Art by Matt Reedy
Paul Giovanni uses English folk music to reflect the neo-paganist worldview of the The Wicker Man’s isolated islanders. Many of these songs are upbeat drinking ballads or slower love songs. In any other context, they would be the soundtrack to a folk romance. Not in The Wicker Man.
Neil Howie, the film’s protagonist and a thoroughly devout Christian police officer, is deeply at odds with the free-love Celtic polytheists of Summerisle. These songs tease him. Erotic overtures tear at Neil’s chastity, driving a wedge between his primal urges and the rigid tenets of Christianity, while the earth-worship in old English harvest songs battle and overshadow his own worship of God. The score ultimately mimics the contrast between the islanders and the officer – their comfort and his unease, the tension between pagan and Christian.
However, the score is not simply about the conflict between paganism and Christianity. By re-composing English folk songs or taking inspiration from them, Giovanni opens a door to England’s pre-modern folk past. The score, like the film, offers a modern glimpse into paganist England.
