§1.0 - Points 1.0–1.9: THIS BLOG'S CONTENTS:
1.1 - THIS BLOG'S TITLE:
1.2 - PART I. NARCISSUS AND ECHO, THE ROMANI, THE FOLK-LORE FOREST, ROBIN HOOD, WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S CLASSICAL NEO-PAGANISM AND ITS DYSTOPIC REVISION IN THE FILM: MEN, 20 MAY 2022 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 100 MINUTES, WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ALEX GARLAND—A BLOG, 03 FEBRUARY 2025, BY CRAIG STEVEN JOSEPH LACEY /
1.3 - THIS BLOG'S LISTED SECTIONS AND NUMBERED POINTS:
+++1.4 - §2.0: Points 2.0–2.20: THE DISCLAIMER /1.5 - §3.0: Points 3.0–3.2: THE DATES OF RESEARCH, WRITING AND PUBLICATION /1.6 - §4.0: Points 4.0–4.37: CRAIG STEVEN JOSEPH LACEY'S INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS TO HIS ANALYSES OF THE FILM: MEN, 20 MAY 2022 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 100 MINUTES, WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ALEX GARLAND /1.7 - §5.0: Points 5.0–5.37: URBAN NARCISSUSES, TECHNOLOGY, FORBIDDEN FRUIT AND THE RICTUS GRIN /1.8 - §6.0: Points 6.0–6.27: THE ROMANI, THE FOREST PEOPLES AND WILD-MEN /1.9 - §7.0: Points 7.0–7.39: FAIRY TALE AND FOLK-LORE FORESTS: GENEVIEVE OF BRABANT, ROBIN HOOD AND WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S TWO GENTLEMEN FROM VERONA, CIRCA 1593 AND AS YOU LIKE IT, CIRCA 1599 //
§2.0 - THE DISCLAIMER—Refer directly beneath to points 2.0–2.20.
2.1 - All rights reserved © Craig Steven Joseph Lacey, 4 December 1976–, Australia. 2.2 - Changing the content or re-publishing this blog is strictly prohibited. 2.3 - This blog is protected by the: 2.4 - Privacy Act 1988 of Australia, against unauthorized access to Craig Steven Joseph Lacey's Samsung Galaxy A05s, and Google account; 2.5 -Cybercrime Act 2001 of Australia, against computer fraud or internet fraud; 2.6 - Copyright Act 1968 of Australia, against intellectual property theft; 2.7 -Universal Copyright Convention, circa 1952; 2.8 -Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, 9 September 1886. 2.9 - Fines and/or prosecution will apply according to Australian and International law in reference to unauthorized access and use of this blog published through the Blogger app of Google.com and the author's storage device(s) with the data. 2.10 - A total of nine images have been used within this blog, viz. at: 2.11 - point 4.28, the theatrical release poster for: MEN, 20 May 2022 United States Of America, 100 minutes; 2.12 - point 5.10, a film-still from: MEN, 20 May 2022 United States Of America, 100 minutes; 2.13 - point 5.16, a film-still from: MEN, 20 May 2022 United States Of America, 100 minutes; 2.14 - point 5.17, a film-still from: MEN, 20 May 2022 United States Of America, 100 minutes; 2.15 - point 5.26, a film-still from: MEN, 20 May 2022 United States Of America, 100 minutes; 2.16 - point 5.29, a film-still from: MEN, 20 May 2022 United States Of America, 100 minutes; 2.17 - point 6.5, a film-still from: MEN, 20 May 2022 United States Of America, 100 minutes; 2.18 - point 6.27, a film-still from: MEN, 20 May 2022 United States Of America, 100 minutes; 2.19 - point 7.31, the theatrical release poster for the film As You Like It 1 September 2006 Italy, 127 minutes, written and directed by Kenneth Branagh. 2.20 - This blog is strictly not for sale, now or in the future.
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§3.0 - DATES OF RESEARCH, WRITING AND PUBLICATION—Refer directly beneath to the points 3.1–3.3.
3.1 - This blog was started, 18.01.2025, and completed 03.02.2025, as researched and composed only by Craig Steven Joseph Lacey at Brisbane City, Queensland, Australia, 4000. 3.2 - Word count: 5,879 and characters count: 34,838. 3.3 - Last up-dated: 17:20, 13.02.2025, Australian Eastern Standard Time.
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§4.0 - CRAIG STEVEN JOSEPH LACEY'S INTRODUCTORY COMMENTS TO HIS ANALYSES OF THE FILM: MEN, 20 MAY 2022 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 100 MINUTES, WRITTEN AND DIRECTED BY ALEX GARLAND—refer directly beneath to the points 4.1–4.36.
4.1 - This folk-horror, art-house genre film, written and directed by Alex Garland, differs from his earlier films of the science-fiction genre, such as: 4.2 - Ex Machina, 16 December 2014 British Film Institute Southbank, 108 minutes, production companies: Film4 and DNA Films; 4.3 - through the director's focus on folk-horror elements identified by the British musician and film critic Adam Scovell in the text: 4.4 - Folk Horror: Hours Dreadful And Things Strange, circa 2017, Series: Auteur, Liverpool University Press, ISBN-10: 191132523X, ISBN-13: 9781911325239;<https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctv13841x8>.
4.5 - The folk-horror elements include: 4.6 - the film's natural landscape, the mise-en-scene that is an analogous topography, symbolic of the subject of the narrative, for example: neo-paganism; 4.7 - isolation: the protagonists are kept at a distance by the community; that is, ostracized among the people they live, or are isolated as a community, viz. the cult; 4.8 - often cruel and unusual beliefs and punishments—considered to be the effects of the first two listed folk-horror elements above; 4.9 - the happening or summoning: a climatic act that finalizes the involved cult's practices, such as through a ritualistic act. 4.10 - Also, the film: MEN, 20 May 2022 United States Of America, 100 minutes, further yet involves the different elements of another genre: art-house horror—or what I have referred to as the art-house folk-horror sub-genre—which involve elements formulated within the theory of film criticism forwarded by Adrian Gmelch per the text: 4.11 - Art-Horror: The Films Of Ari Aster And Robert Eggers, 25 April 2023, Create Space, ISBN 979-8364720719, page 92, viz.: 4.12 - an unique visual style; 4.13 - a reflexive cinematic style; 4.14 - a metaphysical discourse, often philosophical and associated with the medium of film. 4.15 -Specifically, Adrian Gmelch applies the phrase: "horror as a message vehicle" to emphasize the art-house horror film's use of a metaphysical discourse to underpin its portrayals of horror. 4.16 - Arguably, MEN, 20 May 2022 United States Of America, 100 minutes, engages with Alex Garland's earlier science-fiction films' metaphysical subject of a science-fiction styled dystopia, but in it the dystopia is treated as though it is a thing of the past and at the English country-side it simply remains unspoken of—and that is, despite Harper Marlowe already living in a future world it remains controlled by a primalism: where the forest harks of a return to paganism and the social order of the cult or village; not of the technological, futuristic styled London urbanity from which Harper Marlowe flees. 4.17 - Lest it be forgotten: this notion of the English country-side is now made in reference to what scarce English forest still exists: the patches of the Forest of Dean, filmed by the cinematographer Rob Hardy, entertain the fantasy that Britain is a nation still abundant with dense, green forests, when the reality is, the forests have been largely felled in something of an ecological apocalypse—and that point cannot really be forgotten. 4.18 - Perhaps, the film's gothic romanticism of the English green woods is really an encoded, metaphorical celebration of a pervasive, hard-drug use throughout Britain?—because the strange, almost hallucinogenic scenes of a shadow running at Harper Marlowe; the yellow, naked man, who later transforms in to the Green Man, signalise the ecological catastrophy of the forests' destruction, regarding which, the British would rather blot out by drug induced oblivion. 4.19 - Acknowledge the film's production company: DNA Films, is possibly best known for its grunge-styled portrayal of Scottish drug addicts in the film: 4.20 - Trainspotting, 23 February 1996, 93 minutes, directed by Danny Boyle, production companies: Channel Four Films, Figment Films and Noel Gay Motion Picture Company. 4.21 - Here the inference is that romanticism of any kind takes the form affected by hallucinogens—the film's Green Man, similar to the folk-lore of Tinkerbell's fairy dust, brings the herbs with "magical properties" to the people. 4.22 -However, this would be read-in to the film's treatment of a metaphysical dystopia, because arguably psychological realism is the subject proper of: MEN, 20 May 2022 United States Of America, 100 minutes. 4.23 - In relation to this blog's broader approach of interpretation, the iconography of Narcissus, the pastarol form, the wild-men, the Romani / forest people, the Green Man, Sheela-Na-Gig, the sacred deer, and Christianity—all exist beyond the monad of the self that defines psychologism. 4.24 - Further, neo-pagan elements of the narrative are interpreted as referring to Classicism as much as folk-lore, but this mythic, folk-lore world is a part of the film-lore—comparable to Adrian Gmelch's "film cosmos"—that involves a meta-narrational context to build upon other films' symbolic treatments of the subject, such as in reference to the Green Man: 4.25 - The Wicker Man, 6 December 1973 Britain, 88 minutes, directed by Robin Hardy; production company: British Lion Films; 4.26 -Whereas the appearance of Sheela-Na-Gig in this film is apparently something new, a variant of the earth goddess, and possibly Hecate, the feminine aspect of destruction and death; but she is inferred as being Harper Marlowe too, though as Harper Marlowe she is motherless, surrounded by and active in violence and death, and is involved in mourning or in the appearance of it. 4.27 - There are vague allusions to Harper Marlowe fashioned as a figure out of a Jane Austen text, with a scene of her playing the piano, and her later wearing a dress, Regency era styled and ultra feminine, that seems to make a statement on behalf of women: that greater civility and refinement are needed than what is offered by the tribalism of the neo-pagan cult. 4.28 - If it was not for the elevated, mysterious atmosphere, the film could be categorised as a black comedy: the irony of a pastoral romance that recalls William Shakespeare's comedies set in a forest—for example: As You Like It, circa 1599—but as against the tradition, timed during a widow's period of mourning—a matter which may approach what often characterises horror film per se: "bad taste", or anti-romance. 4.29 - Something eccentric emerges from the film, seemingly tinctured by the dark hues of death—similar to those taxidermied animals often found on the walls of British hunters' living rooms—and it is arguably evident in the film's theatrical release poster, in which the actor Rory Kinnear, as Geoffrey, is shown in a portrait photograph, partly silhouetted and with his face covered over by a typographical treatment of the film's title: "MEN", reminiscent of an army-styled red-stamp. 4.30 - Certainly, it is an ironic twist, a reversal of the film's insistence upon showing Rory Kinnear's face super-imposed by special effects on all the male characters of the film. 4.31 - Refer directly beneath at the theatrical release poster for: MEN, 20 May 2022 United States Of America, 100 minutes.
4.32 - The film's sound-track by Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow furthers the film's eccentricity: filled with minimalized vocals—calls and long notes stretched-out with tonal treatments reminiscent of Christian hymns; the fugue, based on the scene in which Harper Marlowe's echo is over-heard in the tunnel of the forest, replays as a motif; experimental, acoustic sounds which conjure an eerie, almost profound atmosphere; all insist upon a dark ambience that takes itself seriously, but with some room for game playing. 4.33 - Playfully then two folk-pop tunes top and tail the sound-track's ambient music: 4.34 - Love Song, circa 1973 by Lesley Duncan, and 4.35 - Love Song, circa 1970 by Elton John; 4.36 - and the irony is eccentrically humourous of a failing romance set within a post-apocalyptic country-side with a sentimentality for paganism. 4.37 - Further note, this is PART I. of this blog on: MEN, 20 May 2022 United States Of America, 100 minutes, to be followed by a PART II. blog, because I decided to dilate on this film that brings back personal memories to myself, though if the other subject of the changeling is involved here I cannot detect it; unless the wild-men are changelings?—a point that cannot be discussed further because the film either elides it, or there is simply nothing further to reveal.
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§5.0 - URBAN NARCISSUSES, TECHNOLOGY, FORBIDDEN FRUIT AND THE RICTUS GRIN—refer directly beneath to the points 5.1–5.37.
5.1 - The film's protagonist and only perspective, Harper Marlowe, acted by Jessie Buckley, goes on a retreat to the country-side near the Herefordshire village of Cotson (that is really filmed at Hereford), viz. at an old country estate, where she wishes to grieve for her recently deceased husband, regarding whom she may feel guilt by partly triggering his suicide that involved a fall from a residential complex. 5.2 - The care-taker of the country-side property, who rents it—as suggested through an AirBnB method—Geoffrey, acted by Rory Kinnear, asks, en passant, that is, during a tour of the house: "Where's hubby? ...'Mrs. Marlowe', no?" 5.3 - Harper Marlowe is perturbed by the question that reminds her of a past she is trying to close and move-on from; such as by being in a different setting other than the Saint Katherine Docks' apartment, upon the Thames, next to London Bridge and with the Shard tower in the mid-distance, at Southwark. 5.4 - Flash-backs of her tumultuous relationship at her apartment with James Marlowe, acted by Paapa Essiedu, interweave scenes of the city with the country-side. 5.5 - Harper Marlowe goes for a walk through the Forest of Dean where she encounters a tunnel and she calls out to hear for the echo to reverberate several times through the subterranean structure. 5.6 - A man appears in the distance and starts to run at her; he is only visible as a silhouetted figure; a shadow. 5.7 - The scene of the tunnel recalls The Myth Of Narcissus, such as narrated in: 5.8 - "Book III. The Avenging Gods" in The Metamorphoses / [from Ancient Greek]: μεταμορφώσεις: "Transformations" / Latin: Metamorphōsēs, circa 8 A.D., by the Roman poet Ovid—for example, the online resource at: <https://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/ovidillust.html>. 5.9 - According to the legend, Narcissus is called out for by Echo, yet the two remain forever divided from one another, because Narcissus is transfixed by his own reflection within a pool of water and Echo only waits to hear from Narcissus rather than observe and recognise him. 5.10 - A camera shot of the tunnel entrance reflected in a puddle makes use of the standard visual allusion to Narcissus—refer directly beneath, in which the half semi-circle of the entrance reflected by the water create a circle, symbolic of an enclosed, static system.
5.11 - The scenes in the forest are rendered enigmatic, such as the two figures, the shadowy Echo, and naked, yellow-coloured man, but further the pappus of a dandelion flower is zoomed-in on as Harper Marlowe is shown out of focus, running from the Echo, along the path towards the floating seed, until she catches it and is shown in a clear focus by the film camera. 5.12 - This could suggest Harper Marlowe has herself emerged from the "shadow state", as her figure blurs: a dark form resembling a shadow that gradually becomes defined at the point she catches the seed of the Dandelion—that is a further allusion to the fertility rite as the symbolic crux through which entry in to life is realised. 5.13 - Thus, a pagan lore is applied by the film: the urban narcissists, childless and forever bound to a courting rite, a remnant and adaptation of old Christendom's culture of declaring true love within the cities, appears to espouse childlessness or infertile times, viz. fallow periods— equivalent to narcissistic states of paradoxical "uninvolved involvement" regarding the community and society. 5.14 - A biological imperative must be obeyed: a man and woman must copulate and produce off-spring—the film's conveyance of a pagan, tribal exaltation of nature almost totally excludes post-industrial / modern styled identities based on work roles / duties; or states of illness; or ageing. 5.15 - After another peculiar encounter near the forest, Harper Marlowe returns to the manor, rests for the night, then, phones in tele-conference mode, her London-based friend, Riley, acted by Gayle Rankin, and debriefs of her experiences; and determined not to be further unsettled, she shows Riley the house and garden with the phone's camera. 5.16 - As Riley's face is portrayed within the phone, Harper Marlowe could be thought to stare at a hand-held mirror—particularly from the pagan perspective—and there emerges a further association of London styled, technological urbanity to an inward-turning, narcissistic mentality.
5.17 - There are scenes in which Harper Marlowe appears before a real mirror—for example, refer directly beneath, that brings the literal image of Narcissus to the film.
5.18 - At the country-side Harper Marlowe is supposedly grieving her dead husband who she wanted to divorce, but in who she may have triggered suicide: the circumstances are psychologically complex, and a certain amount of grief is expected, but is it obliged? 5.19 - There is a suspicion Harper Marlowe performs the grief—for example, she lies to Geoffrey about her not being able to play a piano, a matter of which exhibits her deceptiveness. 5.20 - When the naked man, who she noticed earlier, re-appears within the garden of the estate, Harper Marlowe hysterically shuts the front door, yet the naked man, remaining mute, goes to the door and stretches his arm through the door's mail box opening—an analogy of copulation, and being a signalized message associated with the mail post, the degree of dissociation is emphasized. 5.21 - Harper Marlowe phones the police who arrive and the matter is relegated to slight joking by the female officer, Frieda, acted by Sarah Twomey, though the naked man is arrested. 5.22 - Harper Marlowe appears provoked by the stone houses at the edge of the forest and not only by the yellow man, which, with her reminiscences of James's death, submerge her in to further melancholia. 5.23 - There is something suggested greater than that which is presented by the film: a constraint it seems as an effect of mourning and its affects of narcissistic ignorance. 5.24 - For what reason does Harper Marlowe not enquire as to the reasons of the naked man's cause for his actions? 5.25 - Harper Marlowe is a character who garners little sympathy from the film's director or audience, though Riley mirrors back Harper Marlowe's sentiments about such matters, an element of empathy exists, such as in reference to the interiority of the self established by trauma. 5.26 - Refer directly beneath to a film still from the scene of London, where James Marlowe is shown dead from his fall, impaled by an iron fence.
5.27 - The urban modern identity is under critique for its dissociation to that which is considered natural, or of nature, but Harper Marlowe is frightened, though she denies being frightened, and hence she has with-drawn in to a lone, narcissistic world. 5.28 - Yet, frighened or not, when the naked man appears, naked or not, at least a few shared words might have established a reason to his behaviour, but Harper only seeks for his riddance. 5.29 - Arguably, Harper Marlowe's narcissism is further evidenced by her taking an apple from the tree in the manor's front garden: she assumes the apple can be taken without repercussions.
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5.30 - Later Harper Marlowe is told by Geoffrey in reference to eating the apple, which he incidentally sees her eating from the house window:
5.31 - "Mustn't do that.Forbidden fruit.Oh. Uh...God, sorry, I... I...I'm joking."
5.32 - The allusion is, Harper Marlowe is Eve who transgresses the law of the Garden of Eden to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. 5.33 - For the pagans, the fall from Eden, as of the Book of Genesis, never occurred, but for Western World audiences the notion of paradise is only a fantasy—Eve's transgression represents the transgressive nature inherent to all men and women; that is, everyone sins and must seek redemption. 5.34 - According to the neo-paganistic perspective, during the film apples are seen to fall ripe from the tree on to the front lawn, which are symbolic of Harper Marlowe's ripeness of fertility, and the Green Man must capitalise on her state: it is an accordance with the flow of nature. 5.35 - During the film's last scenes, Harper Marlowe is shown at the back of the house with a green leaf in her hands upon which she appears to contemplate with a partial rictus grin across her face. 5.36 - Harper Marlowe has denied her fertility and love to the Green Man throughout the film's narrative: she instead pulls that dead grin merely imitative of feeling, the rictus smile, directed towards his emblem, the green leaf, such as to indicate the green leaf has no such sanctions as apples, and by way of that unjust arrangement, gives him risus sardonicus: scornful, bitter-sweet ridicule. 5.37 - Yet, and possibly ironically, the Green Man, a man of many men, that is, "MEN"—the title of the film in capitalisation—may have impregnated Riley, who appears at the end of the film, to meet Harper: hence, there is the ever-lasting division and on-going battles between the sexes to animate life.
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§6.0 - THE ROMANI, THE FOREST PEOPLES AND WILD-MEN—refer directly beneath to the points 6.1–6.28.
6.1 - During a scene at Hereford's local pub, the men discuss the matter of the naked man's arrest in greater detail, and Geoffrey suggests the man may have been a "gypo", that is derogatory slang for the Romani gypsies. 6.2 - The Romani people, such as the English Gypsies, the "Romanichal", and the Welsh Gypsies, the "Kale", have resided at Britain since the 16th century; generally referred to as "Travelling Folk", or more derogatorily: "Pikies", such as portrayed in the British film, living in caravans and in highly unorthodox ways: 6.3 - Snatch, 23 August 2000 Premiere Britain, 102 minutes, directed by Guy Ritchie, the production company: SKA Films. 6.4 - In this folk-horror, art-house film of circa 2022, a group of derelict stone buildings at the edge of the forest are indicated as the dwelling of a lone, naked man, coloured yellow from an unknown substance, who is far from being any obvious Romani type. 6.5 - Refer directly beneath to the film still of the man before the stone houses.
6.6 - The man's ethnic traits indicate he is partly of black, African heritage, though he is of a white, Caucasian appearance. 6.7 - According to the British Forest Peoples Programme, <www.forestpeoples.org>, in reference to reports from the World Bank, circa 2002:
6.8 - '...more than 1.6 billion people around the world depend to varying degrees on forests for their livelihoods—not just for food but also for fuel, livestock grazing and medicine. Of these, an estimated 350 million people live inside or close to dense forests, largely dependent on these areas for subsistence and income, while an estimated range of 60 million to 200 million indigenous people are almost wholly dependent on forests'—refer to page 7, Forest Peoples: Numbers Across The World, circa 2012, Volume 10, by Sophie Chao, Moreton-in-Marsh, Britain, 27 pages.
6.9 - The report shows such forest peoples live at Africa, South East Asia and South America, to indicate the presence of the yellow, naked man as to be considered a totally fictional construct of a bizarre narrative of a folk-horror, art-house film. 6.10 - My commentaries within this blogger site on contemporary films appear to indicate the genuine presence of wild-men, yahoo, yowies or sasquatch, such as at the peripheries of many contemporary cities; but if this is true it remains an unreported fact. 6.11 - It is seldom, if at all, ever the case, that fictional texts are totally fictional—there are always facts of which cannot be reported and can only be narrated within fictional contexts: the degree of embellishment is the question. 6.12 - In reference to Britain, the wild-man, "woodwose", is possibly a referent to a distant past, such as the wild, blue coloured Picts of Scotland. 6.13 - The 20th century British poet Ted Hughes's collection of poetry—refer directly beneath—written during the late 1960s, indicates that such peoples may have been imported, per people trafficking, and the poet has encountered them near-by to North Tawton, Devon, where he resided throughout his life: 6.14 - Wodwo, Faber & Faber, 1 January 1967, 184 pages, ISBN-10: 0571097146, ISBN-13: 978-0571097142. 6.15 - I have excerpted directly beneath the poetry collection's eponymous poem Wodwo, that summons the mind of the wild-man:
6.16 - 'What am I? Nosing here, turning leaves overFollowing a faint stain on the air to the river's edgeI enter water...'.
6.17 - Whether the yellow man is a man of the forest peoples of the above mentioned nations—a version of Tarzan, as of the text: 6.18 - Tarzan Of The Apes, circa October 1912, by Edgar Rice Burroughs—made in to a number of film adaptations, such as: 6.19 - Greystoke: The Legend of Tarzan, Lord Of The Apes, 30 March 1984, 130 minutes, directed by Hugh Hudson, Hugh Hudson and Stanley S. Canter; 6.20 - is uncertain, because he remains mute throughout the film. 6.21 - Such wild-men may not have been trafficked to the imperial nation from various colonies, but may have followed the example of the ancient Iraqi / Babylonian monarch, Nebuchadnezzar II., who is portrayed in the Book Of Daniel 4, as humbled by God for his boastfulness.
6.22 - 'that you shall be driven from among men, and your dwelling shall be with the beasts of the field. You shall be made to eat grass like an ox, and you shall be wet with the dew of heaven, and seven periods of time shall pass over you, till you know that the Most High rules the kingdom of men and gives it to whom he will'—refer to Daniel 4:25, English Standard Version.
6.23 - This historical, fictional account of Nebuchadnezzar II. involves the curse of regression: the devolution of the civilized man back to nature—a further explanation of the yellow, naked man, of: MEN, 20 May 2022 United States Of America, 100 minutes—has Sheela-Na-Gig, a primordial Hecate, administered the punishment out of revenge? 6.24 - This observation of the yellow, naked man as a wild-man ought to be tempered by the fact he appears to reside, not naked at the derelict stone houses, but in a fitted-out tunnel that Harper walks by before encountering the stone houses. 6.25 - In a later scene, it is in this subterranean abode he is portrayed as ceremonially grafting green leaves in to cuts across his body. 6.26 - Refer directly beneath to the film still of the yellow man transforming himself in to the green man.
6.27 - The neo-paganism involves an exaltation of nature and the instincts, yet it could be misplaced to revere the man who becomes the wild-man that is otherwise a punishment of regression as exemplified by the case of Nebuchadnezzar II.
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§7.0 - FAIRY TALE AND FOLK-LORE FORESTS: GENEVIEVE OF BRABANT, ROBIN HOOD AND WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE'S TWO GENTLEMEN FROM VERONA, CIRCA 1593 AND AS YOU LIKE IT, CIRCA 1599—refer directly beneath to the points 7.1–7.39.
7.1 - The film's heightened air of mystery may allude to an enchantment or curse bestowed upon the forest?—regarding which remains a back-story to the film's narrative and for this reason the earlier scenes of Harper Marlowe in the Forest of Dean are to be reminiscent of the fairy tale's enchanted forest. 7.2 - Most fairy tales which involve an enchanted forest are French, Germanic or Scandinavian, not British. 7.3 - For example: Genevieve of Brabant, by rejecting a would-be lover, found herself accused of adultery by him, and she escaped to the forest where a deer nourished her son—later, discovered to be honest to her husband, Genevieve with her son are reinstated to the life of the aristocracy. 7.4 - To an extent Harper Marlowe is similar to Genevieve who, in rejecting a suitor, is threatened by rape and her death seems to be suggested as imminent. 7.5 - Certainly, there are elements of this fairy tale in the film: 7.6 - The Enchanted Forest, 8 December 1945, 78 minutes, directed by Lew Landers, the production company: Producers Releasing Corporation; 7.7 - that involves the reunion of a mother to a son thought to be lost to a forest; that is, a reunion facilitated by a forest hermit who lives freely on the private land, similar to a squatter, but serves an integral part to the conservation of the ecology and family with his secret knowledge, such as to speak with the forest animals and trees. 7.8 - This North American film of 8 December 1945, a continent with indigenous peoples, the Amerindians, is set apart from Gloucestershire and Devon: places inhabited for millennia and supposedly now all civilized. 7.9 - The folk of the English woods, such as "the merry men" (a gang of out-laws) of the 14th century, folk-lore hero Robin Hood, a variant of the Green Man—refer directly beneath to: 7.10 - The Merry Adventures Of Robin Hood, circa 1883, by Howard Pyle—readabke on-line at: <https://www.gutenberg.org/files/10148/10148-h/10148-h.htm#2H_4_3>, and further refer to the on-line resource: <https://d.lib.rochester.edu/robin-hood.html>; 7.11 - are inferred to have disappeared over the centuries. 7.12 - Yet the tales of Robin Hood are far from antiquated, being used as the basis of a quite recent cinematic film: 7.13 - Robin Hood, 12 May 2010 Britain, 140 minutes, directed by Ridley Scott, production companies: Imagine Entertainment, Relativity Media and Scott Free Productions. 7.14 - It ought to be mentioned, the version by Howard Pyle, published circa 1883, with a chapter titled: 'Robin Hood And The Tinker', returns a brief focus of this commentary to the Romani gypsies, who are known further as tinkers, viz. tinsmiths, though as to whether the Romani were always itinerant tinsmiths or later adopted the trade is unknown. 7.15 - Nor is it known whether Robin Hood can be traced back to the Romani gypsies, but the text by Howard Pyle indicates they may have constituted the out-lawry who were referred to as "merry men":
7.16 - '..."for a right stout man is he. A metal man he is by trade, and a mettled man by nature; moreover, he doth sing a lovely ballad. Say, good fellow, wilt thou join my merry men all? Three suits of Lincoln green shalt thou have a year, besides forty marks in fee; thou shalt share all with us and lead a right merry life in the greenwood; for cares have we not, and misfortune cometh not upon us within the sweet shades of Sherwood, where we shoot the dun deer and feed upon venison and sweet oaten cakes, and curds and honey. Wilt thou come with me?" — "Ay, marry, will I join with you all," quoth the Tinker, "for I love a merry life, and I love thee, good master, though thou didst thwack my ribs and cheat me into the bargain'.
7.17 - William Shakespeare's comedy, and first play: 7.18 - The Two Gentlemen Of Verona, circa 1593; 7.19 - is another text that describes the forest as a place of banishment, peopled by out-laws—as the character 'Speed' laments in speaking his observation to Valentine:
7.20 - 'Sir, we are undone; these are the villainsThat all the travelers do fear so much'—Act 4.i.
7.21 - There is a reference to Robin Hood ironically made by the out-laws:
7.22 - Third Out-law: 'By the bare scalp of Robin Hood’s fat friar,This fellow were a king for our wild faction'—Act 4.i.7.23 - First Out-law: 'We’ll have him.—Sirs, a word'—Act 4.i.
7.24 - Further the forest emerges as a forsaken place, shadowy and indifferent—as Valentine comments, the feeling of exile from the royal court is of a distress and woe in tune to the sounds of the forest:
7.25 - 'This shadowy desert, unfrequented woods,I better brook than flourishing peopled towns;Here can I sit alone, unseen of any,And to the nightingale’s complaining notes Tune my distresses and record my woes'—Act 5.iv.
7.26 - The forest's initial symbolic position is as that engendering the end of the fall, such as in reference to the fall from Eden: it is as though, rather than an idyllic, pastoral setting be realised, such as is Eden, the reality betrays the forest's dangers, the cold, forbidding darkness and strange sounds. 7.27 - William Shakespeare's later comedy: 7.28 - As You Like It, circa 1599; 7.29 - that is set within the Forest of Arden—in fact a forest located near to the Forest of Dean, the forest filmed in: MEN, 20 May 2022 United States Of America, 100 minutes, though now deforested—represents a much less inhospitable forest of exile, but still filled with out-laws as of the merry kind indicated by the tales of Robin Hood. 7.30 - William Shakespeare's play of circa 1599, adapted to a number of films, the most recent: 7.31 - As You Like It 1 September 2006 Italy, 127 minutes, written and directed by Kenneth Branagh, production companies: HBO Films, Picturehouse, BBC Films, The Shakespeare Film Company—refer directly beneath to the film's theatrical release poster.
7.32 - re-imagines the folk-lore forest as a place at the edges of enlightenment—for example: 'Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks / Sermons in stones...', Act 2.i, and is filled with affordances of marriage. 7.33 - Marriage, the ceremony considered to realise love is connected with the earlier argued notions of fertility rites, by its setting becoming the forest rather than the Christian church. 7.34 - The status of exile in which melancholy transforms the forest inhabitants, comparable to an outsider's existence that is further comparable to a life of servitude, or slavery, and possibly to an extent child-hood—when little right to self-determination exists—the status of a limbo is reinvigorated by an insistence that the forest is enchanted—that it is something of an Eden. 7.35 - The point is, under the neo-pagan lens the life lived within the pastoral setting is already at court—public life is integrated with the seasons and setting of nature in which a settlement or village is established. 7.36 - The contemporary folk-horror art-house film: 7.37 - Midsommar, 18 June 2019 Alamo Drafthouse Cinema, 147 minutes, directed by Ari Aster, production companies: Square Peg, B-Reel Films and A24; 7.38 - foregrounds these matters of the integration of the community with nature more clearly than Alex Garland's film that brings the grieving Echo, that is, Harper Marlowe, with her romantic, courtly sense of loss to the country-side and forest, where it is believed she will able to break-through the miasma of her grief by becoming pregnant. 7.39 - Harper Marlowe may need only achieve a sense of closure to her life with James, though not is it without a modicum of irony she discovers he is this one and the same Green Man of the neo-pagan cult, who seem to control her life—the apparent neo-pagan cult of men.
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