It’s all about Gawain becoming a man, about Gawain becoming “Gawain.” In the film, rendering Gawain as younger, as yet unaccomplished, and not really even a knight, a man who over the course of the movie has to confront difficult situations on his own, makes the medieval theme of “becoming”-of growing up-all the starker. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight “is a kind of coming-of-age story,” says Godden. Richard Godden, a literary scholar at Louisiana State University, explains how the medieval poem subverts readers’ expectations: People tend to think that “medieval literature didn’t have a sense of subjectivity and self-consciousness,” that people living in the European Middle Ages didn’t think about themselves and their place in the world. In fact, much of the poem is about how Gawain is readying to face his doom, waiting for the Green Knight to repay the blow that Gawain struck the Christmas before.Īlthough the poem only exists in one manuscript copy, it’s been celebrated in both popular and academic culture for the past several centuries. In both, Gawain launches on a journey that is as much about self-discovery and contemplation as it is about an epic, heroic quest to vanquish a magical foe. Some of the details between the film and its source material are, of course, different, but the themes at their respective hearts remain consistent. Written, directed and produced by filmmaker David Lowery, the movie is based on a 14th-century Middle English poem titled Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Gawain accepts the Green Knight’s challenge of a “Christmas game,” setting the stage for a saga filled with magic, horror and-ultimately-honor.
Arthur’s wife, Queen Guinevere (Kate Dickie), smiles and says, “Yet.” Viewers immediately know that adventure awaits-a feeling confirmed soon after, when the mysterious Green Knight appears at the court’s Christmas celebrations. Ashamed, Gawain (played by Dev Patel) tells Arthur (Sean Harris) that he has no stories to tell. Toward the beginning of the new film The Green Knight, King Arthur turns to Gawain, his young nephew and (later) one of the most famous Knights of the Round Table, and asks him to tell a story.