The 2021 David Lowery written and directed film The Green Knight is an interesting, inventive take on the old poem “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.”
It’s beautifully rendered. You can’t take your eyes off it. It also sticks with you, in part due to its ambiguous ending, which is very much open to interpretation.
Here’s a few thoughts I had from a recent re-watch. And yes, I seem gripped again by my annually recurring year-end fascination with King Arthur.
Needless to say spoilers coming.
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Brief recap: The plot of The Green Knight (book and film) centers around the arrival of a massive, green-skinned and armored knight in King Arthur’s court on Christmas. He offers up a challenge: Any knight can strike him a blow with sword or axe from which he will not flinch, save that he will return the blow one year hence.
Arthur’s nephew Gawain, the youngest knight in the court, takes up the challenge and strikes a savage cut that sends his head tumbling to the floor. Then, to the horror of all in the hall, the mysterious figure picks up his severed head and turns to leave the stunned court, but not before reminding Gawain he must ride out to his chapel in a year to complete the challenge.
Gawain commits, and embarks on a series of adventures en route. In one of these he is given a green belt/sash that renders him invulnerable to any blow. An obvious, unforeseen advantage in a contest of his sort. But also, unfair and dishonorable.
In the poem, Gawain leaves on the sash, and receives a nick on the neck as a rebuke.
In the film, Gawain removes his sash after an agonized internal struggle, then turns to await the blow. One we’re not sure lands, because the film ends before we see it.
So, does Gawain get his head cut off?
I don’t believe that’s what actually matters. What does is his decision moments prior.
Earlier in the scene Gawain asks an existential question as he stares death in the face: “Is this really all there is?”
This is not (merely) a question pondering the end of his own life, but the possibility of a life without meaning, one ruled by the material laws of nature in which purpose and beautify and meaning are empty and meaningless, and death and decay our only masters. The type of world described by the dragon in John Gardner’s Grendel: “It’s all the same in the end, matter and motion, simple or complex. No difference, finally. Death, transfiguration. Ashes to ashes and slime to slime, amen.”
If he leaves on the sash, he will be invulnerable, but also will have fatally compromised the only virtue that matters in such a word: His integrity.
Gawain has a flash of what would happen should he leave on the sash: he becomes a king of a fallen kingdom, a dishonorable ruler, haunted by his choice over the long years until the kingdom falls, corrupted.
Ultimately he chooses honor. Does that cost him his life?
The film offers some clues. “Well done my brave knight,” the green knight says, after Gawain removes the sash. And then, the final cryptic line of the film: “Now, Off With Your Head,” which obviously implies he’s a goner.
After all, a blow is due in return per the sacred rules of the game. Honor demands it.
However, the Green Knight delivers the final line with a good natured, light-hearted spirit, indicating that any blow will be only lightly given, which would make it true to the poem.
As important as this (obviously) is for Gawain and his future, I’m not sure it matters either way.
Even if Gawain loses his head, the message of the film can be interpreted as profoundly hopeful.
Let’s start with the idea that the Green Knight represents nature. If so, his acknowledgement of Gawain’s selfless act implies there is honor embedded in nature. It is not an abstract, empty term rendered meaningless by postmodernism, it is as real as the grass under our feet, the rotation of the earth and its seasons. We just have to make the choice.
Though there is a far bleaker interpretation. There may be honor but it ultimately doesn’t matter, nature is going to kill you in the end anyway. It’s all a cosmic joke.
But maybe we should still act honorably anyway, because doing so is its own reward.
Regardless, I believe Gawain's transformation from shiftless coward to noble knight suggests that facing death with dignity is essential to living a meaningful life.
What do you think?
I welcome any thoughts on this.
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