Spoilers incoming! I also assume you have read the poem and watched the movie.
This is a prologue to my post. In order to understand my ultimate point about this movie I highly suggest reading this prologue. Danke.
At the turn of the 20th century there was a German composer by the name of Strauss. Strauss was a naturalist composer: he valued painting a scene with sounds over melody. He was quite good at it... but that doesn't mean everyone liked it. I'm not sure I would. Regardless, Strauss was regarded as the greatest composer since Wagner.
In the twilight of Strauss's career he was asked to provide music to a production called Joseph and Potiphar's Wife. Now, in order for you to understand my point about The Green Knight we need to discuss what the actual story of Joseph and Potiphar's Wife is, and contrast it with the Strauss.
Joseph's story is the capstone of the book of Genesis, thematically closing that book out. Joseph was a good man, but whose jealous brothers sold him into slavery, into Egypt. When Joseph arrived in Egypt he was sold to Potiphar. Now, most Americans think of slavery like Uncle Tom's Cabin. That's not what slavery was in the vast majority of world's history. Think more parent-child: the owner was responsible for keeping the slave safe and fed, and was held accountable for his slave's behavior. The slave in turn obeyed the master and did the work assigned to him. People would sell themselves into slavery to pay off debts.
There is an American equivalent to slavery: joining the military. You'll find many of the trappings of historical slavery present in all militaries, and without them you wouldn't be able to defend a country. Period. Sorry to all liberals who wanted to entertain the notion that slavery is inherently horrific and that we've removed it from our society. It's not and we really can't.
Now, Joseph proved himself many times over to Potiphar. Potiphar grew to rely upon Joseph so much that he barely paid any mind to anything else than what he ate.
Welp, Potiphar's wife wanted to sleep with Joseph. Joseph said no, so Potiphar's wife accused him of attempting to rape her to Potiphar. Joseph ended up in prison, and from there managed to become second in the whole kingdom. He saved his brothers from a famine and brought them to live with him in Egypt, where they had their own land. Evil was transmuted to good, and forgiveness won out.
Strauss's version paints things very differently. Potiphar's wife is a dissolute woman, craving experience to cure her ennui. She has everything she wants materially and is thus miserable. When she meets Joseph she sees the spark of what she's always wanted: joy, fulfilment. She attempts to seduce him, in an effort to make him (and thus his spiritual experiences) hers. Joseph repulses her, and the angels come and rescue him, leaving Potiphar's wife to collapse into complete spiritual death. There's no forgiveness, no resolution, no overcoming of evil with good. There's nothing but darkness.
If Joseph and Potiphar's Wife doesn't sum up the 17th-19th centuries then life is absurd. Having thoroughly bought into materialism and industry, Western Europe had become obsessed with war as the final glory. To be European and American was to love war, as the cultural myth told it. But the rise of occultism, Socialism, and democracy proved the soul of humanity was still in there, yearning for true experience, but assembling the absolutely wrong ways to go about getting it. A great war had been prophesied by many for years. The spiritual rot was almost total. And everyone felt it, somehow.
World War I happened; Potiphar's wife collapsed in on herself.
Aesthetics is the height of morality, as Anne Rice unerringly stated. To enjoy something is to say it is consonant with the narrative that you live in. This narrative is a complex interweaving of culture, religion, and personal experience, which those who are wise can barely parse out. So when something is regarded as highly as The Green Knight is by our culture it's important to be mindful that your opinion is rarely your own. What the world values is always flawed, is always fundamentally wrong. And it is a part of you and how you think. So is their admiration of The Green Knight misjudged, truly evil, or something stranger than both?
We'll get there folks.
Some adaptations are just an attempt at a remake of their source. They usually miss their mark, as no movie can equal the depth of a book. Movies have a different strength, one of images and movement. It's usually better for an adaptation to be a response to the source, possibly even a critique. What makes the source (in this case the poem) so good? The best adaptations I've seen ask this question and stick to it. The Green Knight is one of the best adaptations I've ever seen. Each detail is lovingly rendered, the acting is poetry, the way the story is filled in would make any poet jealous. It's obvious Lowery -the director - has an immense love for the poem and his movie is meant to be taken with the source, not in replacement of it. This is one of the few adaptations I've seen that drips with such affection for its source material. There's a deeply personal element in this movie, so strong you can practically see it in the mists.
I'll take it a step further: The Green Knight is prophetic of our age. It is the Joseph and Potiphar's Wife of the 21st century. Lowery's personal response strikes a chord so deep it's transcended individual experience and become reflective of Western civilization in the 21st century. And, just like Joseph and Potiphar's Wife, it tells what will happen to our civilization. There's something so primal going on that it can be nothing else.
And that is utterly terrifying.
For, you see, Gawain is not like Sir Gawain at all. There is very little honor in him. His shield, the same shield with the Theotokos which protects Sir Gawain of the poem, is smashed because of a lack of gratitude. Appearing good (what Gawain calls honor) is the only thing that truly drives him. It is a flimsy thing, this honor, only slightly more flimsy than the green sash his mother gave him. And Gawain's conception of this honor crumbles when actually faced with death.
And to be fair, Sir Gawain fails at the last as well! Even though he saves Camelot from becoming a second Troy his resolve falters and he tries to cheat death. Despite what Sir Gawain does right he can't stick the landing either. But Sir Gawain puts the green sash where others can see it, goes home, confesses his faults, and isn't just forgiven: the other knights wear the green sash in hopes they can live up to Sir Gawain's failure. The poem is a Christian story, at heart. Your wrongs need not control you. There is hope, always. And the virtue of a person does not go away merely because they made a mistake. And no one can avoid mistakes. So therefore no one is destroyed by them.
David Lowery is not a Christian.
Neither is our culture.
Presented with a similar situation, of failing to face death, Gawain imagines what his life would be like if he ran. And he decides it would do him no good to run from the axe. He wouldn't change. And Gawain needs to change. But he has no hope, so he can't forgive. So he can't change. Neither does America; we have no real hope, so we won't forgive, and thus change, either. We must have our sick version honor, as we cancel and riot and lie lie lie lie in an insane need to feel something other than the yawning darkness before us that we cannot forgive, and thus conquer. Whatever things can get you to not look at the darkness, that's okay. Do it.
Ha, just kidding! Eventually all our escapes will fall out.
Because there is no escaping.
And no hope.
Off with our heads.
Let the green claim us.
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