For all of you who may have wondered… and wondered… and wondered…
“…Just what does SDG think of The Wicker Man…?”
…now, at last, the truth can be told.
Review of the 1973 original by Robin Hardy
Review of the 2006 remake by Neil LaBute
Also, for all of you who wondered, “Why does SDG keep The Wicker Man in ‘Other Coming Adds’ for months on end, into years?“…
…well, this is the best answer I can give.
With apologies to all who watched that space for so long, wondering what on earth was wrong with me … and to those who, reading the reviews now, may still wonder.
SDG,
As someone who watched that spae, I can say ‘all is forgiven,’ even if a good rental won’t come out of this. 😉
Off topic, where did your reviews of The X-files movie and Mummy 3 go? Were they too bad for coverage?
Anyway, keep up the good work, ’cause it appears few others want to.
I had a mortal sin upon my soul after watching the impurity and immodesty of the explicit nudity and the sex scenes and noises in the 1973 version of the Wicker Man.
I confessed this mortal sin to my priest and also told him what movie I had watched and Father rightly condemned the film and warned me never to watch any film like it again.
Thanks for sharing, Dan.
I practiced custody of the eyes during parts of the film and fast-forwarded through one part.
Had Father seen the film?
For those who don’t want to sit through the entire 2006 remake, the two minute abridged version is just as good.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6i2WRreARo
So much better, rather. In fact, I’m not sure I don’t like this 30-second excerpt, with its Chariots of Fire score, best of all.
SDG,
Yes, my confessor had seen the film, and he told me that he regretted it.
God bless you.
In our fallen natures we are to weak to expose ourselves to a film like “The Wicker Man”:
We must always “flee from the Occasions of Sin.”
The first means is, to avoid all occasions of sin. It is impossible for any one who does not endeavor to flee from the occasions of sin, especially in the matter of sensual pleasures, to avoid falling into sin. St. Philip Neri said: “In the war of the senses, the conquerors are the cowards who fly.” The occasion is like a veil put before our eyes, so that we can see nothing else – neither God, nor hell, nor the resolutions we had made. The Scripture says, it is impossible to walk on burning coals without being burnt: Or can he walk upon hot coals, and his heel not be burnt? [DR Prov 6:28, compare the NIV: Prov. 6:27-28] I So it is morally impossible for any one to put himself voluntarily into the occasion of sin and not to fall, although he may have made a thousand resolutions and a thousand promises to God. This is clearly shown every day by the misery of so many poor souls who are plunged into vice for not avoiding the occasions. Any one who has had the evil habit of sins of impurity must know that, in order to restrain himself, it is not enough merely to avoid those occasions which are absolutely proximate; for if he does not also flee from those which are not altogether proximate, he will easily fall again. Nor must we allow ourselves to be deceived by the devil into thinking that the person towards whom we are tempted is a saint; it often happens that the more devout a person is, the stronger is the temptation. St. Thomas Aquinas says, that the holiest persons attract the most. The temptation will begin in a spiritual way, and will terminate carnally. The great servant of God F. Sertorio Caputo, of the Society of Jesus, said that the devil first induces one to love a person’s virtue, then the person, and then blinds one and brings one to ruin. We must also flee from evil companions: we are too weak; the devil is continually tempting us, and the senses are drawing us to evil; the slightest suggestion of a bad companion is only wanting to make us fall. Therefore the first thing that we have to do to save ourselves is to avoid evil occasions and bad companions. And we must in this matter do violence to ourselves, resolutely overcoming all human respect. Those who do not use violence to themselves will not be saved. It is true, that we must not put confidence in our own strength, but only in the divine assistance; but God wills that we should do our part in doing violence to ourselves, when it is necessary to do so, in order to gain Paradise: The violent bear it away. (Matt. 11:12 DR, compare the NIV.)
God bless you.
Jake
While following your link, I came across this “Fan Trailer”, which is also very funny.
Dan, please remember to use a handle.
That is a prudential judgment with which (bracketing one scene) I disagree.
I don’t think it has to do with “weakness” or strength, but with our variously disordered appetites, which differ from one person to another, and even in the same person may differ from one point in time to another. For example, a sixteen-year-old boy and a 40-year-old married man may be subject to very different temptations and very different near occasions of sin.
What I now consider a near occasion of sin has not always been so for me, and what I once considered a near occasion of sin no longer is. Some things I once experienced as besetting temptations either no longer move me in the slightest or even repel me, and are no longer any sort of occasion of sin, but quite the opposite. Whether this is a work of grace, or simply time, is for Another to judge.
No one should watch any movie, read any book, or visit any website that poses a likely occasion of sin for him. Even if it is the holy scriptures, if someone stumbles, say, at the Song of Songs, he ought not to read it. Likewise the Divine Comedy, sacred art in churches in the Vatican and elsewhere, the novels of Flannery O’Connor and Evelyn Waugh, or any of several possible films on the Vatican film list.
We should also be very careful about judging the conscience or liberty of another. “Who are you to pass judgment on someone else’s servant? Before his own master he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand” (Romans 14:4).
“For example, a sixteen-year-old boy and a 40-year-old married man may be subject to very different temptations and very different near occasions of sin.”
SDG, No,at least in matters of the flesh, unless there is some physical malady, they are both subject to the fallen nature inherited from Adam.
I am a 42 year old married man who is just as liable to fall into a sin of the flesh, by the world the flesh or the devil, as I was when I was 16.
More so in fact. This libido thing has not let up one bit, and being married does not change it.
Only being justified by the Grace of the Holy Ghost gives me the strength to cooperate with the Almighty and to use custody of the eyes and mind. And I still fall frequently. Maybe you can offer some good advice?
I would venture to say that most men would also find this to be the case.
I have spoken to dozens, my age who constantly fight sins of the flesh.
The “Wicker Man”, from start to finish is full of carnal references and explicit fodder to titilate the senses in an impure fashion and films like this must be avoided like the plague, for most men.
Ut Prosim.
Please do not post anonymously, in keeping with our host’s wishes and stated rules.
Your comments simply don’t match my experience. Whether or not your temptations are the same as when you were sixteen, mine emphatically aren’t. That’s just a fact. And I think a lot of men experience the same.
There is also this to be said. Many souls are surely lost through sins of sensual pleasure, but I don’t believe this is either the only or the most dangerous battlefield, nor is it the battlefield where, FWIW, I see the most and most badly wounded. Contempt, bitterness, resentment, unforgiveness and uncharity in all its myriad, hydra-like forms seem to me far more pressing and immediate concerns for most people I know.
I worry less about the self-destructive drug addiction of a Christian I know, than about another Christian’s attitude toward the addict, which I fear may be even more self-destructive. FWIW, I have spoken, repeatedly and bluntly but also in fear and trembling, both to the addict and to the person with the attitude. I also make it my business to have a relationship with both of them that is not based on or dominated by my views on their issues. God is their judge, not I.
Even when it comes to, say, a woman whose attire violates a particular standard of modesty, which for some may pose a temptation of impurity, for others, and in particular for those I know who are most like me, the more immediate temptation is to uncharity, to judgment of and irritation toward what I or others presume are her deficient morals (and/or, in the case of a minor or young woman living at home, the deficient morals of her parents).
On occasion, but rarely, I have seen the spiritual work of correcting the sinner practiced here with charity and prudence, e.g., one woman gently suggesting to an insufficiently dressed woman at Mass that she slip on her jacket before going up for communion. More often, where purity is honored at all, I fear it is honored at the expense of charity, charity sacrificed to purity, as if Christ’s sole concern is the potential pollution of our eyes and minds, and how we otherwise treat or think of her is of no account. God is her judge, not I.
Anyone who is likely to find The Wicker Man an occasion of sin may easily arrive at that conclusion based on the information in my review. In fact, I’ve already heard from one Catholic who told me that, based on what I wrote, he was glad he never saw the film. I have also heard from others who appreciated the review and had no plans to see the film, as well as others who have seen it. I am doing my best to serve Christ and his Church, and I wholeheartedly submit all my work without reservation to the judgment of Christ and to that of the Church.
I apologise about the anon post.
It was not intended. I just overlooked it.
Dan Hunter
Dan Hunter
Dan Hunter
Dan Hunter
Is my name.
Just thinking about the Wicker Man is now giving me impure thoughts.
When does the libido slow down?
I am pumped with test almost all of the time.
Thanks, Dan Hunter Dan Hunter Dan Hunter Dan Hunter. It does help.
I suppose if blog post comboxes about such movies are an occasion of sin for you, perhaps you should avoid them.
You hot-blooded hunka hunka burnin love man you.
Perhaps Jesus just loves you extra so he is giving you more crosses than slackers like me.
Let us pray for one another.
Beyond that, if anyone has any non-flip, charitable advice/comments for DHDHDHDH (or for me), please share them for the benefit of all. (Flip-but-charitable comments are also okay, though less useful. Like this post.)
Actually, I have some non-flip charitable thoughts, but they’ll have to wait till I have more time to post.
SDG,
I aint joking about the libido thing.
I am not some bullstud or anything, but just seeing in my minds eye those images from the Wicker Man….
I shall just stop reading this blog.
No offense, but…cripes
Dear Dan
As a regular movie watcher, something that I usually find particularly helpful before the viewing is checking out the “Plot Keywords” page on IMDb for the respective movie. For example here it is the page for The Wicker Man. Taking a look at that frequently helps me to be prepared for what will come.
Also remember that, as SDG always explains, to be tempted is not by itself sinful, and that the presence of impure material on a movie doesn’t necessarily prevents it from being otherwise commendable. Temptation exists to be resisted. If you accidentally come across tempting stuff on a movie, just keep both your imagination and creativity on low gear (and your right hand immobilized, also).
The 1973 film is, I think, one of my favorite films.
I love Howie’s last words to Summerisle:
“Well, don’t you understand that if your crops fail this year, next year you’re going to have to have another blood sacrifice? And next year, no one less than the king of Summerisle himself will do. If the crops fail, Summerisle, next year your people will kill you on May Day.”
They got everything right: the setting, the writing, the cast. Even the music contributed towards the spine-chilling suspense and sense of otherness.
The 1973 film is, I think, one of my favorite films.
I love Howie’s last words to Summerisle:
“Well, don’t you understand that if your crops fail this year, next year you’re going to have to have another blood sacrifice? And next year, no one less than the king of Summerisle himself will do. If the crops fail, Summerisle, next year your people will kill you on May Day.”
They got everything right: the setting, the writing, the cast. Even the music contributed towards the spine-chilling suspense and sense of otherness.
SDG and Matheus:
Great videos. It seems that where the remake failed, the remakes of the remake succeeded magnificently.
I first saw the Nicholas Cage version while sharing a 12 pack of beer with a couple of friends. We approached the movie as a comedy and had a rockin’ good time.
Dan Hunter | Aug 11, 2008 8:39:22 AM, did you ever see the Father Ted episode, The Passion of St Tibulus?
A shame that Dermot Morgan died so unexpectedly. I would have loved to see the Father Ted take on The Wicker Man, which I’m sure they would have got around to in due course.