into a room where Gawain is asleep in the bed of his lover, who works in a brothel. There’s almost something humorous about the overzealous nature of the opening shot with Patel’s head being lit on fire and how it clashes with the sudden downtrodden, dirty, dismal nature of Camelot. Much of this movie lives in this absurd balance between fantasy and realism, and it’s in this way that the film retains its idiosyncratic nature. Title cards in regal lettering flash by in a flurry like a Monty Python skit and give the film a very modern feel; it’s very Gaspar Noe (which in turn is very Jean-Luc Godard) which is not what you would come to expect from a fantasy film set in ancient England.
The character interactions feel very real and the landscape itself is dank and grey with grime, however the fantastical elements stick out like a sore thumb: the CGI fox that accompanies Gawain on his adventure is unconvincing and the giants that the two of them come across are barely capable of rivaling the live action Attack on Titan (2015). This isn’t to say that there aren’t good effects; when the knight drops his axe to the floor of the foyer in the beginning scene, a mossy growth grows suddenly between the spaces of stone and is stunning in its small, almost erudite way. Many misty exterior images where the fog seems to lift from earth recall the atmospheric resonance of a Hammer film and longer trucking shots do well to capture the sheer, empty expanse of the world in which the story takes place. The armor of the knight itself looks cheap, but it carries a kind of charm to it; as if to say that it is obvious that there is a man beneath the costume but you almost don’t seem to care because Ineson’s voice gives him all the intimidation that he needs.
Courtesy of A24
Gawain himself, on the other hand, is rather pathetic. As if it weren’t obvious enough from the fact that he doesn’t have a story to share at Christmas, he actually gets mugged by a trio of scavengers who successfully lead him in the wrong direction and rob him of his materials. After this, he reaches a house in the middle of the woods and is approached by its spirit, Winifred, who tells him to retrieve the skull of her skeleton from the nearby pond. Gawain asks the spirit what he is expected to gain from retrieving her head and her response is simply: “Does it matter? I need my head.” For a classic example of a chivalric epic, there is very little that speaks to Gawain’s chivalry. In fact, the film does the complete opposite: it goes out of its way to show his incompetence and his lack of courage. At one point, he actually cheats on his lover with the lady of an abbey (both played by Alicia Vikander), in exchange for a stolen girdle that was bestowed to him by his mother and is said to have magical properties that would protect Gawain from all harm. Gawain is so desperate to not face his fate that he actually allows the lady of the abbey to give him a hand job just so he could have guaranteed protection from the knight. Near the end of his journey, the fox that has been with Gawain questions his true sense of bravery, but Gawain trudges onward anyway, convinced that he is ready to face the knight. After getting into a boat and heading down a shallow river we come across the dilapidated chapel in the woods, bathed in a heavy, golden glow. Nothing makes me want to return to Ireland more than this scene and supposedly, the chapel was found by accident (which is so typical, castles and buildings are like artifacts and relics lying in plain sight for anyone to discover). Gawain prepares to meet his fate head-on but flinches three times before running away from the knight like a coward. He returns home, alive, and we are met by a compilation of images depicting Gawain’s return to Camelot and his ascendancy as the new king, succeeding Arthur. Gawain births a child with his brothel lover and actually purchases the child from her before taking on another royal patron as queen. He goes to war and in the midst of battle, his son—who is a knight in his own right—dies in combat. Gawain is reviled, the castle becomes under siege and he removes the green girdle that he took to wearing the entirety of his life, just to have his head drop off of his body and onto the floor.
The inclination here is that Gawain has to live with his act of cowardice for the rest of his life; not the fact that he ran away from the knight, but the fact that he continued to wear the girdle for protection. It is only after he decides how low his lack of courage has reached that he decides to rid himself of the girdle’s protection. Thankfully, all of this imagery turns out to be a vision and before the knight is able to strike down Gawain, he decides to toss the girdle. The knight congratulates Gawain on a job well done and playfully draws his finger across Gawain’s neck saying, “off with your head”. It’s worth mentioning that the knight comes into existence through a spell that is made by Gawain’s mother, the king’s sister, Morgan le Fay which would make this entire ordeal a product of her enchantment. It’s also made obvious in the beginning of the film that Morgan was not exceptionally proud of her son’s lack of competence and his endless parade of partying, drinking and adultery. Perhaps then this was her way to teach her son the act of chivalry, to imbue into him a true sense of courage and in some way, I like to believe that Arthur wanted this for Gawain as well. There is a brief scene where Gawain meets with his uncle after the king is finishing a conversation with Morgan, and the notable similarities between the visual appearance of the Green Knight and Arthur are apparent. After all, the Green Knight says in its last line, “well done, my knight,” like a father to a son. Arthur’s goal was most likely to always make Gawain king, but perhaps he needed a better sense of Gawain’s ability to be the king he needs to be to succeed the throne; to take his uncle’s place. In this way, the film becomes a morality tale though perhaps not as straightforward as it most likely is in the original poem.
Courtesy of A24
Courtesy of A24
Of all the images the film conjures up, one that I find poignant is the punch-and-judy styled puppet show that the children of Camelot watch that depicts Garwain’s adventure. It’s a little goofy, but also sublime in that it perfectly defines the tone of the film. It’s said that Lowery’s affinity for Willow—the main inspiration for this film—was triggered when he found a series of Willow action figures. For all of its tonally serious precepts, the film is really just an act of play: it takes so many liberties with its conventional epic style and from its idiosyncrasies, it brings forth a new and unique vision for the fantasy film genre. This does not mean that the film does not take itself seriously at all, in fact the very opposite could be said: certain shots like a close up of the queen breaking the seal of the knight’s letter are sharp and heavy with intention, and the mostly medieval score by Daniel Hart is lovingly rustic and simplistic. Some might find it a little too arthouse for its own good, which is perfectly understandable (A24 films, for some reason, like to implement at least one upside-down shot for seemingly no reason), however they’ll also find something rapturous in The Green Knight’s undertaking in almost making fun of itself. For all intents and purposes, the bending of the form will eventually make the film an instant classic for both scholars and fantasy fans alike.
Trevor Ruth is a writer from Livermore, California, whose work has previously appeared in Occam’s Razor, The Southampton Review, and other literary journals. He writes fiction and poetry that utilizes slipstream to subvert genre ideals, as well as critical essays on film and art.