Web Assignment One:
The Wicker Man (1973)
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Hailed "the Citizen Kane of horror movies,"* I would perform a great injustice to explain the film's relevance to the key ideas without first introducing you to the plot. While Charles Foster Kane's Rosebud has most likely been irreverently revealed to you by the unscrupulous media, I shall try to refrain from ruining the twists and turns of this mental roller coaster ride that make it so exciting and special:
Inspector Howie is summoned to an isolated Scottish island in response to a missing child report. Rowan Morrison, a teenage girl, has gone missing on this island and no one, not even her own mother, will acknowledge her existence. The people populating this island perform pagan worship ceremonies, praise multiple gods, and are taught to do what is natural. In the evenings, Howie is disgusted by the vast amount of people performing sexual acts in the dark right across the street from the bar. Howie is purely Christian, very devout and dedicated to God. He tries to preach to the people of the one True God, but they will not listen. Howie struggles to remain tolerant of these people for every which way he turns they seem to be desecrating those codes and items sacred to him. He begins to lose patience with the heathens so he reports himself to the Lord of the island. Lord Summerisle, played by a dashing young Christopher Lee, is a bit more educated than his subjects, but he also is not Christian, nor chaste, nor anything that Howie is. But neither is Howie anything Lord Summerisle is. I could go on, but I am afraid I have already said too much...
The film works in so many ways like Plato's "Allegory of the Cave". The one man who escaped the cave, as perceived by the average viewer (predominately monotheistic, law-abiding citizens), is Howie because of his belief in God and dedication to the law. He has been taught that the light is better, and so when the circumstances have him returning to the darkness that is paganism, his natural tendency is to try and preach that the light, the one True God, is better. Just as the cave dwellers did in the allegory of the caves, the people of the island laughed at Howie, ridiculed him, and tested his patience. Howie had "lost his eyes" to them. In his Faith he was blind to the obvious, the concrete evidence that was surrounding him: nature. Nature is their religion. Nature is everywhere. It seemed silly to them to believe in something that they could not see.
The film runs a mere hour and twenty eight minutes. It was filmed on location in the lush Scottish hills on the island of Summerisle. The actors are all solid in their performances. Christopher Lee, although appearing only shortly in the film, is deliciously "devoted" to his pagan island. Anthony Shaffer's sharp dialogue combined with Robin Hardy's roughly edited direction melds perfectly to create a truly wonderful, moody, thought-provoking film that you will never forget.
Edward Woodward as Inspector Howie |
Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle |
Britt Ekland as Willow MacGregor A local citizen |