51 GREATEST FICTIONAL BAD GUYS
#47. LORD SUMMERISLE from THE WICKER MAN.
I’m not religious in the slightest. The older I get, the more cynical I get. Human fingerprints on theological doctrines kind of give me a case of the disdains. Still, I’d like to think I’m respectful of other’s belief systems and follow a simple credo: whatever gets you through the day is none of my business, just don’t tell me how to get through mine.
Thus comes my complete adoration for The Wicker Man and its two core characters, Sergeant Neil Howie (played by the late, great Edward Woodward) and Lord Summerisle (played by the late, great Christopher Lee). Both men are staunchly religious (Howie to a puritanical form of Christianity; Summerisle to his own brand of pagan worship).
Like all zealots, they insult, dispute and point out scornful paradoxes of each other’s faiths. Tolerance for the other is merely a formality to get to each other’s goals. But as much as Howie comes off as a pompous crusader, his heart really is in the right place: he wants to save a missing girl from becoming a ritualized sacrifice.
And in the end, it’s the charming, well-spoken and unflappable Lord Summerisle who proves Howie’s argument of being an immoral savage. Summerisle has channeled mob energy towards Howie’s death, watching as they happily sing and dance as he’s roasted before them.
In the end, we the audience realize there really is no Holy Trinity or Sun Goddess in the WICKER MAN’s universe. What we do to one another — the brutality, the snubbing, the holier-than-thou finger-wagging, the ritualized murder (especially the ritualized murder) — is for nothing. How crazy and horrifying is that?
Howie: “I believe in the life eternal, as promised to us by our Lord, Jesus Christ!”
Summerisle: “That is good. For believing what you do, we confer upon you a rare gift these days: a martyr’s death.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8HeTdkItUQ
