David Lowery names 10 movies that inspired ‘The Green Knight’
Versatility is key for any filmmaker with designs on longevity, with the cream of the crop able to bounce between genres at will. That being said, few have pinballed as furiously between mediums as David Lowery, to the extent that wild creative swings are to be expected anytime he announces a new project.
Relatively low-key debut Ain’t Them Bodies Saints offered plenty of suggestions that Lowery was a talent with plenty of promise and a potentially bright future, albeit with no indication of just how wide a cinematic canvas he planned to paint on.
His second feature was Disney’s blockbuster live-action remake of Pete’s Dragon, and while many of his peers were swallowed up by the studio machine very early on in their careers and stayed there, he opted to dive straight into minimalist supernatural drama A Ghost Story, biographical crime caper The Old Man and the Gun, and medieval fantasy The Green Knight, before heading back into the waiting arms of the Mouse House for Peter Pan & Wendy.
Transforming a 14th-century poem into a sweeping historical epic that both pays tribute to and subverts its source material at the same time required the walking of a delicate tonal tightrope, one that Lowery mastered. Given the myriad of genre elements that feature throughout the adventure of Dev Patel’s Sir Gawain, it makes complete sense that The Green Knight‘s writer and director eclectically drew from fantasy, horror, Shakespeare, Scorsese, and much more.
Listing his inspirations to A.Frame, Lowery showcased the breadth of his own personal taste, with Ron Howard’s Willow named as “probably my main point of inspiration” for the film. And yet, he immediately points to Pier Paolo Pasolini’s The Decameron, The Canterbury Tales, and Arabian Nights – collectively known as The Trilogy of Life – as “hilarious, sensual, and delightfully scatological” movies he watched before setting off on location scouting for The Green Knight.
Tim Burton’s “gorgeous distillation of the Hammer Horror aesthetic” in Sleepy Hollow was a key reference point for Lowery, with the many “marvellous beheadings” of particular interest. Another period piece that played with convention made an impact, too, as Sofia Coppola’s “underrated masterpiece” Marie Antoinette cast sway over the filmmaker’s belief that “heart and conviction trumps historical accuracy”.
Kenneth Branagh’s Henry V displays “Citizen Kane levels of prowess right out the gate” in Lowery’s estimation, while Andrei Tarkovsky’s Andrei Rublev was an inevitable touchstone considering The Green Knight orchestrator refers to it as both “untouchable” and “the greatest of medieval films”. On paper, John Boorman’s Excalibur would make the most sense, but Lowery instead opted for Zardoz on account of how the bizarre sci-fi was “clearly reaching for something strange and profound and new”.
Even if he echoes a sentiment shared by many in claiming Martin Scorsese’s Silence “seemed like it was forgotten before it had even opened”, Lowery found the “challenging inquiry into the nature of faith” to be pivotal when he found himself trying to figure out how to “grasp on honour and chivalry in The Green Knight.” The sumptuous production design of Francis Ford Coppola’s lavish Dracula also gets a mention, and even though he didn’t see it until right before shooting was due to begin, Jordan Peele’s Us “unlocked an issue” he’d been having with The Green Knight‘s script, and thusly linked them forever in his mind.
10 movies that inspired The Green Knight:
- Willow (Ron Howard, 1988)
- The Trilogy of Life (Pier Paolo Pasolini, 1971-1974)
- Sleepy Hollow (Tim Burton, 1999)
- Marie Antoinette (Sofia Coppola, 2006)
- Henry V (Kenneth Branagh, 1989)
- Andrei Rublev (Andrei Tarkovsky, 1966)
- Zardoz (John Boorman, 1974)
- Silence (Martin Scorsese, 2016)
- Bram Stoker’s Dracula (Francis Ford Coppola, 1992)
- Us (Jordan Peele, 2019)
