THE WICKER MAN

'''The Wicker Man''' (heralded by film magazine Cinefantastique as "The Citizen Kane of Horror Movies"), is a cult 1973 British film combining thriller, existential horror and musical genres, directed by Robin Hardy and written by Anthony Shaffer. The film stars Edward Woodward, Christopher Lee, Diane Cilento, Ingrid Pitt and Britt Ekland. Paul Giovanni composed the soundtrack.
In 2004 the magazine ''Total Film'' named ''The Wicker Man'' the sixth greatest British film of all time. It also won the 1978 Saturn Award for Best Horror Film. A scene from this film was #45 on Bravo's ''100 Scariest Movie Moments''.

Contents

Plot

Background/Production

Release and restored versions

Soundtrack

Trivia and cultural references

Remakes

References

External links

General

Soundtrack

Related films

Other sites

Further reading

Plot

Sergeant Neil Howie (Edward Woodward) is sent an anonymous letter recommending that he investigate the disappearance of a young girl, Rowan Morrison, on the remote Hebridean island of Summerisle. He flies to the island and during his investigations discovers that the entire population follows a neo-pagan cult under the island's owner 'Lord Summerisle' (Christopher Lee), believing in re-incarnation, worshipping the sun and engaging in fertility rituals and sexual magic in order to appease imminent natural forces.
Howie, a devout Christian, is increasingly shocked by the islanders' behaviour; yet he is attracted and repelled by the alluring and sexual Willow (Ekland), the daughter of the landlord of the inn where he is staying. He receives no assistance in his search from the islanders, who initially deny Morrison exists and then say that she recently died. Howie persists and uncovers evidence suggesting the girl was a victim, or perhaps is soon to be a victim, of human sacrifice. Delving deeper into the island's culture, he disguises himself as Punch, a principal character of the May Day festival, to uncover the details of the ceremony as it is acted out. The islanders are not fooled and at the end of the festival it is revealed that the girl is alive and unhurt; the letter was part of a ploy to bring Howie to the island for ''him'' to be the sacrifice, which they believe will restore the fertility of their orchards.

As Howie is seized by the islanders, Lord Summerisle drolly notes that the sacrifice will be especially effective since Howie, although engaged, is like Punch a virgin; is simultaneously wise and a fool; comes as a king (a representative of Her Majesty's government); and comes to the place of sacrifice of his own free will. Howie admonishes Lord Summerisle that if his sacrifice does not work, the next year the islanders will have no choice but to sacrifice their king, Lord Summerisle. Summerisle appears certain that sacrificing Howie will work. Howie is forced into the belly of a large hollow wicker statue of a man, which is set on fire. In the final shot of the film, the islanders surround the burning wicker man and sing the Middle English folk-song "Sumer Is Icumen In" while the terrified Howie shouts out Psalm 23 and implores divine vengeance on the island and its inhabitants.

Background/Production

Christopher Lee was well known as a Hammer Films regular, in particular playing Dracula in a series of successful films. At the time, Lee was looking to expand his acting horizons, and collaborated with British Lion head Peter Snell and playwright Anthony Shaffer (already well known for ''Sleuth'') to develop a film based on the novel ''Ritual'' by David Pinner. Though the book was all but completely abandoned (all that survived from Pinner's book into the finished film is the scene in which Howie presses himself against his bedroom wall as a means of communing with the siren-like calls of Willow next door), the idea of an idealistic confrontation between a modern Christian and a remote, pagan community continued to intrigue Shaffer, who performed painstaking research on the topic. Brainstorming with director Robin Hardy, the film was conceived as presenting the pagan elements objectively and accurately, accompanied by authentic music and a believable, contemporary setting.

After Michael York and David Hemmings turned down the role of the policeman, television actor Edward Woodward was cast. In Britain he was already familiar as the TV spy ''Callan'', a role he played from 1967 to 1972. He later gained international attention portraying the title character in the 1980 Australian film ''Breaker Morant''. (American audiences probably know Woodward best for his role in the 1980s CBS TV series ''The Equalizer''.)
Diane Cilento was lured out of semi-retirement after Shaffer saw her on the stage to play the town's schoolmistress, and Ingrid Pitt (another British horror film veteran) was cast as the town librarian and registrar. The Swedish actress Britt Ekland was cast as the innkeeper's lascivious daughter (perhaps for box office appeal), though her singing and possibly all her dialogue was redubbed by Annie Ross, and some of her nude dancing was performed by a double.
The film was produced at a time of crisis in the British film industry. The studio in charge of production, British Lion Films, was in financial trouble and was bought out by millionaire businessman John Bentley. To convince the unions that he was not about to asset-strip the company, Bentley needed to get a film into production quickly. This meant that ''The Wicker Man'', a film set during early summer, was actually filmed in October: artificial leaves and blossoms had to be glued to trees in many scenes. The production was kept on a tight budget. Christopher Lee was extremely keen to get the film made; he and others worked on the production without pay.^[1] While filming took place, British Lion was taken over by EMI Films.

Release and restored versions

Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle.

By the time of the film's completion the studio had been bought out by EMI, and British Lion was now run by Michael Deeley. Hardy subsequently had to remove approximately 20 minutes of scenes on the mainland, early investigations, and (to Lee's disappointment) some of Lord Summerisle's initial meeting with Howie. A copy of the finished, 99 minute film was sent to American film producer Roger Corman in Hollywood to make a judgment of how to market the film in the USA. Corman recommended an additional 13 minutes be cut from the film. (Corman did not acquire US release rights, and eventually Warner Bros. test-marketed the film in drive-ins.) In Britain, the film was ordered cut to roughly 87 minutes, with some narrative restructuring, and released as the "B" picture on a double bill with ''Don't Look Now.'' Despite Lee's claims that the cuts had butchered the film's continuity, he urged local critics to see the film. ''The Wicker Man'' met with moderate success and won first prize in the 1974 Festival of Fantastic Films in Paris, but largely slipped into obscurity. (However, the American film magazine, ''Cinefantastique'' devoted a commemorative issue to the film in 1977 - the praise that the film is "the ''Citizen Kane'' of horror movies" has been attributed to this issue.)[1]

The film was restored and re-released theatrically in 1979.

In the mid-Seventies, Hardy made inquiries about the film, hoping to restore it to his original vision. Along with Lee and Shaffer, Hardy searched for his original cut or raw footage. Both of these appeared to have been lost. He remembered that a copy of the film, prior to Deeley's cuts, was sent to Roger Corman; it turned out that Corman still had a copy, possibly the only existing print of Hardy's version. The US rights had been sold by Warner Bros. to a small firm called Abraxas, run by film buff Stirling Smith and critic John Simon. Stirling agreed to an American re-release of Hardy's reconstructed version. Hardy restored the narrative structure, some of the erotic elements which had been excised, and a very brief pre-title segment of Howie on the mainland (appearing at a church with his fiancée). The 96 minute restored version was released January, 1979, The various versions of ''The wicker Man'' again to critical acclaim. Strangely, the original full-length film was available in the US on VHS home video from Media Home Entertainment (and later, Magnum) during the 1980s and 1990s. This video included additional, early scenes in Howie's police station that Hardy had left out of the 1979 version.
In 2001 the film's new worldwide rights owners, Canal+, began an effort to release the full-length film. Corman's full-length film copy had been lost, but a 1-inch telecine transfer existed. With this copy, missing elements were combined with film elements from the previous versions. (In particular, additional scenes of Howie on the mainland were restored, showing the chaste bachelor to be the object of gossip at his police station, and establishing his rigidly devout posture.) The DVD "Extended version" released by Canal+ (with Anchor Bay Entertainment handling US DVD distribution) is this hybrid cut, considered the longest and closest version to Hardy's original, 99 minute cut of the film. A two-disc limited edition set was sold with both the shortened, theatrical release version and the newly restored extended version, and a retrospective documentary, ''The Wicker Man Enigma.''In 2005, Inside The Wicker Man author Allan Brown revealed he had discovered a series of stills taken on-set during the film's production showing the shooting of a number of sequences from the script that had never seen before; indeed, it had never been certain that these scenes had actually been filmed. They include a scene in which Howie closes a mainland pub that is open after-hours, has an encounter with a prostitute, receives a massage from Willow McGregor and spectates as Oak and a villager enact a brutal confrontation in The Green Man pub. It is hoped that these images will be featured in a revised edition of the book Inside The Wicker Man.

Soundtrack

Main articles: The Wicker Man soundtrack

Composed, arranged and recorded by Paul Giovanni and Magnet, the soundtrack contains folk songs performed by characters in the film. The songs vary between traditional songs, original Giovanni compositions and even nursery rhyme in "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep".

Trivia and cultural references

The Wicker Man.

★ A weekend music festival loosely based upon the film, the Wickerman Festival, is held in late July every year near Kirkcudbright in Scotland, where many of the scenes were filmed. The festival culminates at midnight on the Saturday, with the burning of an enormous wicker statue.

★ Anchor Bay Entertainment released a limited edition wooden box of The Wicker Man. 50,000 2-disk sets were made, and 20 of them were signed by stars Christopher Lee and Edward Woodward, writer Anthony Shaffer, Producer Peter Snell and Director Robin Hardy.

★ The words spoken by Lord Summerisle while watching two snails mating (not in the 87 minute cut) are a corrupted quotation from Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass.

★ The film was almost entirely filmed in the small Scottish towns of Newton Stewart and Kirkcudbright in Dumfries and Galloway. Culzean Castle in Ayrshire and its grounds were also used for much of the shooting. The end burning of the Wicker Man took place at Burrow Head (on a caravan site) and the charred stumps of the man's legs are still extant, and visited by the film's fans.

★ Britt Ekland offended the local citizens of the town where the film was shot when she commented to newspapers that it was the most dismal place she had ever been to in her life. Many years later Ekland stated that she was unhappy while making the film, and she apologised for her remarks.

★ Although Ekland appeared topless in the seduction scene, she refused to dance fully naked, so a body double was used without her knowledge. The double arrived by car as Ekland was driven away from the set after the day's filming. The two actresses can quite clearly be seen to be different from the way they move to the scene's music, and the double keeps her face covered.

★ The dying prayer of Sergeant Howie is taken from the words of Sir Walter Raleigh on the scaffold.

★ The DVD commentary track states that studio executives suggested a more "upbeat" ending to the film, in which a sudden rain puts the flames of the wicker man out and spares Howie's life.

★ Summerisle is fictitious, but there is a real group of Scottish islands called the Summer Isles. The venue might additionally be based on the island of St. Kilda, roughly 64 km northwest of the Outer Hebrides. Now administered by Harris, the last thirty-six inhabitants were evacuated, at their own request, in 1930 (owing to economic hardship and the islanders' declining, ageing population). Last, but not least; it could also be a reference to the Summerlands, the equivalent of heaven in Theosophical and neo-pagan belief systems.

★ Scottish band Summerisle is named after the island featured in the film.

★ English band Pulp released a song named "Wickerman" on their 2001 album ''We Love Life''. It featured a sample from "Willow's Song".

★ Metal band Sigrblot sampled the film's end scene with Howie reciting Joel 1:12 in their song named "Chaos Prayer - Deus Bellum"

★ In 2000, heavy metal band Iron Maiden had a top ten hit in the UK with a song entitled "The Wicker Man" with lyrics by their lead singer, Bruce Dickinson. Dickinson previously recorded a different song with an almost identical title, "Wicker Man", in his solo career which was eventually released on The Best of Bruce Dickinson in 2001. This song made direct references to the themes of pagan worship in the movie, whereas the Iron Maiden version does not, and the repeat title was not Dickinson's own choice.

★ In 2003, the Dark Romantic band Faith and the Muse covered "Willow's Song" on their album The Burning Season. The album's title is a reference to the Burning Times, and (as with many of the band's works) that album features many pagan and neopagan themes and images.

★ 2000, the neomedievalist group Mediaeval Baebes included a cover of "The Maypole" entitled "Summerisle" on their album Undrentide. This album also includes copious pagan imagery.

★ Early 90s indie band The Mock Turtles featured a song entitled "Wicker Man" on their 1990 debut album, ''Turtle Soup''.

★ English band Candidate made a 2002 album, ''Nuada'', inspired by ''The Wicker Man''.

★ ''The Wicker Man'' is shown in the background on TV in Danny Boyle's ''Shallow Grave''.

★ Monkey Dust tributes the film by having the Paedofinder General burn a teacher he suspects in a giant Wicker Man in the schools carpark.

★ In the MMORPG ''World of Warcraft'', a festival called "Wickerman Festival" (in homage to the film) is held in the Undead capital of Undercity in the month of October.

★ Siouxsie & the Banshees song "Blow the House Down" contains direct references to ''The Wicker Man''.

★ In the final scene, Woodward was urinated on by the goat in the compartment above him.

★ ''The Wicker Man'' is featured in Andy Riley's ''The Book of Bunny Suicides''.

★ Seafood covered Willow's Song on their third full-length album, ''As The Cry Flows''.

★ Isobel Campbell covered Willow's Song on ''Milkwhite Sheets''.

★ The video to "Goodbye" by The Coral features a homage to the final scenes of "The Wicker Man".

★ The Super Robot Monkey Team Hyperforce Go! episode, "Season of the Skull" is a parody of "The Wicker Man".

★ This film was #45 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments.

★ Flying Monkey Comics featured a comic strip making reference to "The Wicker Man" [2]

★ Sneaker Pimps song How Do on ''Becoming X'' is a cover of Willow's Song.

Remakes

Main articles: The Wicker Man (2006 film)

An American remake, starring Nicolas Cage and Ellen Burstyn and directed by Neil LaBute was released on 1 September, 2006. Robin Hardy expressed concern about the remake.[3] Subsequent to its release, Hardy simply described it as a different film rather than a remake.[4] Hardy is working on a re-imagining of ''The Wicker Man'', which has previously gone under the working titles ''May Day'' and ''Riding the Laddie'' and is now referred to as ''Cowboys for Christ''. First announced in April 2000, filming on the project has been delayed but is currently scheduled for March 2007. Hardy has already published this story as a novel. It follows two young American Christian evangelists who travel to Scotland; like Woodward's character in ''The Wicker Man'', the two Americans are virgins who encounter a pagan laird and his followers.

References

★ Brown, Allan (2000). [5] ''Inside The Wicker Man: The Morbid Ingenuities''. London: Macmillan. ISBN 0-283-06355-6.
1.

External links

General

★

★

★ Wicker Men Critical comparison of the original and the remake

★ The Wicker Man: The return of the Pagan World - Overview of the film's usage of pagan symbolism.

★ Interview: Director Robin Hardy talks about the film to Fortean Times

★ Interview with director Robin Hardy about The Wicker Man and Cowboys For Christ in MungBeing

★ The symbolism of The Wicker Man movies

★ wicker-man.com An extensive fansite devoted to the film

★ The Wicker Man on MySpace The Wicker Man film fansite on MySpace

Soundtrack

★ Silva Screen release information

★ Trunk Records release information

★ Music site about the significance of the film and its music

★ Associate Musical Director Gary Carpenter's recollections of the film

★ Paul Giovanni on MySpace music site for Wicker Man soundtrack on MySpace

★ Ian Cutler Fiddler from the Wicker Man

★ Ian Cutler on MySpace music site on MySpace

★ 'How Do' by the Sneaker Pimps based on Paul Giovanni's "Willow's Song", 1973

Related films

★ ''The Wicker Man Enigma'' directed by David Gregory, 2001.

★ ''Burnt Offering: The Cult of the Wicker Man'' directed by Andrew Abbott and Russell Leven, 2001. Cast members gather to reminisce about their experience making ''The Wicker Man''.

Other sites

★ The Wickerman Festival - Scotland's Alternative Music Event — the July celebration of cult, off the wall music that climaxes in the burning of a giant willow and straw effigy.

★ Pretanic World - The Wicker Man. Celtic, Pagan and Folkloric References in The Wicker Man Movies

Further reading

★ Ali Catterall and Simon Wells, ''Your Face Here: British Cult Movies Since The Sixties'' (Fourth Estate, 2001) ISBN 0-00-714554-3