DVD The Wicker Man - The Director’s Cut

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DVD The Wicker Man - The Director’s Cut

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The Wicker Man (Vlaamse bioscooptitel: De gevlochten god) is een Britse thriller uit 1973 onder regie van Robin Hardy.

Leeswaarschuwing: Onderstaande tekst bevat details over de inhoud of de afloop van het verhaal

Een politie-inspecteur onderzoekt de verdwijning van een meisje. Daarvoor reist hij naar een afgelegen Schots eiland. Gaandeweg ontdekt hij dat de zonderlinge eilandbewoners er heidense rituelen op nahouden.

The Wicker Man is a 1973 British folk horror film directed by Robin Hardy and starring Edward Woodward, Britt Ekland, Diane Cilento, Ingrid Pitt and Christopher Lee. The screenplay is by Anthony Shaffer, inspired by David Pinner's 1967 novel Ritual, and Paul Giovanni composed the film score.

The plot centres on the visit of a police officer, Sergeant Neil Howie, to the isolated Scottish island of Summerisle in search of a missing girl. Howie, a member devout Christian, is appalled to find that the inhabitants of the island have abandoned Christianity and now practise a form of Celtic paganism.
The Wicker Man is well regarded by critics. Film magazine Cinefantastique described it as "The Citizen Kane of horror movies", and in 2004, Total Film magazine named The Wicker Man the sixth-greatest British film of all time. It also won the 1978 Saturn Award for Best Horror Film. The final scene was number 45 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments, and during the 2012 Summer Olympics opening ceremony, it was included as part of a sequence that celebrated British cinema. The film brought the wicker man into modern popular culture.[9]
In 1989, Shaffer wrote a script treatment for The Loathsome Lambton Worm, a direct sequel with fantasy elements. Hardy had no interest in the project, and it went unproduced. In 2006, a poorly received American remake starring Nicolas Cage was released, from which Hardy and others involved with the original have dissociated themselves.[10] In 2011, a spiritual sequel written and directed by Hardy, The Wicker Tree, was released; it featured Lee in a cameo appearance. In 2013, the original U.S. theatrical version of The Wicker Man was digitally restored and released.

On 29 April, Sergeant Neil Howie of the West Highlands Constabulary, journeys by seaplane to the remote, verdant Hebridean island of Summerisle to investigate the disappearance of a young girl, Rowan Morrison, about whom he has received an anonymous letter. Howie, a devout Christian, is disturbed to find the islanders paying homage to the pagan Celtic gods of their ancestors, with churches having fallen into disuse. They copulate openly in the fields, include children as part of the May Day celebrations, teach children of the phallic association of the maypole, and place toads in their mouths to cure sore throats. The islanders appear to be trying to thwart his investigation by claiming that Rowan never existed.
While Howie is staying at the Green Man Inn, the landlord's daughter attempts to seduce him, but he resists, explaining that he is engaged and wants to reserve sex for marriage. He notices a series of photographs celebrating the annual harvest, each featuring a young girl as the May Queen. The photograph of the most recent celebration is missing; the landlord tells him it was broken. At the local school, Howie asks the students about Rowan, but all deny her existence. He checks the school register and finds Rowan's name. He questions the schoolteacher, who directs him to Rowan's grave.
The next day, 30 April, Howie meets the island's leader, Lord Summerisle, grandson of a Victorian agronomist, to get permission to exhume Rowan's body. Summerisle explains that in 1868, his grandfather developed strains of fruit trees that would prosper in Scotland's climate and encouraged the belief that returning to the old gods would bring prosperity to the island among the previously Christian population. Due to the bountiful harvests, the island's other inhabitants gradually embraced paganism, and the Christian ministers fled to the mainland.
Exhuming Rowan's grave, Howie finds that the coffin contains only the body of a hare. He also finds the missing harvest photograph, showing Rowan standing amidst empty boxes; the harvest had failed for the first time since the orchards were established. His research reveals that a human sacrifice is offered to the gods in the event of crop failure. He concludes that Rowan is alive and will soon be sacrificed to ensure a successful harvest this season.
The following morning, on May Day, Howie seeks assistance from the mainland and returns to his seaplane, only to discover it no longer functions and its radio is damaged; he cannot leave or call for help. Later that day, during the May Day celebration, Howie subdues the innkeeper and steals his costume and mask (that of Punch, the fool) to infiltrate the parade. Rowan is eventually revealed. Howie sets her free and flees with her into a cave. Exiting it, they are intercepted by the islanders, to whom Rowan happily returns.
Summerisle tells Howie that Rowan was never the intended sacrifice; Howie is. He fits their gods' four requirements: he came of his own free will, he has "the power of a king" by representing the law, he is a virgin, and he is a "fool" by falling for their deception. Howie warns Summerisle and the islanders that the crops are failing due to the unsuitability of the climate, and that the villagers will turn on Summerisle and sacrifice him next summer when the harvest fails again, but his pleas are ignored.
The villagers force Howie inside a giant wicker man statue along with various animals, set it ablaze, and surround it, singing the Middle English folk song "Sumer Is Icumen In". Inside the wicker man, Howie recites Psalm 23 and prays to God. Howie and the animals burn to death as the head of the wicker man collapses in flames, revealing the setting sun.

In the early 1970s, Christopher Lee was a Hammer Horror regular, best known for his roles in a series of successful films, beginning with The Curse of Frankenstein (as the monster, 1957). Lee wanted to break free of this image and take on more interesting acting roles. The idea for The Wicker Man film began in 1971 when Lee met with screenwriter Anthony Shaffer, and they agreed to work together.[12] Film director Robin Hardy and British Lion head Peter Snell became involved in the project. Shaffer had a series of conversations with Hardy, and the two decided that making a horror film centring on "old religion" would be fun, in sharp contrast to the Hammer films they had both seen as horror film fans.[13]
Shaffer read the David Pinner novel Ritual, in which a devout Christian policeman is called to investigate what appears to be the ritual murder of a young girl in a rural village, and decided that it would serve well as the source material for the project. Pinner had originally written Ritual as a film treatment for director Michael Winner, who had John Hurt in mind as a possible star.[14] Winner eventually declined the project, so Pinner's agent persuaded him to write Ritual as a novel instead.[15] Shaffer and Lee paid Pinner £15,000 (equivalent to £268,000 in 2023) for the rights to the novel, and Shaffer set to work on the screenplay. He soon decided that a direct adaptation would not work well, so drafted a new story based only loosely on the story of the novel.[16]
Shaffer wanted the film to be "a little more literate" than the average horror picture. He specifically wanted a film with a minimum of violence and gore. He was tired of seeing horror films that relied almost entirely on viscera to be scary. The focus of the film was crystallised when he "finally hit upon the abstract concept of sacrifice." The image of the wicker man, which gave the filmmakers their title, was taken from the description of the practice of human sacrifice by the Gauls in Julius Caesar's Commentaries on the Gallic War: "Others have figures of vast size, the limbs of which formed of osiers they fill with living men, which being set on fire, the men perish enveloped in the flames."[17] For Shaffer, this was "the most alarming and imposing image that I had ever seen."[18] The idea of a confrontation between a modern Christian and a remote, pagan community continued to intrigue Shaffer, who performed painstaking research on paganism. Brainstorming with Hardy, they conceived the film as presenting the pagan elements objectively and accurately, accompanied by authentic music and a believable, contemporary setting.[19] One of their main resources was The Golden Bough, a study of mythology and religion written by Scottish anthropologist James Frazer.

Television actor Edward Woodward was cast in the role of Sergeant Neil Howie after the part was declined by both Michael York and David Hemmings.[22] In Britain, Woodward was best known for the role of Callan, which he played from 1967 to 1972. After The Wicker Man, Woodward went on to receive international attention for his roles in the 1980 film Breaker Morant and the 1980s TV series The Equalizer.
After Shaffer saw her on the stage, he lured Diane Cilento out of semi-retirement to play the town's schoolmistress.[22] (They lived together in Queensland from 1975, and married in 1985). Ingrid Pitt, another British horror film veteran, was cast as the town librarian and registrar. Swedish actress Britt Ekland was cast as the innkeeper's lascivious daughter, although two body doubles were used for her naked scenes below the waist. Ekland found out that she was three months pregnant with her son Nic, to Lou Adler, two weeks into filming. Stuart Hopps (the film's choreographer) called upon Lorraine Peters, a nightclub dancer from Glasgow, who gyrated at the doorway[23] and against the wall of a bedroom in the fully nude "wall" scenes. Ekland's speaking and singing voices were dubbed by Annie Ross and Rachel Verney respectively.[24][25][23]
Local girl Jane Jackson was employed as Ekland's stand-in for camera setups. Jackson was blonde-haired and bore a resemblance to Ekland but was otherwise not involved in any filming.

The film was produced at a time of crisis for the British film industry. The studio in charge of production, British Lion Films, was in financial trouble and was bought by wealthy 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 although The Wicker Man was set in spring, filming actually began in October 1972; artificial leaves and blossoms had to be glued to trees in many scenes. The production was kept on a small budget.[22] Christopher Lee was extremely keen to get the film made; he and others worked on the production without pay.[27] While filming took place, British Lion was bought by EMI Films.
The film was shot almost entirely in the small Scottish towns of Stranraer, Gatehouse of Fleet, Newton Stewart, Kirkcudbright, Anwoth and Creetown in Galloway, as well as Plockton in Ross-shire.[28] Some scenes were filmed in and around the Isle of Whithorn, where the owners of the castle, Elizabeth McAdam McLaughland and David Wheatley, plus several other local people, featured in various scenes.[29] Culzean Castle in Ayrshire and its grounds and Floors Castle in Roxburghshire were also used for the shooting. Some of the opening flying shots feature the Isle of Skye, including the pinnacles of The Storr and the Quiraing. The interior cave scenes were filmed inside Wookey Hole in Somerset. Hush Heath Estate in Staplehurst, Kent, makes a brief appearance in the film, doubling as Lord Summerisle's orchard and gardens.[30] The climax of the film was shot at St Ninian's Cave and on the clifftops at Burrow Head in Wigtownshire.
The amphibious aircraft that carries Sergeant Howie was a Thurston Teal, owned and flown in the aerial sequences by Christopher Murphy.
According to Britt Ekland, some animals perished in the wicker man,[31][better source needed] whereas Robin Hardy said in an interview that great care was taken to ensure that the animals were in no danger of being hurt during this scene, and that they were not inside the wicker man when it was set on fire.

The film brought the wicker man into modern popular culture.[9] In recent times, a wicker man has been burnt at festivals such as Burning Man in the United States,[9] and the former Wickerman Festival in Scotland.
In 1998, Swedish black metal band Marduk used a line from this film on the introduction to the track "Slay The Nazarene" from the album Nightwing.
In 2000, British heavy metal band Iron Maiden released a single called "The Wicker Man" in tribute to the film.
In 2016, British band Radiohead released the music video for the song "Burn the Witch", made in stop-motion animation and whose storyline greatly resembles that of The Wicker Man.[74][75][76]
In 2001, British band Pulp released "Wickerman" on their We Love Life album, which features a sample of Willow's Song.
The White, a 2008 EP by American extreme metal band Agalloch, included three tracks featuring samples of dialogue from the film: "The Isle of Summer", "Summerisle Reprise", and "Sowilo Rune".[77]
In the film Shallow Grave, Ewan McGregor's character is shown watching the final scene, representing the building sense of doom the character is experiencing.
The creators of The League of Gentlemen television series often reference the film in their work, particularly in the Inside No. 9 episode "Mr King".
For Record Store Day 2024 'Katy J Pearson & Friends' released a 9 track EP The Wicker Man with covers of songs from the film. The EP, on Heavenly Recordings, (HVN72412)[78] features collaborations with Broadside Hacks, Drug Store Romeos, Sarah Meth, Orbury Common, Evie Hilyer-Zietler, Bert Ussher, H.Hawkline plus special guests as well as remixes by Richard Norris and Stone Club.[79]
A yearly Wicker Man festival is held in Fishtoft, Lincolnshire, featuring live music from Ian Cutler, who featured in the original film as the fiddle player.