The Green Man
This is clearly an enigmatic character in the film and I'm not entirely sure how to interpret him as a character and what his function is in the Draughtsman's Contract.
I was thinking that he could be a man of the land in the wild, which contrasts with the heavily ordered society of the upper class characters that have strict societal 'rules' or standards for how to act (generally), interact with others, and present one's self in accordance with their social class. Everyone else is proper in appearance because of their outfits and the controlled way they carry themselves while walking or sitting which is pretty much all of what they do. Green man is by contrast very physical; his body doesn't look like a well straight postured stick while walking (or better yet creeping) mischievously yet playfully around the property. He is free and seemingly without any structure in his life which is in opposition to the bourgeois and even Neville who, in addition to having to act in a formal manner at his employer's residence, has that framing device for the purposes of tediously reproducing exactly what he sees by means of very controlled hands. He has learned his craft well, but much like the sex he has, it seems mechanical which is certainly a quality that the green man never displays...
Anyway at the end he spits out the pineapple which the internet tells me is a symbol of hospitality. Does this mean that he is rejecting the sickening bourgeois idea of hospitality which was responsible for Neville's treatment (which caused his eventual death)?
Possibly on a related note is the scene where he urinates from up on the statue. Is this a mockery of art with Greenaway pissing on how seriously the bourgeois take art? Or, since statues act to preserve the past, is this a comment on the preservation of patriarchal influence of past generations whose customs, tendencies, traits, etc are *inherited* by the later progeny w for good or ill? It would seem that Greenaway thinks ill, but at the same time this film clearly shows the influence of previous art forms (drawing, painting spec. baroque Dutchies, still life, and landscape paintings...art that unlike film cannot be mechanically reproduced), if not societal customs.
And then there's the shot of him on the horse statue. Mr Herbert was supposedly traveling by horse which is probably related, but what's the significance of having this green guy in the statue saddle?
He also mostly observes from a distance; he's on the outside looking in...like the viewer! Is he meant to mirror us? Would that mean that when he gets pulled from the bridge in the scene preceding the revelation of Mr Herbert's death is GREENaway sort of playfully poking the viewer and making him acknowledge himself and his spectatorship, the director/artist behind the work, and/or foregrounding the fact that this is a film?
One of my favorite scenes in the film was when the little boy/nephew is on a walk with his uncle who is encouraging him to be a serious person and to mold into what high society expects him to be. Though the uncle doesn't see or acknowledge the green man, the boy of course does and they have a really nice little light hearted exchange which made me feel warm for the only time in the film because it seemed to be the only time there seemed to be a real genuine human interaction. The boy and the green man seem to share something wonderful and relieving in the context of the estate and all the stuffy characters within. It's so spontaneous which is also significant since everybody seems to have planned out strategies to accomplish their hidden motives.
Or he is he just in there to throw the viewer off? A sort of disorder in a tightly constructed film soaked with artistic contrivance and symbolism?
Maybe the extended cut would elucidate what his function and purpose is, but alas all we have is this version to go off of.
So what do you all think?