The Green Knight is a certified hit, becoming one of the most talked-about films of the summer among cinema fans. Its stunning visuals seem to defy budget logic and its inventiveness kept audiences' attention even through the most artistic and experimental portions of the film. Lots of audience members are even diving into the Arthurian lore behind the film.
Director David Lowery recently sat down with Reddit and did an AMA. Let's sift through some of his best answers and see what we can learn.
Some spoilers for The Green Knight follow.
What We Learned From David Lowery's Green Knight
On why certain characters say Gawain's name differently:
"Some of it is regional accents. Some of it is whimsy."
'The Green Knight'Credit: A24
On movies he loves watching:
"Under the Skin. And Stepbrothers!"
On whether it is intentional that Gawain's bride looks like the beheaded woman:
"No! But now I realize how similar they look. We changed her hair at the last second and it wound up looking very similar to Winifred. And they're the only characters who wear white in the movie. Things you don't think about who you're in the thick of it!"
On his favorite 2021 movies:
"Shiva Baby! And maybe Justice League? Also had a great time with [the] Fear Street trilogy. I've only seen 87 movies so far this year. I need to catch up. I've mostly seen older films the past few months."
On how difficult it is to break into the industry:
"Breaking in is a misnomer because it sounds sudden. It was easy to start making movies. At a certain point, the industry started paying attention, but I was already doing what I loved."
'The Green Knight'Credit: A24
On how he recut the movie during lockdown:
"It was more a question of pace and less of content. I had cut the film too quickly initially. In returning to it, I let it breathe more and included more of the world. It was still deliberate, but I let myself get impatient early on and kept cutting things short. I was convinced it needed to be less than two hours for some arbitrary reason. Thankfully I came to my senses. That long shot of Gawain riding away from the castle never changed though! And the last 25 minutes of the movie never changed from the first assembly onward. It was really the second reel, the Too-Quick Year, that changed a lot. I slowed that down. And fine-tuned everything else. I removed one scene (my favorite, alas!) and added back a few beats with Alicia that I had removed for some crazy reason."
On the number of takes in the geese and goat standoff:
"We are going to do a special edition Blu-ray next year and it will have commentary and more extra features. A worthy piece of physical media! I can't remember how many takes we did of that opening shot. Maybe six or seven? The animals were the easiest part, getting the camera through that window and holding focus on Dev was harder!"
Summing Up What We Learned from David Lowery's The Green Knight AMA
Lowery's incredibly informative AMA has way more answers than just these, so head over there to get even deeper on The Green Knight.
And let us know your favorite parts of this movie and Lowery's direction in the comments!
