On aging heroes

[chani]

Should heroes age?

Can we picture an old Superman, an old Batman...an old Buffy?

Today was definitely a DVDS day. Tonight I decided to watch Richard Lester's  Robin and Marian starring Sean Connery and Audrey Hepburn (and the talented Nicol Williamson as Little John and Robert Shaw as the Sheriff of Nottingham). It's a beautiful love story between two middle-aged people (Sean and Audrey are both terrific) but it also asked the question of the aging hero...in this case, Robin Hood.

Goldman, who wrote the scenario, explained that he based much of the story on actual medieval ballads concerning the death of Robin...

20 years have passed, the crusades ended, Ricard The Lion Heart (Richard Harris ) just died in France (very realistic portrait of the king btw), so Robin returns to England.

There he meets up again with his merry band...and with Marian who has become an abbess during Robin's long absence.

Is Robin still a hero while he's is slowing down despite his attempts to keep going and fulfil the legend, and even if he's still the one who gets the girl?

But can he simply be the man whom Marian still loves?

The character is easy to recognize as Robin Hood but the storyline shows that that he was a man mythologized beyond his capabilities by a populace that needed a hero larger than any one man's life.

The complex relationship bewteen Robin and the Sheriff is very interesting, both still sticking to old values while the world is changing around them, the friendship between Robin and Little John is touching and is the core of the film as well as the romance.

Of course the romance betwen perpetually immature Robin and Marian who became a nun by default (because her marrying Jesus would make Robin jealous!), is poignant. There are funny moments, sad ones, moving ones.
I love the scene when Robin tells Marian the horror of the crusades and she tells him how she stopped dreaming of him. Here's a bit of dialogue I love:

Marian : "You never wrote"

Robin:  "I don't know how"

...and you should see Sean's face and eyes when he says that, or when, earlier, he responds to her asking "why didn't you come back then?" by saying "He was my king".

Oh and there's the scene Marian checks his scars and says how beautiful his body used to be, before confessing her suicide attempt, or the scene when Marian asks him to hurt her and to make her cry because she wants to feel again...It's courtly love and carnal love at once. Marian's final speech about her love for Robin is heartbreaking.

I've always loved that film for the emotion it conveys and for its oddity. It isn't an action movie it isn't about adventure and it often sounds like a play. It's a very poetic, romantic and Shakespearian movie that is deviated from the usual Robin Hood movies but that you should try to watch if you have never seen it.

But back to Buffy...Could, should The Slayer age? Maybe there was something about The Cruciamentum ritual I didn't see at the time...

Comments

[pfeifferpack.livejournal.com]

I loved that movie! In fact when I got hooked on the British series Robin of Sherwood in the 1980's I thought it tied in rather nicely with this film (not just because the Robin in the last episode was Sean Connery's sone either).

As to the aging question? It depends I suppose. Not too many old age homes for heroes or superheroes either. With Buffy there are lots of fics that explore different possibilites about a Slayer and aging. I have always thought the Cruciamentum was a way for the Council to be rid of troublesome maturing Slayers to replace them with more pliant youngsters (for whatever reason...maybe there is a natural attraction to vampires that could prove pesky if unchecked in a sexually mature and "independent and consentual aged" Slayer *G*).

Good question though.

Love,
Kathleen
thinking of watching the film over the New Year