The Wicker Man: a parable of nation-building?

Last Friday I went with my old mucker Al to a screening by the Stow Film Lounge of that wonderful 1970s classic The Wicker Man, which was also attended by the director Robin Hardy as guest of honour. There was, of course, a tremendous poignancy to the event as the great Christopher Lee had died earlier in the week, and there was a moving tribute to him before the main feature.

Afterwards there was a Q&A session with Mr Hardy, but despite putting up my hand several times, I was never picked, which is a shame because watching the film I had been struck by a thought to which I really wanted an answer...

It was sparked by Lord Summerisle’s potted history lesson to Sgt Howie. Lord Summerisle, the island’s ruler, explains that his grandfather was an agronomist, a man of science, a ‘typical Victorian’ as Summerisle puts it, who had chosen the island, for various reasons to do with climate and soil, to grow exotic fruits and other crops for export. In order to win over and bind together the impoverished inhabitants, he deliberately revived the Old Ways of paganism and banished Christianity. His scheme worked and the islanders prosper, in a low-key way.

Now, many critics and cineastes down through the years have examined the religious themes of the film, which are, of course, central to the events that unfold. And it is evident that Hardy and writer Anthony Shaffer had done much research into pagan religions when writing the screenplay. These themes are uppermost and clear.

But another strong theme is this: that the first Lord Summerisle’s great experiment was, in essence, an exercise in late Victorian nation-building. The parallels are striking. The scientist arrives, apparently in the late 1860s, at a time when across the world nationalists were unifying and creating new nations, the most notable being Italy, Germany and Japan. While Summerisle was reviving the Old Ways to unify his people, the Italian, German and Japanese nationalists were reviving old, and creating new, traditions to unify their peoples. In all of these programmes, intellectuals played key roles.

In other words, Lord Summerisle was creating a nation in microcosm using techniques similar to those of the great Victorian nationalist movements. I am convinced that this must have been a conscious decision on the part of the writers, because in plot terms, the overarching theme of the clash between religious traditions, paganism versus Christianity, would have worked equally well had the islanders and their Lord always been pagans since time immemorial. The plot didn’t need the element of the Victorian scientist reviving the Old Ways comparatively recently.

And so the question I wanted to ask Mr Hardy was whether this element really was as intentional as I believe it to have been. Was Anthony Shaffer also writing about nationalism?

Furthermore, by depicting the man who revived the Old Ways as an outsider imposing his vision, his will, on an alien people, isn’t there also an element of imperialism? The first Lord Summerisle, then, really is a ‘typical Victorian’ in every way: a believer in reason, a man of Progress, but also a nationalist and an imperialist.

And so I think that The Wicker Man can also be seen as a parable about nation-building and nationalism, and even of imperialism, as well as a supremely chilling examination of religious fanaticism.