Getting a Head

Films: The Green Knight
Format: DVD from DeKalb Public Library on rockin’ flatscreen.

I knew from the moment that the reviews started coming in that I would be watching The Green Knight eventually. On the surface, this is the definition of an Oscar film. The Green Knight has 89% approval on Rotten Tomatoes from critics and a mere 50% from audiences. It’s artsy, based on a classic story, and has a solid cast. This blog looks at seven different Oscar categories. I could see this nominated in four of them at the upcoming Oscars—Picture, Director, Actor, and Adapted Screenplay. I have no idea if it will be a contender, but I think it should be.

The Green Knight is a fairly straightforward version of the Arthurian legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Rather than spoil what the story is, I’m going to give the basics of the legend, since the film does a good job of sticking to the broad strokes of the story. At Christmas, Arthur and his knights are visited by The Green Knight, who offers a unique challenge. He puts it to the knights that he will suffer a blow from any one of them, if they agree to track him down and find him in a year (in the story, it was on New Year’s Day) and receive the same blow in return.

The (Very) Slow Passage of Time

Films: A Ghost Story
Format: DVD from Sycamore Public Library on The New Portable.

Sometimes, this hobby is a frustrating one. I don’t expect to love every movie that I watch, but I’m not always game for a film that is going to more or less be work. A Ghost Story, for much of its 92-minute running time, is work. This is one of those films where nothing happens for a very long time. Sometimes, like with the films of Robert Bresson, that can work for me. Other times, that becomes not unlike sitting through Jeanne Dielmann and I want to pull my own head off. Oddly, A Ghost Story is both.

This is not a plot-heavy film. A musician (Casey Affleck) and his wife (Rooney Mara) live in a house, evidently in or around Dallas. She wants to leave and he doesn’t. One night, something makes a noise on the piano, but they can’t find a cause. Soon after, he is killed in a car accident. His wife identifies the body. When everyone has left, he sits up, still covered in the sheet. That sheet is going to be important, because our spirit is going to spend the rest of the film wearing it much like the old-school depiction of a ghost, a sheet with eye holes cut into it.