Freshly Perverse
Freshly Perverse
In anticipation of Neil LaBute's The Wicker Man (Warner Bros., 9.1), yesterday I rented a DVD of Robin Hardy's '73 classic of the same name. (The extended version, of course.) Sharply written by playwright Anthony Shaffer (Sleuth), it has a reputation of being an exceptionally creepy piece. Which it is, although it contains only one big jaw-dropper at the finale. Which there's no forgetting. And yet it's far from a horror film.
Boiled down, Shaffer and Hardy's Wicker Man is a correctly mannered, somewhat dry parlor drama with an undercurrent of female eroticism and faint malice. It's pretty much all talk and inference, but in the service of something quite strange.
Nicolas Cage, director-writer Neil LaBute during filming of The Wicker Man (Warner Bros., 9.1)
It's about a rigid, devout, clearly uptight Christian policeman (Edward Woodward) visiting a pagan society on an island off the Scottish coast in search of a missing girl, and his being constantly deceived by the locals in a strangely uniform way. Every last islander is either blank-faced or oddly cheerful, which seems especially weird in view of what they're all planning. Lo, how righteousness spirals upward to the heavens, contained in a twisting plume.
The Wicker Man wouldn't work nearly as well without the hammer-like energy and fierce conviction that Woodward brings to his role of Sgt. Howie. There's no ques- tioning this cop's intense Christian convictions -- he's all about discipline, rectitude and butt-plug righteousness. And, of course, sexual repression.
What happens to Howie at the end is what The Wicker man is all about -- a metaphor about the fast-eroding influence of traditional Christianity in the face of the newborn spiritual currents of the late '60s and early '70s (LSD mysticism, Bhagavad Gita, Tom Wolfe's "third great awakening") and the general shirking of tradition.
What will the metaphor of the new Wicker Man be? Labute wrote the script (naturally), and one of his changes is that the remote island society is now matriarchal instead of patriarchal, as it was in the '73 film. (In this light, Ellen Burstyn is the new Christopher Lee.) LaBute said at Comic-Con a couple of weeks ago that the film is at least partly about the fact that "women scare me more than men," or words to that effect.
With men's social dominance eroding over the last 35 or 40 years, their powers increasingly diluted and on the downswing and guys feeling less and less vital, it seems reasonable to assume that LaBute has made tthe growing stength and independence of women (and the way this has made some guys feel) the focus of his film.
What's for sure is that LaBute hasn't made a standard-issue Lionsgate shocker. More assaultive than the '73 film, but relatively restrained by the standards of 21st Century jolts and gore. And however it turns out, something his and is alone.
In a piece by Charles Lyons in today's
The Wicker Man "probably has a number of scenes that are bloodier than anything in the original," Lyons reports, adding that LaBute "deliberately exercised restraint in using special effects that, as he put it, provide only a 'moment's pleasure.'"
LaBute's film, says Lyons, "will echo its forebear's intelligence, even if that means making the contemporary audience work a little harder than usual. 'If The Wicker Man is a thinking person's horror film," says LaBute, 'that's great.'"
Like Sgt. Howie, Cage's cop -- called Edward Maulis in Labute's film -- is conservative-minded but more "suave" than Woodward's character, or so Lyons reports.
This lewd and leering shot is from a scene always mentioned in any discussion of the '73 Wicker Man -- a musical number (yes, a musical number) featuring Britt Eklund, whose singing voice was dubbed by either Annie Ross or Rachel Verney.
One curious thing: Lyon's article devotes five paragraphs to the fragile ego of Hardy, the original Wicker Man's director, specifically his conviction that he was slighted by the producers of the new version when they failed to show him a copy of LaBute's script and/or declined to let him see the film. Five paragraphs out of 22 -- more than 20% of the piece.
The point, I guess, isn't that Hardy's feelings are hurt as much as the Wicker Man team doesn't want anyone knowing what they're up to.
This seems to be so. The Warner Bros. marketing plan doesn't seem to include letting guys like me see The Wicker Man early and possibly writing about it. I've been trying to get an early peek since early July, but the word all along has been, "We know that you're a Labute fan but not yet...we'll let you know."
Posted by Jeffrey Wells on August 6, 2006 at 8:54 AM
comment #1
Phil says ...
I've always admired the original Wicker Man for being one of the few movies, along with The Rapture, to take the implications of its own theology absolutely seriously, with no compromise. I can't say I'm all that interested in yet another remake of a classic '70s thriller, but I'll see what the prevailing opinions are on the Labute flick.
Posted by Phil at August 6, 2006 12:27 PM
comment #2
Anonymous says ...
The Rapture is a very unsettling movie, Phil. The scene that always sticks with me is when the guy who was fired by Duchovny goes postal and Duchovny says I have a little girl and the other guy says Who cares and then blows him away. Yeah, The Rapture is dead serious. I doubt The Wicker Man will be, though. Looks like another bloated thriller. And it's very hard to take Cage seriously.
Posted by Anonymous at August 6, 2006 12:33 PM
comment #3
Scotter says ...
"...The extended version, of course."
I have been burned so many times by the supposedly longer and better extended versions. Are you saying that this version doesn't have 10-15 minutes of footage that was on the cutting room floor for a reason?
Posted by Scotter at August 6, 2006 1:24 PM
comment #4
Wicker Fan says ...
Hardy's original cut was butchered by the financier/distributor, apparently at the suggestion of none other than Roger Corman (who ironically had preserved the only remaining print of the director's cut and for years never surrendered it, even when Hardy and others were looking for it. Finally, when it was tracked back to him, he admitted that he had it, and that's how we have the director's cut of the film today). The financiers of the film deliberately destroyed all additional pieces of the negative, using it for road-fill, because they never wanted Hardy's version to see light of day. With thanks and no thanks to Corman, I'm grateful that we have Hardy's director's cut, which I feel is a much superior version of the film. WICKER MAN is one of my all time faves and in my opinion, one of the smartest, creepiest, sexiest thrillers to ever be committed to film. If you haven't seen the original, run right now to rent or buy it. You will not be disappointed. Whatever you do, don't opt for the truncated version. By the way, my info comes from an entire issue of Cinefantastique (I think that was the magazine) devoted to THE WICKER MAN. Robin Hardy's director's cut did play for a limited time in the UK, I believe. Edward Woodward is genius in the role, as is Chris Lee and (the oh so sexy) Britt Ekland. Can't say enough great things about this one.
Posted by Wicker Fan at August 6, 2006 2:25 PM
comment #5
L.B. says ...
Hear, hear. The extended cut is the only way to go. The previous version is missing so much it's safe to say it's not the actual movie.
Posted by L.B. at August 6, 2006 2:37 PM
comment #6
Owen Gieni says ...
The thing that makes the original Wickerman so unique is that fact that it doesn't just work as a thriller but almost as a MUSICAL as well.
I'd say "Corn rigs and barley rigs" is my fave track although I suppose that doesn't quite qualify as a proper musical number. The Ekland sequence is mesmirizing of course, amazing stuff. I wonder what LaBute has planned for the soundtrack to his film.
Posted by Owen Gieni at August 6, 2006 6:39 PM
comment #7
Chris says ...
It doesn't work as a thriller or a musical. It's a terrible movie. Why are people so fascinated with this miserable film?
Posted by Chris at August 6, 2006 8:14 PM
comment #8
Phil says ...
I hate remakes of great films ... alas, another.
Posted by Phil at August 7, 2006 8:46 AM
comment #9
flaky says ...
For starters Britt Eklands famed nude dance was performed by a body double; Ekland later moaned
about her doubles big ass. SPOILER ALERT!
In the original the whole point of the film was that
the Woodward character was a fortysomething virgin.
The makers of the new version have stated that
audiences will never accept Nic Cage as a virgin;
why not ? he is a good actor and this ruins the entire
ending of the film unless the filmakers have come up
with a completely different hook. There have been plenty of overated British films (Get Carter being a prime example) but The Wicker Man stands the test
of time and deserves its cult status. I am waiting for
someone to re-discover Jack Golds The Reckoning
(1971) with a killer performance by Nicol Williamson
(where is he now that we really need him?)
As far as this Autumns spookers go my moneys on
The Reaping!
Posted by flaky at August 7, 2006 10:40 AM
comment #10
George says ...
Anyone notice that in the poster/one sheet, they give away the ending? Brilliant! (and when I sayy brilliant I mean MORONIC!!!).
Who came up with that concept - a picture of the Wicker Man on fire with clear cages in the chest cavities and Nicholas Cage running from it!?!?
Posted by George at August 7, 2006 11:37 AM
comment #11
cathar says ...
It's hard to take the original version of "The Wicker Man" seriously, given that Britt Ekland is playing a Scottish lassie in it. Perhaps she was cast for assumed "marquee value," that's all I can think of by way of an excuse. (For either version, by the way.)
But it is decidely not, Jeffrey, about "the fast-eroding influence of traditional Christianity..." But rather about the survival of pagan customs, and their supposed modern "revival" via Wicca. That LaBute is apparently focusing on the matriarchal aspect of such things is actually more in keeping with the extremely dubious claims made for the historicity of Wicca. But as someone else has already noted, showing the Wicker Man in the posters is giving far too much away.
Lastly, isn't LaBute himself a Mormon? (I somehow recall thta he converted for his spouse.) I wonder how this take on ancient legends will thus play with Mormonsm who have their own version of life in the ancient Americas.
Posted by cathar at August 10, 2006 1:03 PM