{"id":9556,"date":"2018-05-30T19:36:43","date_gmt":"2018-05-31T01:36:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9556"},"modified":"2018-05-30T19:36:43","modified_gmt":"2018-05-31T01:36:43","slug":"a-completely-alien-society-the-making-of-the-wicker-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=9556","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;A Completely Alien Society&#8221;: The Making of &#8220;The Wicker Man&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<div style=\"width: 384px;\" class=\"wp-video\"><video class=\"wp-video-shortcode\" id=\"video-9556-1\" width=\"384\" height=\"288\" preload=\"metadata\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"video\/mp4\" src=\"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/wicker-man-documentary.mp4?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/wicker-man-documentary.mp4\">https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/wicker-man-documentary.mp4<\/a><\/video><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt0070917\/?ref_=nv_sr_1\"><em>The Wicker Man<\/em><\/a>, made in 1973 and starring <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0000489\/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t2\">Christopher Lee<\/a> as Lord Summerisle, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0940919\/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t1\">Edward Woodward<\/a> as Sergeant Howie of the West Highland Police, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.imdb.com\/name\/nm0001180\/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_t4\">Britt Ekland<\/a> as Willow, the Aphrodite Pandemos of Summerisle, is remembered simultaneously as &#8220;the best British horror film ever&#8221; and one of the favorite movies of the Pagan revival during the 1970s, 1980s, and beyond.<\/p>\n<p>Pagans for the most part emphatically do not view it as\u00a0 horror film, although some avert their eyes or explain away the last few minutes. Instead, they see Summerisle, the fictional Scottish island setting, not as a &#8220;a completely alien society&#8221; but as a place where they would very much like to live \u2014 or at least go on holiday.<\/p>\n<p>In 1998, to mark its twenty-fifth anniversary, BBC Scotland produced<em> The Wicker Man Enigma,\u00a0<\/em> this half-hour documentary about <em>The Wicker Man&#8217;s <\/em>making and, equally important, its mysterious post-editing existence. Some of the cast were re-interviewed: Lee reads dialogue that was cut from the final version, while Edward Woodward revisits the Scottish hotel where key scenes were filmed, socializing with some of the locals who were extras there in the &#8220;Green Man&#8221; pub.<\/p>\n<p>Various trivia are examined, such as whether Britt Ekland actually had two nude body doubles rather than one, or whether a complete negative still exists, and how <em>The Wicker Man <\/em>inverts a common trope of horror films, in which sex leads to death \u2014 think of Dracula or any number of &#8220;dead teenager&#8221; movies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Wicker Man, made in 1973 and starring Christopher Lee as Lord Summerisle, Edward Woodward as Sergeant Howie of the West Highland Police, and Britt Ekland as Willow, the Aphrodite Pandemos of Summerisle, is remembered simultaneously as &#8220;the best British horror film ever&#8221; and one of the favorite movies of the Pagan revival during the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[36,5,17],"class_list":["post-9556","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-movies","tag-paganism","tag-scotland"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-2u8","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":483,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=483","url_meta":{"origin":9556,"position":0},"title":"Apples and Honey","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 6, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Even though it was billed as a horror film, and even though no one whom I knew ever endorsed the ending, the 1973 movie The Wicker Man still inspired many of us who were then in the Pagan movement. We loved the idea of a place like Summerisle, a functioning\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4494,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4494","url_meta":{"origin":9556,"position":1},"title":"&#8220;The Wicker Tree&#8221; and &#8220;The Wicker Man&#8221;","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"July 20, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Don't count on me for breaking pop-culture news. That Pagan classic film The Wicker Man was released in 1973, but I did not see it until the mid-1980s. I always say that I missed the 1980s in pop-culture terms. Part of that was due to graduate school and a general\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"movies\"","block_context":{"text":"movies","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=movies"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1911,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1911","url_meta":{"origin":9556,"position":2},"title":"The Horror! The Horror!","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 23, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"At The Witching Hour, Peg surveys some lists of best Halloween films. For pagan-themed horror films, or those including witches, at any rate, you can't beat The Wicker Man, The Craft, Practical Magic (Griffin Dunne, 1998), The Exorcist (William Friedkin, 1973), Rosemary's Baby (Roman Polanski, 1968), The Devil Rides Out\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Halloween\"","block_context":{"text":"Halloween","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=halloween"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2031,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2031","url_meta":{"origin":9556,"position":3},"title":"More Pagan than the Pagans","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 18, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Two videos that surprised Pagan bloggers by their Pagan feel, despite their sources. 1. Via Hecate of Washington, DC, a link to a Vimeo slideshow of the \"Rappahanock Halloween Festival\" sponsored by the Summerisle Old Dominion Hunt in northern Virginia. She comments, \"How many Pagan Samhein [sic] events have you\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Halloween\"","block_context":{"text":"Halloween","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=halloween"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":247,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=247","url_meta":{"origin":9556,"position":4},"title":"Another Pagan Classic","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 19, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"I have been re-reading Donna Tartt's The Secret History, the leading entry in the literary genre of \"when Classics majors go bad.\" It was first published in 1992, and I did my part for her royalty payments by sending at least three hardcover copies as Christmas presents in 1993. Sales\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Paganism\"","block_context":{"text":"Paganism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=paganism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":6163,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=6163","url_meta":{"origin":9556,"position":5},"title":"Wicker Man, Wicker Masks","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 15, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"At The Bosky Man, Andy Letcher tells how playing a gig at the Ludlow Medieval Fair let him to meet an Irish band whose members perform wearing wicker masks, made by a 90-something-year-old Irish mask-maker who is the last of his kind. That's a pity because both invoke an odd,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animals\"","block_context":{"text":"animals","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animals"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/2.bp.blogspot.com\/-_CtWSYbQ3kQ\/UpMeipWWpkI\/AAAAAAAACKM\/p1w1eedfN7I\/s320\/Scary%2Bmask.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9556","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9556"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9556\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9561,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9556\/revisions\/9561"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9556"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9556"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9556"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}