Musings on Robin Hood (2018) [or what are we doing here?]
It was sure a movie!
I'm fucking around, but for real, I do have one question, which overrides anything else when I'm watching a movie, particularly one that's adapting source material: what are we doing? And no movie I have watched with a keen eye has been so deserving of this question. So, bear with me, cause we're gonna get into it.
So, the 2018 Robin Hood movie, as most have been since at least 1991 (Prince of Thieves), about the origin of the character. Who is he? Why is he an outlaw? What did he do that he's so legendary? The problem there is that no source material exists to give you that answer; the medieval sources from which we derive Robin Hood are wholly unconcerned with this question. Now, might there have been a story with an answer? Sure. Could be. But, we don't have it or even have any suggestion that such a story exists. So, if a screenwriter wants to dig into that, they are making it up from whole cloth. That's not necessarily bad, but it does present some issues.
So, where most tend to start is the Crusades, specifically the Third Crusade around the end of the 12th Century--this comes from Sir Walter Scott's Ivanhoe, a text which (in)famously doesn't really draw from any previous sources for its version of Robin Hood. So, as far back as the 70s, at least, we've decided that Robin Hood went to the Crusades with or because of King Richard. In this particular film from 2018, Robin was drafted into the war--literally. He gets a letter with huge letters at the top that says "Draft Notice." This was the first thing that made me laugh out loud in this movie. The next came in the very next scene.
I have posted this screenshot in several places because it is so fucking funny to me. The quivers on the hips are the biggest alert that you're not looking at a movie about the Iraq war. And that scene continues to be hilarious in its desire to replicate a movie about that war. Like, the enemy in this scene has a tower with a repeating crossbow thing? And he's just like, firing rapidly down? It's just. buckwild. This weird sort of modern-medieval aesthetic permeates the entirety of the movie.
For example, the sheriff wears a long trench coat under which is what appears to be a jacket, not unlike a suit jacket, but with a few alterations to make it not so obvious. Robin frequently dresses similarly, though he looses his coat when Yahya - which apparently translates to John - alters it because it "slows him down." The scene where this is most egregious for me, however; comes around the halfway point when the cardinal comes "all the way from Rome." To celebrate, the sheriff throws a huge party - John claims it will be "an orgy of excess." Except, it looks like a club scene from today, but with candles and again, minor alterations to costumes to make them look not quite contemporary. They're playing fucking craps and roulette for fuck's sake!
In the film's final action sequence, Robin has worked with the people of Nottingham who formerly lived in a shanty town around "the mines" and organizes them into a rough citizen brigade or something? As a part of this, they are dressed in outfits complete with kerchiefs as masks and hoods to confuse the guards, while carrying Molotov cocktails. No, seriously. Again, this shot screams to be a parallel for some modern ill. What is it? Not wholly clear. See, the other problem, the real BIG problem for this movie is it's pulling from a bunch of different places, but has no idea what either it wants to do or what its source material is trying to do. The result is a movie that doesn't have a real sense of itself, only a sort of pastiche of other ideas. Bear with me as I explain to you: medieval Batman (oh so derogatory)
So, Robin (Rob of Loxley, sure why not?) is sent off to the Crusades early on. Then we jump four years ahead to him in the war itself. He gets into a big fight and keeps chasing this one Arab soldier around who is like, just crazy skilled and eventually bests Robin. But Robin is saved at the last minute by Guy of Gisbourne, who cuts off the man's hand. We cut to them in the camp as they are torturing people for "intelligence" (yes, this is the phrase he uses in the movie). Among them is the man who just lost his hand, Yahya (John). They are about to behead his son, but Robin stops them and then they shoot him in the gut and patch him up and send him home because he won't follow orders. Why is Gisbourne giving orders to Robin? Unclear, but seems weird since he appears to be a mercenary.
Anyways, Yahya stows away on the ship sending Robin home and follows him home, where he finds that his home has been seized and his manor empty and in shambles. Someone said he died two years ago, so the sheriff seizes his assets. When Robin sees Marian, his wife, has remarried, he breaks down and at this point, Yahya approaches him and tells him he wants to tear down the people who have created the wars which have ravaged his homelands, in slightly different words. So, he begins training Robin to be that agent because he cannot be. In this, he says by night, you will steal from the Sheriff. "And by day?" By day, he will be Robin of Loxley, playing the role of lordling he already was, while trying to ingratiate himself with the sheriff. So, he lives that double life. Gosh, masked vigilante trying to right wrongs, with a penchant for someone who's done him wrong? Wearing the mask of a rich guy who has it all to throw everyone off the trail? Gosh, sounds awfully familiar. To really cement this, during the above party scene, he makes a comment about how "the Hood" (as he's come to be called in his vigilante persona) is probably just some ugly thief, which is why he wears a mask. Which sure feels a lot like that scene in The Dark Knight where Bruce says that if a guy runs around at night wearing a bat costume, he's probably unstable. But maybe I'm just seeing things.
This all brings me back to my initial question: what are we doing with this movie? What is the value or what is the point, to some extent, of creating a Robin Hood who is solely focused on a MASSIVE city. I don't like to harp on anachronisms in films like this because I think the more interesting question is why do we include this thing that's anachronistic. But, like, why is the city so fucking big? Nottingham in this movie looks like King's Landing. Is that it? Is it a sort of appeal to the familiarity of Game of Thrones? Is that what they were going for? Because Nottingham is way up north, but in this movie, the boat brings him right. to. Nottingham. Also, cities simply weren't that large, especially in pre-modern England. This says nothing of the weird Dickensian sort of vibe of The Mines. What do we get out of Robin becoming friends with the sheriff while stealing from him? What does that add? Does it add anything? Am I losing my mind?
At the end of the day, this movie seems to want to be a sort of post-Occupy Wall Street movie that evokes that sort of energy, but much like Occupy Wall Street, what does it amount to? This movie posits that Robin leads this massive group of peasants to protest, throw bombs and then steal money from the sheriff. Is it trying to argue for greater sort of class solidarity? Maybe! But it feels so muddled inside of all the other shit that it's hard to feel like it's articulated. And my point, my real thing is, that's not Robin Hood. That's not a Robin Hood movie. This movie uses the name and some of the aesthetics (although he dresses in all black and no green whatsoever), but I don't think it knows why. Again, it's sort of thrown into this unclear mush of stuff. I would love to know more about the writing and production of this movie. I just have to understand what they were thinking. Like, the church in Nottingham is literally on a fucking hill overlooking the rest of the CITY. Why? Tell me, Otto! TELL ME.
I think I've lost the thread, okay. ... Bye.