We watched the green Knight recently. At the end my wife (who is not a medieval nerd and doesn’t know the Arthurian stories) turned and said “that was agonising. nothing happened”.
Now I need you to understand I love this woman. We have been together 15 years and I can think of nothing I want more than that time again threefold. Even so, even so.
HOW DID SHE MISS HE WENT ON A JOURNEY TO LEARN THE KNIGHTLY VIRTUES? FUCKING HOW???
He gets punished for failing to live up to them and rewarded when he fulfils them. Ugh!
Anyway mediocre film btw. I enjoyed the retelling as Arthuriana is all about mixing and matching (lmao the French “eh, ve whilll aghd our ouwn Knight aaaand eee will be ze moist 'ansooom aaand ze moist skilled and eee whill erhm 'ow you say? cuckhold Arthwer”) but it was a bit glacial and the buildings were not painted garish colours so minus points for accuracy.
edit: oh also they’re cowards for doing the high hairline beauty standard for women but not committing to the no eyebrows and lipless part. Face like the side of an egg! face like the side of an egg!
Dunno, as another not medieval nerd I liked the movie, and the pacing was mostly quite fine. To each their own, probably. But yeah, would’ve been interesting to watch if the beauties were as you described
They had a bit of a struggle as the poem it’s based on is basically just like “Oh and he had sooo many adventures. Soo many. Earned so much fame, oh it was the best time man. So fucking cool”
Cutting the lord’s house short was a bit sad though, I get get that we’re massively less into threes than medieval people and the full thing would have dragged but more homoerotic tension and courtly love games is always fun. Plus I got so excited for the handy if they were keeping with the original (keeps sash, gives smooches). Could’ve been a fun ways to explore how differently sex and sexuality was conceived of too.
Yeah, after I watched the movie I read the poem in hopes of understanding the movie better. I kinda did, but only because of the analysis article three times the length of the poem itself. Well, it should be no surprise, times have changed a lot and knowing the context makes things much more interesting to read
There’s a podcast, it’s a bit formulaic and ad riddled, called myths and legends. They do a retelling of Gawain and the Green Knight and I think it’s quite good. Blends a few stories and adapts it for a modern audience. He also tends to interspere a few jokes and metacomments as he tells things which can help with some of the friction encountered when ancient stories are told in modern times.
