Exploring the real-life fallout of making the cult classic for the director and his family
In 1973, The Wicker Man hit British theaters, but many didn’t even notice. A small scale roll-out, with a limited amount of promotion, it’s distributor British Lion was all too cautious with a film it didn’t understand or appreciate. In the years and indeed decades that followed, The Wicker Man has become the benchmark for folk horror, and is regarded as one of the greatest British films ever made. The cost of it’s production isn’t just measured in terms of budget and box office, but is also be gauged by the friends and family of it’s director Robin Hardy in a far more personal way . A man who we come to know as a flawed but driven character, whose choices and priorities over the course of his life left behind a cherished feature, but a fractures series of relationships and individuals in his wake.
The legacy of The Wicker Man has been explored previously, Burnt Offerings from Mark Kermode perhaps being the standout. The Children of the Wicker Man has an altogether different approach. The dive was precipitated by one of Hardy’s son Justin (one of 8, children that Hardy had apparently acknowledged) taking receipt of a portfolio of documents belonging to his late father’s estate. Within were a number of legal documents, production materials, and other artifacts that centered around his father’s professional career and personal life. After realizing that these materials offer a perfect way to piece together their past, and better understand some of the choices their father made, Justin enlists his half-brother Dominic, and support from filmmaker Chris Nunn, to document their work, and their journey to the key people and places that can make sense of it all.
As a self-confessed fan of the film, it’s fascinating to get an alternate perspective on things. These documents include original scripts, sketches of characters, production schedules, contracts, letters concerning funding support from his then wife, and a wealth of personal letters. Together, they offer a roadmap to into their father’s life and thinking from a few years prior to production on the Wicker Man. Covering battles with the studios, the involvement of Christopher Lee, casting decisions, crew conflicts, financial and legal troubles, and the ever deepening friction with his collaborators, most notably the film’s screenwriter Anthony Shaffer (Sleuth). A man who sat down with Hardy and hammered out the story over a day at the latter’s home, drinking two bottles of Scotch as delivered by a young Dominic. Interviews with surviving cast and crew add outsider context, with a large portion of the film comes from thoughtful ruminations and unvarnished sharing of memories, thoughts and feelings as Justin and Dominic visit locations such as their childhood homes, places where Hardy held court celebrating the film in the years after release, and shooting locations. A highlight is a trip to the town used in the film and the botanical gardens where up until a few years ago, they were still finding the artificial flowers used to dress the setting to craft the immortal location that was Summerisle.
The mismanagement of the film by new forces at production company British Lion which impacted it’s release and box office is where the impact on the family crystalizes, and Hardy’s flaws and foibles come to the fore. The film’s introduction made reference to some of his more philandering and lascivious qualities, and it’s kept relatively PG in the documentary itself, likely to keep the peace with other siblings and avoid washing (really) dirty laundry in public. We’re witness to Hardy’s streak of self-sabotage, not limited to this single production, but certainly exemplified by it. His signing away of royalties to the film’s profits in favor of a quick payout early on being one such example. It’s also made clear how Hardy displayed a recurring pattern of abandonment, a pain that united these half-brothers and drove them to face it head-on. You could approach what unfolds with a cooler logic and ask, is The Wicker Man really to blame? You could equally point fingers at British Lion for their failure to promote the feature for instance. The film certainly works as a focal point for this family, drawing attention and ire, but it’s legacy cements Hardy’s culpability, as once again he repeated his penchant for abandonment, even in the face of family related issues such as financial problems or illness. This time in favor of absconding to America and the circuit of screenings popping up across college campuses as the film began to secure it’s cult status. Hardy clearly has a charming and disarming nature, you don’t get to 8 kids (and possibly more), by multiple women without that kind of quality, and his legacy is much burnished by his engagement on the film and academic circuit over the years. There is something poignant about this creative work being reassessed and embraced. Indeed, this cherished status is not lost on the brothers, and goes some way to the cathartic denouement that brings the film to an end.
The documentary has something of a rough around the edges quality, intentionally imparted according to the film’s Q&A, and it does lend to a family scrapbook feeling. There is a bit of redundancy to a series of title cards that are used to breakup the film into chapters, with verbiage usually being reiterated verbally. Some ardent Wicker Man fans may feel they don’t get enough of a dive into the film’s productions wider legacy, but the good news is that the treasure trove of documents the brothers inherited, and a spate of excised footage recorded but unused for Children, will be used to fuel to crafting of a follow-up documentary, with a working title of Wickermania. This will chart the impact of the film and it’s legacy, notably how it’s impacted film, music, culture, and even the practice of Paganism itself. It should provide a nice complement to The Children of the Wicker Man, where through deconstructing their father through filmmaking, Justin and Dominic use the very medium their father used to imprint such harm upon them. It’s poetic in a way, and speaks to how artistic creativity and pursuit of a dream can be a force for good, but can come with a cost.
