{"id":3814,"date":"2021-08-04T17:30:30","date_gmt":"2021-08-04T17:30:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/farefwd.com\/?p=3814"},"modified":"2021-08-04T17:38:39","modified_gmt":"2021-08-04T17:38:39","slug":"the-green-knight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/farefwd.com\/index.php\/2021\/08\/04\/the-green-knight\/","title":{"rendered":"The Green Knight"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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The Gift of Shame<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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In departing from its 14th-century source material, The Green Knight<\/em> replaces the possibility of mercy with the imperative to succeed.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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Review by Sara Holston<\/em><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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From its first frames, David Lowery\u2019s The Green Knight <\/em>situates itself in a long tradition of retellings and reimaginings of the legends of King Arthur and his knights. The opening voice-over is reminiscent of a medieval bard reciting before a banquet hall of rapt listeners. Title slides interspersed throughout the film are styled like illuminated manuscripts: a call back to Sir Gawain\u2019s place in a canon of medieval literature. From folktale to folio to film, The Green Knight<\/em> seems to be saying, this story has always been evolving for new mediums and new audiences.<\/p>

This stage in the story\u2019s evolution transforms its protagonist. While the movie describes itself as “A Filmed Adaptation of the Chivalric Romance by Anonymous,\u201d Lowery\u2019s Gawain is not the seasoned veteran of the 14th<\/sup>-century poem. In this telling, Gawain isn\u2019t even sure he wants to be a knight. Though as the king\u2019s nephew he may be destined by blood to rule, when we meet the Gawain of The Green Knight<\/em>, he has yet to perform any deeds worthy of recounting.<\/p>

In both the poem and the film, Gawain\u2019s journey begins when a mysterious \u201cGreen Knight\u201d (depicted by Lowery with bark-like skin and a beard of moss) bursts into Arthur\u2019s hall to challenge a champion of the Round Table to single combat. Seeing his chance to prove his worth, Gawain accepts the challenge. Wielding the king\u2019s own sword, Gawain prepares to battle the otherworldly figure in front of a roomful of legends. But, to Gawain\u2019s surprise, the Green Knight lays his axe aside. The game is simple: Gawain may take a swing at the Green Knight now\u2014any way he likes\u2014but in one year\u2019s time, Gawain must meet the Green Knight on the Knight\u2019s home turf, the \u201cGreen Chapel,\u201d to receive an equal blow in return. When Gawain strikes the Green Knight\u2019s head from his shoulders, he is elated. But his victory is short-lived: the Knight\u2019s body retrieves its head and rides away laughing. Honor requires that \u201cone year hence\u201d Gawain must journey towards certain death.<\/p>

As we approach this climax of the story, The Green Knight <\/em>begins to deviate most starkly from the chivalric romance. The end of Gawain\u2019s journey brings him to Hautdesert, the house of Lord Bertilak and his wife. Bertilak informs him that he is a mere day\u2019s ride from the Green Chapel and invites him to spend the last few days resting there, before meeting the Green Knight for the answering blow.<\/p>

In the poem, Gawain and Lord Bertilak make a wager to exchange their winnings of each day, with Lord Bertilak offering Gawain the greatest prizes from his hunts, while Gawain in turn will give Lord Bertilak whatever he manages to “win\u201d about the castle. This game provides a structure for Gawain\u2019s time at Hautdesert, as well as setting up the events at the Green Chapel. Twice Lady Bertilak comes to Gawain in his bedchamber while her husband is out, and twice Gawain rebuffs her advances, managing to turn her away with only a chaste kiss goodbye. Twice, Lord Bertilak gifts Gawain with a trophy, and twice Gawain exchanges a kiss. On the third day, however, Lady Bertilak offers Gawain a green girdle, a magic belt that will protect him from all harm. Dreading the axe waiting for him at the Green Chapel, Gawain breaks his word to Lord Bertilak and keeps the death-defying girdle.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The canon of King Arthur sits a tricky crossroads between the pagan roots of the stories, and the Christian influences on them.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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In the poem, Gawain\u2019s moral failure centers on his breaking the terms of his agreement with Lord Bertilak. The movie understands things differently, focusing especially on Gawain\u2019s fear of death, his lack of courage and honor. When Lord Bertilak gives Gawain a last chance to surrender the girdle, it is not Gawain\u2019s breaking of his word that is at issue. It is the girdle itself.<\/p>

This new understanding of failure dramatically changes the events that take place at the Green Chapel. In the 14th<\/sup>-century poem, Gawain kneels before the Green Knight, who twice feints with the axe but misses, for the two days when Gawain held up his end of the bargain. But on the third swing, the otherworldly Knight, revealed to be Sir Bertilak himself, just nicks the side of Gawain\u2019s neck, as punishment for failing to keep his word. He does not take off Gawain\u2019s head, though, explaining: “it was loyalty you lacked: \/ not because you\u2019re wicked, or a womanizer, or worse, \/ but you loved your own life; so I blame you less.\u201d In the end, the Green Knight instructs Gawain to wear the girdle as a reminder of his broken vow.<\/p>

The Green Knight<\/em>\u2019s Gawain, unlike the one in the chivalric romance, flinches at both the first two swings of the axe. At the third swing, Gawain flees before the blow can land, riding back to Camelot having failed to complete the quest. This Gawain continues to wear the girdle because he is too cowardly to take it off; too afraid, still, of his own death. We see a long montage of Gawain\u2019s life after this failure, and at every turn he seems to make decisions to fit the expectations placed upon him, rather than having the courage to do what he believes is right. It is a bleak picture of destruction and pain raging through Gawain\u2019s family and, with Arthur\u2019s death and Gawain\u2019s ascension to the throne, his court, and it ends with Gawain sitting, alone, on his throne in the besieged castle, having lost everything he held dear. He finally pulls off the girdle, through a hole like a wound in his tunic, and as it comes free, his severed head falls to the floor. In this version of the story, Gawain\u2019s wearing of the girdle is not a reminder of an isolated failure, but an ongoing and everyday mark of his cowardice.<\/p>

But this, to me, is where the climax of Lowery\u2019s film misses the true lesson of the Green Chapel. The canon of King Arthur sits a tricky crossroads between the pagan roots of the stories, and the Christian influences on them. I first fell in love with Sir Gawain and this story with the Green Knight at eleven years old, when I stumbled across a stumbling across a series of novelizations of Arthurian Legends called The Squire\u2019s Tale <\/em>in my school library. Written by Gerald Morris, a pastor and seminarian, they seem to effortlessly weave together the Christian and pagan themes of the stories until you can no longer tell where one ends and the other begins. To me, this is what makes them so eternally resonant; like many of the best stories, they offer us another glimpse into the gospel narrative.<\/p>

In Morris\u2019s version of the story, Gawain has the opportunity, as a “good Christian knight,\u201d to make his confession to a priest before riding to take the Green Knight\u2019s blow, and the conversation ends with this exchange:<\/p>

“I\u2019m sorry, Father,\u201d Gawain said. “I\u2019m afraid that I don\u2019t know how to confess.\u201d<\/p>

“Then you must learn to be ashamed.\u201d<\/p>

“Ashamed of what?\u201d<\/p>

“Find out,\u201d the priest said decisively.<\/p>

After the game is revealed and the Green Knight has tasked Gawain with keeping and wearing the green girdle, Gawain asks if it is meant as a badge of failure. The Green Knight replies, “failure is easy. This is a badge of shame.\u201d<\/p>

At the Green Chapel, the 14th<\/sup>-century Gawain comes face to face with his own moral failings; he is not the paragon of knighthood and virtue everyone believes him to be. But not because he is evil; simply because he is human. When Gawain begs to know how he might clear his tainted reputation, the Green Knight merely laughs, declares to a baffled Gawain that by realizing and confessing his failures he has already made amends. The lesson of the Green Chapel is this: we must learn to be ashamed, to live with our shame, and to know our shame does not define us. We live in the paradoxical intersection of both our failings and our absolution. Like Gawain\u2019s green girdle, shame is a constant reminder of our own weakness and dependence. But perhaps it is one that we might, all the same, wear lightly.<\/p>

A story that will resonate over centuries is one that reconciles a seemingly irreconcilable tension. In meeting Gawain\u2019s failure and shame with the Green Knight\u2019s absolution, the 14th<\/sup>-century poem tells a remarkable tale. Though Lowery\u2019s The Green Knight <\/em>brings Arthurian legend to the screen with matchless style, the ending lacks this resonance, because it strips the core lesson out of the Green Chapel. The modern Gawain learns that cowardice leads back to pain and death\u2014not just for himself but for those he loves as well. But when the dream sequence ends and, back in the Green Chapel, Gawain removes the girdle to take the Green Knight\u2019s final blow, he succeeds in the quest. The modern Gawain passes the test by finding the courage and conviction that make him worthy of honor. What is missing in this telling is the opportunity for mercy; the modern Gawain must either succeed or be resigned to a miserable life. In the 14th<\/sup>-century, Gawain could fail and find forgiveness.<\/p><\/div>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Sara Holston<\/strong> is an editor on an interactive story game in San Francisco, CA. <\/em><\/p>

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The Green Knight<\/strong> was written and directed by David Lowery. It was released by A24 Films on July 30, 2021. Learn more on their website here<\/a>.<\/em> <\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In departing from its 14th-century source material, The Green Knight replaces the possibility of mercy with the imperative to succeed. 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