The Wicker Man (Neil LaBute, 2006)

[tryavna]

The shorter cut of the original is the best one. The full versions of the songs are nice to have in the extended version, but there's a whole lot of extraneous Pagan window-dressing and red herrings that slows the film down to a crawl and the opening scene on the mainland is useless.

I disagree. The longer cut is the way to go. It makes a huge difference knowing that Howie is on the island for two nights rather than just one -- because it demonstrates the degree to which he's being manipulated and because it creates a sense of "slow burn" that's especially effective in terms of Howie's virginity. (Having Britt slap the walls the first night makes no sense without knowing about the young boy's "initiation" the previous evening.)

Of course, the longer cut suffers from poorer A/V quality, which is intensified by the shoddy NTSC->PAL transfer on the R2 Warner release. (Hopefully the 3-disc re-release will correct this?) So unforunately, the Anchor Bay 2-disc offers the best image quality to date for the extended cut. (Fortunately, it still pops up regularly on Amazon for under $50.)

[Anonymous]

It appears the new Anchor Bay DVD is not a reissue of the earlier short version of the film, instead its the American Theatrical Version which was released in 1979, and taken straight from Roger Corman's negative of the long cut. As far as I know it has never been released on DVD. The 88 minute runtime Anchor Bay has listed is apparently a mistake (at least that is what they have told the loyal Wickites at the wicker-man.com ). The A.T.V. is actually around 92-96 minutes long, and I believe the only major sequence that is trimmed is the mainland sequence with Howie at the beginning of the long cut. The f'ed up chronology of the island sequence has been corrected and I think much of the other original footage has been restored, though I can't be sure, as I've never seen this version (I'm going on the information available at http://www.steve-p.org/wm/ ). The image quality should also be consistant (unlike the long cut) since the entire cut was taken from Corman's original negative and not the infinitely crappy 1 inch video tape copy of it, which was used to fill in the holes of long cut in the 2001 DVD release because Corman's negative had by then disappeared.

[Narshty]

I disagree. The longer cut is the way to go. It makes a huge difference knowing that Howie is on the island for two nights rather than just one

I've heard this claim before and I can't understand it. Are people asleep when

Spoiler

he exhumes Rowan's grave, confronts Lord Summerisle then breaks into the chemist's darkroom? All these happen at night after his second day on the island has gone past.

because it demonstrates the degree to which he's being manipulated and because it creates a sense of "slow burn" that's especially effective in terms of Howie's virginity. (Having Britt slap the walls the first night makes no sense without knowing about the young boy's "initiation" the previous evening.)

Britt appearing on the first night has a lot more impact though. The accompanying "What the fuck?" factor makes it far more unsettling. I still find the shorter version a tighter, more mysterious film, less on-the-nose and more economical in its storytelling.

Eric Boyd-Perkins is one of the film's saviours, to my mind - he's viewed as the studio lackey who blithely chopped the film down to suit the fat cats, but he shows more genuine understanding of the strengths (and, crucially, the weaknesses) of Anthony Shaffer's script than the film's own director.

[blindside8zao]

that's great news about the anchor bay DVD. I think it's only like 10 bucks.

[DrewReiber]

The AB solicitations and Amazon still list it as the 88 minute version, unfortunately. Unless the official sources can confirm this, I'm going to assume they didn't license the Corman version.

[tryavna]

I disagree. The longer cut is the way to go. It makes a huge difference knowing that Howie is on the island for two nights rather than just one

I've heard this claim before and I can't understand it. Are people asleep when

Spoiler

he exhumes Rowan's grave, confronts Lord Summerisle then breaks into the chemist's darkroom? All these happen at night after his second day on the island has gone past.

because it demonstrates the degree to which he's being manipulated and because it creates a sense of "slow burn" that's especially effective in terms of Howie's virginity. (Having Britt slap the walls the first night makes no sense without knowing about the young boy's "initiation" the previous evening.)

Britt appearing on the first night has a lot more impact though. The accompanying "What the fuck?" factor makes it far more unsettling. I still find the shorter version a tighter, more mysterious film, less on-the-nose and more economical in its storytelling.

Eric Boyd-Perkins is one of the film's saviours, to my mind - he's viewed as the studio lackey who blithely chopped the film down to suit the fat cats, but he shows more genuine understanding of the strengths (and, crucially, the weaknesses) of Anthony Shaffer's script than the film's own director.

I guess I see what you're trying to say, but I still disagree. I find that the shorter version flows too much like a traditional thriller, which is perhaps why you like. However, it lacks the anthropological richness of the longer cut -- less atmosphere, less music, less characterization of the community. Shaffer and Robin Hardy were clearly trying to do something different, and the studio execs (especially Michael Deeley) just didn't seem to "get" it. (Not that I'd single Boyd-Perkins out for criticism. The fact that he managed to keep some of the unique flavor of the longer cut in his shorter hatchet-job is testament to the fact that he did possess some "genuine understanding" of the film, as you say. Though I'd never give him more credit than either Shaffer or Hardy.)

[Ste]

The AB solicitations and Amazon still list it as the 88 minute version, unfortunately. Unless the official sources can confirm this, I'm going to assume they didn't license the Corman version.

Just picked up the DVD this afternoon. Haven't had a chance to play it through fully yet, but I can tell you that the running time is 88 minutes, and the menu design is exactly the same as the old R1. A straight repackage, then.

Re. the great which-cut-is-better debate, I would have to take the middle ground on this one.

The opening sequence on the mainland is, I think, a mistake. From the "Jesus saves" graffiti to the tittering postman, the whole sequence smacks of soap opera to me. It is poorly scripted and acted, and serves little purpose other than to hit us over the head from the very off with Howie's character faults.

Knowing that Howie is equally despised and ridiculed in his own community robs the film of its emotional ambiguity. The Short Version is much more mysterious in this regard. Our allegiance, at least initially, lies squarely with Howie, and only changes gradually as the plot unveils itself.

As far as the rest of the chronology is concerned, I generally prefer that of the Long Version.

The initiation of Ash Buchanan -- accompanied by the wonderful song "Gently Johnny" -- together with the frosty confrontation between Howie and Willow the following morning, is essential in setting up the sexual tension between the two. Moving Willow's dance forward to the first night makes no sense whatsoever, and, again, robs it of much of its power. (I agree it is absolutely clear, even in the Short Version, that Howie spends two nights on the island. I'm baffled how anyone can see it any different.)

The major problem with the initiation scene is the early appearance of Christopher Lee. I LOVE the bit with the snails where Lee quotes from Walt Whitman, but it does take something away from Lee's later confrontation with Howie in the Great Hall. You can't have your cake and eat it, however, and I see this primarily as a scripting error. My gut feeling is to keep the scene intact, but it is a close call.

The rest of Eric Boyd-Perkins's cuts are small ones that do not affect the plot greatly, and, again, in some cases, save the film from falling into soap opera territory. The scene with the doctor is one such example that was rightly excised. Some nice characterisation did, inevitably, end up on the cutting room floor (I love the hairdressers!), but overall I think Boyd-Perkins did an admirable job, under orders, of tightening up some pretty flabby scenes.

I have never seen the Middle Version, but I'm guessing that I would prefer it to either of the other two. Damn those misleading fools at Anchor Bay.

ADDITION:

One thing has always bugged me about the opening sequence in the Long Version. When later we see the calendar for 1973 in the chemist's shop, it clearly shows May 1st (May Day) as being a Tuesday. Howie spends two nights on the island, which would mean that he received the letter on a Sunday. There is no post on a Sunday.

A markedly different trailer from the UK can be found here.

[colinr0380]

Oh no! Just listened to Mark Kermode's review of the Wicker Man on BBC Radio 5 Live and here are selected quotes:

What he's done is that he's taken the Christian vs Pagan allegory of the film and turned it into a men vs women allegory....this time Nic Cage is an American cop who is contacted to go out to a remote island, there aren't many remote islands around the coast of America but they have found one where a matriacal cult is ruling the island. He's not religious but he is a man.......

....Couple of things that rang alarm bells - the BBFC gave the film a 12A rating, the original was an X rated film and was scary as anything, the last twenty minutes of the Wicker Man was really chilling, I don't think it is a brilliantly directed film but the original with all its quirks, oddities and flaws has something really powerful particularly in the last thirty minutes a real sense of pagan ritual and two clashing religious ethoses, pagan and Christian. In the remake, the very fact that its a 12A tells you all you need to know. It's a film suitable for kids - that's not good enough for a Wicker Man remake.

The problems are manyfold - one of them is that we have to establish that there is an island off the coast of North America that has no contact at all with the modern world so every five minutes Nicolas Cage has to wander around taking his mobile phone out to remind us that there is no mobile phone signal. No electricity, no mobile phone signal. Although strangely in the beginning of the film when he looks the place up there is a website!

He then gets to the island. In the original film there is something very strange about the villagers but they are recognisably strange. In the remake, no, they have all clearly landed from a Star Trek episode. Remember that episode of Star Trek where William Shatner lands on the planet entirely ruled by women? It is like that in the drawing of the characters.

Thirdly, Nicolas Cage, with the best will in the world, is not Edward Woodward. One of the reasons the first Wicker Man is so good is that Edward Woodward's performance is extraordinary. He gives a really great performance as an uptight, puritanical policeman who suddenly comes face to face with this religion he cannot deal with at all and when the awful denoument is revealed the ghastliness of it all is filtered through Woodward's reactions. Nicloas Cage going "oh no!" is just Nicolas Cage going "oh no!". He does however have the best line in the movie when he pulls his gun and says "Madam, get away from the bicycle!" ... I think it must have been intended to be funny.

In order to keep the action potential up, they've obviously made the film and realised how dull it is, so every five minutes somebody has to fall through a ceiling, or he gets attacked by killer bees or almost drowns. What it feels like is they know is nothing is happening until the end - then we get to the end and the ending, if you've seen the original the extraordinary setpiece with the Wicker Man - they redo it in the remake and you feel it is really boring, really uninspiring and uneventful and I don't care. It is so limp, lacking in any sort of magic or dramatic force that they have to do a pay off epilogue to make it work. None of it makes sense, is convincing and has any justification for existing whatsoever and I speak as somebody who went in with as high expectations as you could have because, as I said before, I don't think the original Wicker Man is a perfect film. But it is one of the reasons I like it because there are a lot of things wrong with it - it was made under such shockingly tight budget conditions and with such tension surrounding the film itself and when Neil LaBute said it is one of those films you can reapproach and bring a different story to I thought yes! That's a great idea, go for it! Then you sit there in the cinema and go NO! it's just so wet Nicolas Cage and Ellen Burstyn in a frock and a guy with a box of matches and put your mobile phone away Nicolas I KNOW there's no mobile signal (at the end incidentally his mobile rings after spending 80 minutes saying there's no signal at the place) I just wandered out thinking 'there you go another great 70's horror movie spoilt'.

He goes on to say the remake doesn't use any of the music:

The score is by Angelo Badalamenti, and he is a great composer, but here its like he's found something in the back of his writing drawer that is a bit sinister and handed it over

Phew! He also recommends the book Inside The Wicker Man by Alan Brown as being the best read on the original film.

Also, I've noticed that while the film is a 12A all the TV adverts have it as a 15 - wishful thinking?

Does it seem like LaBute is stuck in the man/woman conflict rut?

It's nothing compared to his review of Little Man later in the programme though ('If you go and see it - SHAME ON YOU! - I would rather see a Pirates of the Caribbean double bill on a continuous loop for a whole weekend than Little Man again!')

[tavernier]

Destroyed by A.O. Scott in the NY Times:

[quote]Some movies are so special that they need to be kept secret. “The Wicker Man,â€

[Ste]

Just saw the remake this afternoon. Terrible. Just terrible.

LaBute, trying desperately to avoid the main Christianity-versus-Paganism theme of the original, achieves his goal only at the expense of any greater meaning -- or believability. In the few moments when it can't be avoided entirely, religion is dealt with in the most anodyne of manners: "Oh, gods and goddesses of nature," indeed.

Cage's gung-ho dialogue is laughable. Not to mention the fact that Willow seems to exist purely to explain to him -- and the audience -- the plot. I had to laugh during the schoolroom scene when Cage exclaims, "Sister Rose -- another plant!" For fuck's sake, can people not figure that stuff out for themselves?

What a waste of time.

Btw, did anyone else get the impression that LaBute was going for a two-for-one deal with Don't Look Now? Blind old hags, flashbacks/delusions of a little girl dressed in red ....

[Fletch F. Fletch]

"The Best" scenes from the remake here

[tryavna]

"The Best" scenes from the remake here

Brilliant! This certainly has one of the best line in recent memory:

"Killing me won't bring back your god-damn honey!"

Only one question remains: Why didn't Cage punch out the kids, too?

[Matt]

Oh my god. Could this film be even more awful than I could possibly have imagined?

[Fletch F. Fletch]

Oh my god. Could this film be even more awful than I could possibly have imagined?

Altho, that YouTube montage does transform it into an unintentionally funny camp classic! Or, at the very least, a drinking game. Take drink every time Cage slaps or hits a woman....

[Matt]

Is he still

Spoiler

a virgin

in the remake?

[colinr0380]

That clip is actually making me want to see the film after having avoided it completely! More lady punching please, after all they do balance things out by killing him! (Just like real male/female relationships! ) It sounds like it could be a laugh riot - if it wasn't raping memories of the original at the same time!

Is he still

Spoiler

a virgin

in the remake?

Spoiler

No, I heard it is his daughter that his ex asks him to come to the island to find in this version. Grrrr.

I really like Cage as an actor, but I think what he needs to do now is tackle a project rooted in reality, rather than something so absurd. There is no way that could be messed up......oops

[sevenarts]

Oh my god. Could this film be even more awful than I could possibly have imagined?

No matter how bad you imagined, I guarantee you it was worse. Cage's "acting" was horribly stilted to the point that many dead-serious lines drew laughs. And perhaps the worst of all was that the crucial (and supposedly chilling) finale had the whole theater cracking up when I saw it. I'd found the idea of revisiting Wicker Man as a straight-up horror flick a potentially appealing one initially, but if anything this was even LESS scary than the original. I may even have laughed more than I did at the original, which was intentionally camp and silly. This one strived for seriousness and scares, and still wound up at silly.

[cdnchris]

It's like they read my mind. When I first saw the original I was thinking there definitely wasn't enough of Edward Woodward drop kicking teenagers. I'm glad they at least fixed that.

(I'm so renting this this weekend)

[Len]

They should've just used a collection of clips like that as the trailer. I had no interest whatsoever in seeing the film before seeing Nick Cage in a bear suit punching women. I don't know what that says about me, but I do know that now I really want to see the film. Looks hilarious.

Also, "NOT THE BEES, , NOT THE BEEEEEES, AAARGH MY EYES" has my vote for the best line of dialogue of 2006.

[domino harvey]

[tavernier]

The DVD's a definite must-rent, if only to hear LaBute's commentary (and he's not apologizing).

[John Cope]

Wow. Where does one start with this?

Well, it's certainly not a successful film but it isn't a total disaster either if only for the ways in which it flirts with and alludes to LaBute's own thematic preoccupations and those things which presumably motivated this remake. I should add that I love the original and that made seeing any virtues in this elusive text that much more difficult.

This is a movie that's constantly at odds with itself, undercutting its own best intentions. Clearly it can and should be situated within LaBute's larger oeuvre in order for it to have any resonance at all. On its own it seems outright dreadful. However, throughout there are flickering moments in which you can see what must have been meant and how it could have developed into something with force had all the strings been pulled taut. These are the examples that spring to mind: the way in which Cage handles his encounter with the teacher, asserting a privileged masculine authority (this resurfaces a number of times actually, usually accompanied by the presumed validation of his badge, rendered an empty signifier here--it is, perhaps, his inability to see this that dooms him); the absurdly comic scenes with Cage on the bike, exposing the underlying emasculation of this society; and the Christ figure glimpsed briefly floating submerged--patriarchal religiosity replaced by a supposedly more refined matriarchal variety.

Still, none of this comes together or has any weight because LaBute, perhaps through no fault of his own, has been forced to make drastic concessions to a studio mentality. The film is so slick and familiar in its cutting and pacing and framing and everything else that it does not arouse or distress ever; compare it to the extreme alienation provided by the original which does not condescend or feel familiar at all. That version is helped by concentrating on aspects of belief and devotion which transcend the socio-political gender squabblings of LaBute. These ideas, too, are familiar and easy to get a handle on--they don't really rattle us because we've seen this sort of stuff so many times before (particularly from LaBute himself). The end of the original traumatizes for all manner of reasons if one is open to them as viable; here, on the other hand, it's as though the very act of including such a pessimistic ending to the narrative is sufficient. LaBute comfortably ignores the ways in which his formal presentation drains power from his images.

Forget LaBute for a minute. What was Cage thinking? He produced this after all. Did he assume that his histrionics would register as heightened realism, a form of deep distress? Did he and LaBute conceive of this as an Almodovarian foray into melodrama? There are many points where it feels as though they did. And what's up with Kate Beahan? She's incredibly beautiful but grates after only a few minutes as she's apparently been given instruction to display only one expression--constantly perplexed. I must say, however, that it was nice to see the twins from The Reflecting Skin show up in a similar spooky capacity here. The memory of that film doesn't help this one, though.

Finally, mention must be made of Badalamenti's score. This is the first time I can recall in which his usually sublime music works in opposition to the images on screen. It's overwrought and hollow like everything else, enhancing "suspense" in obvious, easy ways and underlining moments that might have worked had there been no cues at all (like the scene where the girl falls out of the closet and everyone has a good laugh at Cage's expense). Why couldn't we have had a purely ambient score for this, something like what Hahn Rowe did with the prevalence of natural noise in Clean, Shaven? Admittedly I'm biased here as I'm an ambient freak and would like almost everything to be scored this way (enjoying a little Lustmord as I write this).

One last point. That sloppy, campy scene in which Cage struggles through a field of giant beehives couldn't help but make me think of Cremaster 2. Oh, what Barney could have done with this!

[colinr0380]

The DVD's a definite must-rent, if only to hear LaBute's commentary (and he's not apologizing).

Is this another candidate for The Onion's Commentary Tracks of the Damned? Is it an 'upbeat' track where everyone and everything is amazing, or is a 'blinkered' commentary pointedly not talking about the flaws?

One last point. That sloppy, campy scene in which Cage struggles through a field of giant beehives couldn't help but make me think of Cremaster 2. Oh, what Barney could have done with this!

Giant, lactating breasts?

That mention of The Reflecting Skin has reminded me that I have to get around to watching my video of it.

[Orphic Lycidas]

What the hell?!? I just watched this utterly confused and laughed my head off. Then I clicked on the YouTube link and have been laughing maniacally non-stop for the last ten minutes. I *NEED* to see this movie!!

[RPG]

"The Best" scenes from the remake here

I am so, so happy this Youtube link is still working. I can't stop laughing.

I came to this thread because I attended the seminar screening last week at Bryn Mawr Film Institute of the original film, which I had never seen before. I knew what it was about, of course, and knew the ending and all that jazz, but I think I wasn't prepared for how (intentionally) funny it was. Christopher Lee has some gems of one liners, in particular. But nothing like this!