By Danièle Cybulskie
I’ve heard there’s a new Robin Hood movie in the works, and (as we say here in Canada) I am stoked.
According to Variety:
the film [The Death of Robin Hood] will find Robin Hood [Hugh Jackman] “grappling with his past after a life of crime and murder.” Instead of the merry outlaw seen in certain previous versions of the story, like the one portrayed by Errol Flynn, this Robin Hood is “a battle-worn loner [who] finds himself gravely injured and in the hands of a mysterious woman [Jodie Comer?], who offers him a chance at salvation.”
I’m not going to lie: much as I (famously) love Disney’s foxy fox, I also love this premise.
Think about it: in most versions of the story, Robin helps to ransom King Richard the Lionheart and everyone lives happily ever after. But happily ever after is very much not what happened.
A Robin Hood who’s lived to middle age has seen his absolute worst nightmare come true. The Richard in whom he’d placed all his faith – and fought and murdered and robbed for – had barely set foot back in England when he was off again, losing his life to a lucky crossbow shot in another useless war. (Remember: a middle-aged Robin’s entire childhood would already have been coloured by the endless wars between Henry II and his own sons.) Prince John has murdered his nephew to become King John, a tyrant whose behaviour is no better than an outlaw’s, and usually much worse. He’s a king who not only starves people to death for telling the truth and hurting his feelings, but whose conflict with the pope has placed England under interdict for years. Everything Robin fought for has come to nothing, and if he dies, he won’t even be able to get a Christian burial for his efforts. It’s enough to make anyone question what the point of it all is.
And this is where the magic can happen.
Robin is a chimera: never a true-to-life human being, he was always a fictional version of what outlaw justice could achieve when using the proper channels didn’t work. He’s kind of like a medieval Batman in that way, but there’s a very big difference. Robin isn’t fighting crime: he’s using it to save the kingdom. This is the kind of moral conundrum people have been wrestling with forever, and exactly the kind of thing that would be on Robin’s conscience, as with every freedom fighter from Spartacus to Nelson Mandela.
I think this is the crux of what could make this movie a hit with both general audiences and history buffs. Or make it sink like other Robin Hood films.
In my experience, people who are interested in medieval-themed media are increasingly looking for authenticity. They want to know what life was really like – the human experience of it. But much as the sets, props, and costumes of the last decade have been getting exponentially better, too often “authenticity” is read as “hyperviolence” (with a heavy dose of sexual violence, but that’s another op ed), usually by interchangeable stoic dudes whose love interest has been brutally killed, tormented, or kidnapped. Audiences are served up blue-filter mud and blood with increasing scale and gore, but without complexity and human feeling, especially in secondary characters, who are a monolith of dimwitted, superstitious expendables. Many of us in the history business call this “the cartoon Middle Ages”.
I’m not naïve: I know movies need to make money, and violence and sex sell – to a point. But there’s a reason that the story of Robin Hood has stood the test of time. It has sex and violence (check and check) but at its heart it’s about justice and injustice. About idealism when it seems ridiculous. About what we can and should do when we see moral wrong, even at the top of our social structures. About whether the ends ever justify the means.
I have a hunch there will be massive pressure put upon the creators of this movie to make it a sort of Logan-in-Tights with a reluctant and emotionally stunted antihero who rises up to gruffly lead everyone to victory. We are so used to this cartoon Middle Ages that the simple symbol of John’s crown is there just for Robin to shoot arrows at, and as long as there are big action sequences, everyone will go home happy… right?
Although I love Logan as much as the next girl (welcome back, Wolverine!), I’m hoping the makers of The Death of Robin Hood will be able to resist the pressure to just put different coloured tights on him. Logan is a pessimist who always has to be dragged into action; Robin is an idealist who is perpetually in motion to make change. And while Logan usually wins, Robin has to accept that he actually can’t make profound change in his lifetime. What is it like to be that man?
If we cut out Robin’s freedom-fighter heart, and smother his lifelong – if battered – sense of humour, charm, and belief that things can get better, we’ll end up with Man of Steel. (Did I just say that publicly? Yes, I did. I have feelings about that movie….)
To me, this is where The Death of Robin Hood can dig into the Middle Ages in a way that can be so resonant. Because this isn’t a movie about the modern world, even if it is a rich metaphor for it. So, let’s really lean into it.
We know from history that men of the thirteenth century chose to believe and follow specific ideals of chivalry designed to help them sleep at night, still ending up with PTSD like modern soldiers when faced with the reality of what they did. Because people are people – even in the past – and killing is not an easy thing, no matter what the justification.
We know that medieval people questioned their faith despite the guidance of the church, and worried that there was no afterlife. They wondered if their friends and family – not to mention the people they’d killed – were in heaven or hell. They invented the idea of purgatory just to deal with the spiritual agony.
We know that the life of an outlaw was violent and harsh, and yet we also know outlawry was actually a kindness extended by communities in a world often seen (mistakenly) as hyperviolent and prone to public executions.
The real Middle Ages is vastly more interesting than it’s given credit for, and the more we allow it to breathe and speak, the richer the audience’s experience will be. And – paradoxically – the more people will be able to relate.
I have faith that this cast and this director can pull it off. I’m already grateful to Jodie Comer for bringing her deep humanity to a very challenging role in the form of the real-life Marguerite de Carrouges in The Last Duel. I think Hugh Jackman is underrated in his subtlety, and while Robin is not Logan, his brilliance in playing Logan proves he has the chops (pun intended) to make us believe in a battered, but hopeful (with glimpses of wit and charm, despite it all) Robin Hood. And if Pig is any indication, Michael Sarnoski knows how to give his actors space and time to work – as well as how to shoot a forest beautifully, which is pretty important to a Robin Hood movie.
We already have a cartoon Robin Hood, and he is perfection. I’m looking forward to seeing a fully human one, not only because it makes a better story, but because the people of the past deserve to be represented as complex and three-dimensional in their own right.
(And hey, Hollywood – if you can use some help with the details, I’m here for you! Give me a shout.)
If you’d like to read the 17th century ballad The Death of Robin Hood for yourself (and find out how he chose his burial spot!) you can find it here as part of the wonderful TEAMS book Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales.
Danièle Cybulskie (aka The Five-Minute Medievalist) is the bestselling author of five books, the creator and host of The Medieval Podcast, and the writer and presenter of Sony’s This is History Presents… The Iron King. You can follow her on Instagram @5MinMedievalist or visit her website at danielecybulskie.com
By Danièle Cybulskie
I’ve heard there’s a new Robin Hood movie in the works, and (as we say here in Canada) I am stoked.
According to Variety:
the film [The Death of Robin Hood] will find Robin Hood [Hugh Jackman] “grappling with his past after a life of crime and murder.” Instead of the merry outlaw seen in certain previous versions of the story, like the one portrayed by Errol Flynn, this Robin Hood is “a battle-worn loner [who] finds himself gravely injured and in the hands of a mysterious woman [Jodie Comer?], who offers him a chance at salvation.”
I’m not going to lie: much as I (famously) love Disney’s foxy fox, I also love this premise.
Think about it: in most versions of the story, Robin helps to ransom King Richard the Lionheart and everyone lives happily ever after. But happily ever after is very much not what happened.
A Robin Hood who’s lived to middle age has seen his absolute worst nightmare come true. The Richard in whom he’d placed all his faith – and fought and murdered and robbed for – had barely set foot back in England when he was off again, losing his life to a lucky crossbow shot in another useless war. (Remember: a middle-aged Robin’s entire childhood would already have been coloured by the endless wars between Henry II and his own sons.) Prince John has murdered his nephew to become King John, a tyrant whose behaviour is no better than an outlaw’s, and usually much worse. He’s a king who not only starves people to death for telling the truth and hurting his feelings, but whose conflict with the pope has placed England under interdict for years. Everything Robin fought for has come to nothing, and if he dies, he won’t even be able to get a Christian burial for his efforts. It’s enough to make anyone question what the point of it all is.
And this is where the magic can happen.
Robin is a chimera: never a true-to-life human being, he was always a fictional version of what outlaw justice could achieve when using the proper channels didn’t work. He’s kind of like a medieval Batman in that way, but there’s a very big difference. Robin isn’t fighting crime: he’s using it to save the kingdom. This is the kind of moral conundrum people have been wrestling with forever, and exactly the kind of thing that would be on Robin’s conscience, as with every freedom fighter from Spartacus to Nelson Mandela.
I think this is the crux of what could make this movie a hit with both general audiences and history buffs. Or make it sink like other Robin Hood films.
In my experience, people who are interested in medieval-themed media are increasingly looking for authenticity. They want to know what life was really like – the human experience of it. But much as the sets, props, and costumes of the last decade have been getting exponentially better, too often “authenticity” is read as “hyperviolence” (with a heavy dose of sexual violence, but that’s another op ed), usually by interchangeable stoic dudes whose love interest has been brutally killed, tormented, or kidnapped. Audiences are served up blue-filter mud and blood with increasing scale and gore, but without complexity and human feeling, especially in secondary characters, who are a monolith of dimwitted, superstitious expendables. Many of us in the history business call this “the cartoon Middle Ages”.
I’m not naïve: I know movies need to make money, and violence and sex sell – to a point. But there’s a reason that the story of Robin Hood has stood the test of time. It has sex and violence (check and check) but at its heart it’s about justice and injustice. About idealism when it seems ridiculous. About what we can and should do when we see moral wrong, even at the top of our social structures. About whether the ends ever justify the means.
I have a hunch there will be massive pressure put upon the creators of this movie to make it a sort of Logan-in-Tights with a reluctant and emotionally stunted antihero who rises up to gruffly lead everyone to victory. We are so used to this cartoon Middle Ages that the simple symbol of John’s crown is there just for Robin to shoot arrows at, and as long as there are big action sequences, everyone will go home happy… right?
Although I love Logan as much as the next girl (welcome back, Wolverine!), I’m hoping the makers of The Death of Robin Hood will be able to resist the pressure to just put different coloured tights on him. Logan is a pessimist who always has to be dragged into action; Robin is an idealist who is perpetually in motion to make change. And while Logan usually wins, Robin has to accept that he actually can’t make profound change in his lifetime. What is it like to be that man?
If we cut out Robin’s freedom-fighter heart, and smother his lifelong – if battered – sense of humour, charm, and belief that things can get better, we’ll end up with Man of Steel. (Did I just say that publicly? Yes, I did. I have feelings about that movie….)
To me, this is where The Death of Robin Hood can dig into the Middle Ages in a way that can be so resonant. Because this isn’t a movie about the modern world, even if it is a rich metaphor for it. So, let’s really lean into it.
We know from history that men of the thirteenth century chose to believe and follow specific ideals of chivalry designed to help them sleep at night, still ending up with PTSD like modern soldiers when faced with the reality of what they did. Because people are people – even in the past – and killing is not an easy thing, no matter what the justification.
We know that medieval people questioned their faith despite the guidance of the church, and worried that there was no afterlife. They wondered if their friends and family – not to mention the people they’d killed – were in heaven or hell. They invented the idea of purgatory just to deal with the spiritual agony.
We know that the life of an outlaw was violent and harsh, and yet we also know outlawry was actually a kindness extended by communities in a world often seen (mistakenly) as hyperviolent and prone to public executions.
The real Middle Ages is vastly more interesting than it’s given credit for, and the more we allow it to breathe and speak, the richer the audience’s experience will be. And – paradoxically – the more people will be able to relate.
I have faith that this cast and this director can pull it off. I’m already grateful to Jodie Comer for bringing her deep humanity to a very challenging role in the form of the real-life Marguerite de Carrouges in The Last Duel. I think Hugh Jackman is underrated in his subtlety, and while Robin is not Logan, his brilliance in playing Logan proves he has the chops (pun intended) to make us believe in a battered, but hopeful (with glimpses of wit and charm, despite it all) Robin Hood. And if Pig is any indication, Michael Sarnoski knows how to give his actors space and time to work – as well as how to shoot a forest beautifully, which is pretty important to a Robin Hood movie.
We already have a cartoon Robin Hood, and he is perfection. I’m looking forward to seeing a fully human one, not only because it makes a better story, but because the people of the past deserve to be represented as complex and three-dimensional in their own right.
(And hey, Hollywood – if you can use some help with the details, I’m here for you! Give me a shout.)
If you’d like to read the 17th century ballad The Death of Robin Hood for yourself (and find out how he chose his burial spot!) you can find it here as part of the wonderful TEAMS book Robin Hood and Other Outlaw Tales.
Danièle Cybulskie (aka The Five-Minute Medievalist) is the bestselling author of five books, the creator and host of The Medieval Podcast, and the writer and presenter of Sony’s This is History Presents… The Iron King. You can follow her on Instagram @5MinMedievalist or visit her website at danielecybulskie.com
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