Idealism: The Perception of The Green Knight
“Why is it green, do you think?”
Why is the Green Knight green? At almost the halfway point in The Green Knight, there’s an achingly slow 360-degree pan. Just before the shot, Gawain, who is on a quest, the purpose of which neither he nor the viewers seem to understand, is waylaid by thieves and left tied up on the ground in the forest to die. The pace of this pan creates suspense. You feel what’s coming at the other end of the pan must be necessary, but the real beauty is that you slowly realize what you’re going to see at the end of it before you get there. As it progresses, winter turns to spring, time is passing, and you realize that only two options are available for the outcome of this shot: Gawain will either have escaped or he’s going to be a corpse, and as the pan progresses, even further, you realize which of these outcomes it will be before you even see the result:
You hear it.
Gawain has engaged in a bizarre game on Christmas day: A green knight shows up in King Arthur’s court with a challenge — he will fight a willing opponent, and if this opponent can land a blow against him in one year, The Green Knight will return that blow.
This is a bizarre film based on a strange story from the 14th century, and director David Lowry’s adaptation which heavily modifies the original text, leans into the weirdness. There are a lot of different themes it explores and a lot of symbolic imagery. Gawain struggles with becoming a knight, what it means to be a man, his mommy issues, his responsibility to his lover, etc. Still, the thing Lowry is most preoccupied with in the film is the thing that the green knight himself symbolizes.
In the forest, for a moment, Lowry gives us a glimpse of one possible outcome of the story, one where Gawain dies on the forest floor but no sooner does he give us this glimpse than he spins the camera back around, effectively winding back the clock he just wound forward and there we find Gawain still alive and he’s able to free himself. However, why is so much time spent on this moment? What is up with this shot? Is this a bizarre red herring? Some fake-out pseudo twist? So much time is spent on this moment, which must play a significant role in understanding the story.
What is the nature of the game Gawain is playing? At every step, he seems unsure, and the people around him don’t offer much consolation or guidance. One thing seems clear: The Green Knight said he would deliver back whatever blow was given him, and we know what this means for Gawain, and Gawain knows he’s walking towards his death. And while a lot of the people around him seem sure that there will be something after he meets with The Green Knight, he is not so sure, and it’s assumed by all that he is just not playing the game, skipping out on his date with The Green Knight at the chapel isn’t even an option.
This is a film that will make zero sense if you look at it in a very literal way. The world that Gawain inhabits is an enchanted one. Lowry imbues the film with a sense of this enchantment. In such quiet moments, Lowry cuts to various objects, like a pendant around someone’s neck, for seemingly no reason. It moves like this in the editing and with the camera work that emphasizes the symbolic magical nature of the story. To understand the film, we have to look at the game Gawain is playing symbolically and understand what the game Gawain is playing symbolizes. We need to know what The Green Knight, at least in Lowry’s universe, symbolizes.
When Gawain is met with The Lady of the House, she speaks these words: “the grain is the color of earth, of living things of life,” to which Gawain responds, “and a fraud.” At this moment, The Lady of the House lays on the table the key to understanding the green knight. Lowry deftly links this monologue to the earlier scene of Gawain’s death in the forest by bringing the same audio cues into the mix. In both scenes, we hear birdsong indicating spring flies indicating decay, wind, and thunder. In the same monologue, The Lady of the House proclaims, “when you go your footprints will fill with grass moss shall cover your tombstone and as the sun rises green shall spread over all and all its shades and ears…this third degree will overtake your swords and your coins and your battlements and try as you might all your whole deer will succumb to it your skin your bones…your virtue”.
The green of The Green Knight is the green of decay of time. It’s the new life that springs out of death and covers it. It’s the green that no armor or nightly station can defend. I used to live in the Appalachian Mountains, some of the oldest mountains on earth. Geologists say that these mountains were once taller than the Himalayas but have been worn down by time.
In contrast to younger mountain ranges still forming like the Himalayas, the Appalachian Mountains are much smaller and much greener. In facing The Green Knight, Gawain is facing his death, but not his literal death at the hands of the knight himself. His inevitable, inescapable death at the hands of time. A death that will happen no matter what he does in this life.
In Ingmar Bergman’s The Seventh Seal, another medieval period piece about a knight playing a game for his life, there’s an interesting moment towards the middle of the film. A monk interrupts a play being performed by a traveling stage troop to deliver these remarks: “We shall all perish by the black death. You there, gaping like cattle…and you, bloated with complacency…this might be your last hour”. It’s hard not to see the monk interrupting not just the play in the film but the film itself to deliver a message that Bergman wants us to hear. An authentic message about our mortality and the necessity of confronting it.
The moment in the woods, that long pan, isn’t just about portraying Gawain’s own vision of his death. If he doesn’t act to save himself, it’s a period of time that Lowry gives us to contemplate death itself, the passing of time, and our own mortality. Lowry isn’t just putting death on screen as a plot point, he’s confronting us with it, and he wants us to think about it. He’s done this before in his work. His film A Ghost Story is a guided meditation on grief, death, and time. It has very little dialogue, but around the halfway point, a guy interrupts the film to deliver a tirade about death and decay and the ultimate meaninglessness of everything in the face of the universe’s destruction at the hands of time.
It’s a move that is a huge turn-off. Nobody likes this guy. Lowry’s direction seems even to acknowledge that this character is the “you must be fun at parties” trope. His shirt is sweat-stained, and the people around him don’t seem that interested in what he has to say. While I love A Ghost Story, it’s not at all subtle in its exploration of these themes. Lowry found a more exciting way to force the audience to ponder death in The Green Knight, but people still hate this stuff. At least two people walked out of the screening of The Green Knight I attended. Both movies have a lot of detractors. Many don’t like them simply because they’re weird and slow, or it’s not their thing, but I think a decent number of people don’t like a downer. They don’t want to think about death, much less in a theater where they come to escape. But whether you see meaninglessness in the face of death or believe in something that transcends death or offers meaning in spite of it, it’s a reality everyone has to face.
Gawain, like most of us, is not that interested in confronting his death, and luckily, he is given an enchanted cord to tie around his waist. As long as he wears it, then no harm can come to him. He uses it at the end of the film to escape The Green Knight in the chapel and live out his life, becoming king, marrying, and having children. Once again, Lowry presents us with a slow 360-degree pan followed by another image of Gawain’s death as he decides to remove the cord. As he removes the cord, he is beheaded, showing us he never really escaped The Green Knight’s blow. His death of old age is the same death he faced in the chapel: both deaths are the same; both are deaths at the hand of time.
Lowry once again rewinds the time he wound forward, and we find Gawain still in the green chapel, alive. Gawain realizes there is no escaping The Green Knight. Even if he flees the chapel, time and decay will eventually catch up. The game is not about escaping The Green Knight but about your attitude in the face of your own death. Is it possible to win that game? Lowry leaves it somewhat ambiguous, but I think for Gawain, his acceptance of death in the chapel offers him freedom after he removes the cord, making himself vulnerable to The Green Knight. The Green Knight allows him to go free without taking the blow in the chapel. We know he can’t truly escape death and decay, but now he faces life with courage. The Green Knight is green because he represents the new life that comes forth out of death, and finding the courage to face his death, Gawain finds the courage to live his life.
