The Green Knight

Started by jenkins, April 20, 2019, 01:05:06 AM

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Jeremy Blackman

@jenkins

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MASSIVE SPOILERS — Gawain absolutely wears the belt, which has been enchanted by a witch to protect him. The Green Knight goes to chop off his head, but in that moment Gawain sees a future without honor (my interpretation) where the only thing keeping his head on is that belt. So he decides to take the belt off. The Green Knight touches him affectionately and proudly as if congratulating him for solving a riddle and proving his virtue. And then TGK goes to cut off Gawain's head anyway. Cuts to black before we see it, but it's 90% implied that Gawain does in fact lose his head.

jenkins

Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on July 30, 2021, 12:56:35 AM
@jenkins

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MASSIVE SPOILERS — Gawain absolutely wears the belt, which has been enchanted by a witch to protect him. The Green Knight goes to chop off his head, but in that moment Gawain sees a future without honor (my interpretation) where the only thing keeping his head on is that belt. So he decides to take the belt off. The Green Knight touches him affectionately and proudly as if congratulating him for solving a riddle... and then goes to cut off Gawain's head anyway. Cuts to black before we see it, but it's like 90% implied that Gawain does in fact lose his head.


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I appreciate the reply because this will help me appreciate the movie. In what I'm hearing it adheres to the source text but enhances it by saying human fallibility is not forgivable by asking for forgiveness after the matter, but rather don't do it in the first place

jenkins

I checked in at metacritic and it's still doing great, Justin Chang who I am a fan of echoes the conversation jb and I were having

QuoteWhat does it mean to be a knight, or even just to be human? It isn't an easy question, and The Green Knight, in taking it seriously, isn't always an easy film. But by the time Gawain reaches his journey's end, in as moving and majestically sustained a passage of pure cinema as I've seen this year, the moral arc of his journey has snapped into undeniable focus.

Moral arc is the key here. In truth there's lightness to the original but this is something more serious

Jeremy Blackman

MILD SPOILERS in this quote

Quote from: jenkins on July 30, 2021, 12:28:29 PM"But by the time Gawain reaches his journey's end, in as moving and majestically sustained a passage of pure cinema as I've seen this year, the moral arc of his journey has snapped into undeniable focus."

Seriously. I think this is one of my favorite movie endings, full stop.

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The throne room scene in particular, however brief, is just so silently stunning.


Since I've been gushing, I'll throw in two criticisms, which I'd like feedback on.

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I think the fox CGI needed another pass.

Gawain eating the mushroom seems to present the viewer with a viable "out" — you can choose to recontextualize everything that follows as a hallucination. (Including the giants, sadly.) This is just a type of plot device that I feel intrinsically opposed to.

jenkins

Still haven't seen it but to continue to talk about the ending

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so basically in the source text the crux is the mistress hatched the whole scheme and sir gaiawan shouldn't have accepted her girdle which everyone laughs about. in this way the decapitation is diverted through playful devices that stitch together

the narrative has been rewired in a way appropriate for our times: why don't you think a little before you do something?

csage97

I was excited to go see this and invited a friend, but he said he'd rather pass because he's just put off by the state of Hollywood and filmmaking these days. I agree with him that a lot of filmmaking sucks lately, but this seems interesting. And he said he just doesn't want to deal with the "politically entrenched agendas" with movies these days. The irony/contradiction is that it's like ... dude ... it was just about going to see a movie, and you're making it weirdly about politics or whatever even though you claim to want to avoid weird politics.

Maybe I need to evaluate the people that I spend time around. It just kind of turned my mood on its head and I'm not as stoked to get out of the house for once and see a theatre movie for the first time in a year. I'll probably still go tonight.

Jeremy Blackman

Quote from: csage97 on July 30, 2021, 03:17:26 PM
I was excited to go see this and invited a friend, but he said he'd rather pass because he's just put off by the state of Hollywood and filmmaking these days. I agree with him that a lot of filmmaking sucks lately, but this seems interesting. And he said he just doesn't want to deal with the "politically entrenched agendas" with movies these days. The irony/contradiction is that it's like ... dude ... it was just about going to see a movie, and you're making it weirdly about politics or whatever even though you claim to want to avoid weird politics.

Maybe I need to evaluate the people that I spend time around. It just kind of turned my mood on its head and I'm not as stoked to get out of the house for once and see a theatre movie for the first time in a year. I'll probably still go tonight.

Oof. I don't recall there being anything overtly political in this movie. Was he referring to the casting of Dev Patel? (Hopefully not.)

csage97

Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on July 30, 2021, 03:26:35 PM
Quote from: csage97 on July 30, 2021, 03:17:26 PM
I was excited to go see this and invited a friend, but he said he'd rather pass because he's just put off by the state of Hollywood and filmmaking these days. I agree with him that a lot of filmmaking sucks lately, but this seems interesting. And he said he just doesn't want to deal with the "politically entrenched agendas" with movies these days. The irony/contradiction is that it's like ... dude ... it was just about going to see a movie, and you're making it weirdly about politics or whatever even though you claim to want to avoid weird politics.

Maybe I need to evaluate the people that I spend time around. It just kind of turned my mood on its head and I'm not as stoked to get out of the house for once and see a theatre movie for the first time in a year. I'll probably still go tonight.

Oof. I don't recall there being anything overtly political in this movie. Was he referring to the casting of Dev Patel? (Hopefully not.)

It doesn't seem like there'd be anything overtly political in the movie either judging from the trailers, synopses, etc. He said he didn't like Dev Patel, but I took that to mean he didn't like his acting. It just occurred to me that he's a brown guy cast in a role of characters that would be historically white (presumably). This didn't even cross my mind before. Is that what you mean by the casting of Dev Patel? Is that actually a thing?

Jeremy Blackman

Very possible. Although I will say it plays very realistically in the movie. MINOR SPOILER: Gawain's mother is of a similar complexion. There's definitely some very gentle re-interpretation of the range of ethnicities that might have existed in this world. But it was perfectly credible and tasteful and never even slightly took me out of the world, not unlike Fear Street 1666. (I'll have compared The Green Knight to every movie I've seen by the time we're done here.)

jenkins

Later I'll make a new post because I'm going tonight. It's my, let's see, fifth time back at the theater since the pandemic, although it'll be my first time going alone. it's going to be packed too, two people already bought seats next to me. I'd maybe prefer it with a less populated theater but just I wanted to get out of the house and see a movie tonight

jenkins

oh, okay. so this is wholly original and a testament to his overall understanding of a visual medium. what fantastic visual storytelling, somehow surpassing Gunpowder Milkshake, but just barely. functionally speaking About Endlessness is superior, but that guy uses static shots. i want thirty minutes of this movie projected on my tombstone

it's laughably different than the source material. major cultural appropriation but he's an artist of course. a true artist too, and i mean it. god, to commit to making this fucking movie. i know i couldn't do it. i saw it on a dcp and, tbh, it would be better seen by me on a fine-tuned tv screen, but that's not his fault. the ending is so simple it almost makes me uncomfortable

not for me, but for someone. someone will begin to believe in things they've never believed in before, mainly related to art. but oh i forgot to mention that i need to see this with subtitles, because sometimes i got distracted and couldn't listen when people were speaking. barely anyone speaks and then when they do they give significant dialogue probably. ughck, my bad. subtitles, please. 100% sure that Lowery isn't trying to be cool and he believes in this with full conviction, which is what it takes. bravo

Jeremy Blackman

Some actual answers from David himself, interviewed by the great Joanna Robinson (prolific podcaster, famed analyst of genre film & TV who correctly predicted the ending of GoT, etc). This article gets into the meat of things. Skip if you prefer ambiguity. I'm comforted to see that my interpretation aligns pretty closely with David's intentions. Although:

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I think I undervalued the role that Morgana & witchcraft have in the story.

And the mushrooms are not mentioned at all. Maybe not that important?


The Green Knight's Ending, Explained
Director David Lowery tackles your most burning questions.

Drenk

Ascension.

WorldForgot

William Friedkin spliced in three frames of Space Jam.

jenkins

#89
SPOILERS

Quote from: Jeremy Blackman on July 30, 2021, 12:55:09 PMSince I've been gushing, I'll throw in two criticisms, which I'd like feedback on.

Spoiler: ShowHide
I think the fox CGI needed another pass.

Gawain eating the mushroom seems to present the viewer with a viable "out" — you can choose to recontextualize everything that follows as a hallucination. (Including the giants, sadly.) This is just a type of plot device that I feel intrinsically opposed to.


potentially the most memeable moment of the movie, which in these days means more than the most memorable moment of course, is when someone asks ~"are you a spirit or reality" and someone else says "does it matter?" it's such a memeable moment that i can't remember who said it or why, and it wasn't the most important part of the movie regardless. it's just a cool statement. and that defines this movie that's a series of mini-Bjork music videos more than anything else. here is a movie that subverts the view of Arthurian Romance such that it appeals to Teenage Goths more than any other demographic, and yet it somehow, quite shockingly, cares more about morality than the original text. that's the most 21st century thing i've ever heard of. god, how i wish his interview answers were Tarkovskian, but they're not. the spirit means far more than the reality here. as far as the giant scene goes, that's pure drugs, but it doesn't matter. to address you, jb, specifically, with Alexandro's movie Psychotropic Sunrise you said it glamorized drug use but i assure you that it doesn't. that movie is about family. drugs are just a thing. from a certain perspective the giants only make sense from the drugs, while from the same perspective the fox is outrageous the whole while. was the fox a good idea? well that's a complicated question from a certain perspective, and from another perspective it's fun the fox was there

that post is both pro-this movie and pro-jb and it means to be a reasonable and appreciative reply stemming from a perspective gained over time