Someone Died for Me: The Wicker Man and Calvary
Last weekend, I went in search of essays by Alice Walker . I have loved her work for most of my adult life, even though I lost track of her fiction after The Color Purple . One of Walker's essays, published in the 2006 collection We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For: Light In A Time Of Darkness , describes the sacrificial life and death of Martin Luther King, Jr. Days after reading Walker, I had the chance to view clips from one of the scariest, most deeply disturbing films I have ever seen: The Wicker Man . I am referring to the excellent 1973 version starring Edward Woodward and Christopher Lee. In this film, a staunchly Christian British police officer volunteers to go to a remote Hebridean island to investigate the disappearance of a young girl. After his arrival, the sergeant realizes he is caught in a strangling maze of "pagan" practices focused on sun worship and possibly human sacrifice. This is not a story with a happy Hollywood ending. The cruelty of the end...