Full spoilers follow for The Uprising.
Director Paul Greengrass’ The Uprising chronicles the Peasants’ Revolt of 1381, but uses this actual historical event as a setup for what had secretly been a Robin Hood origin movie until a recent trailer revealed the truth. (Nowhere in the film, though, is Andrew Garfield’s protagonist referred to as Robin Hood. His peasant farmer character is known simply as Ploughman.)
After the Peasants’ Revolt is crushed by King Richard II (Woody Norman), the Ploughman, along with other survivors like Alyce (Thomasin McKenzie), abandon their previous lives and take to the woods to become outlaws. In the film’s closing moments, Ploughman and his highwaymen, camouflaged in earthy-hued clothing, emerge from the forest to attack the King’s convoy.
After his fellow outlaws kill the King’s guards and he personally slays the Mayor of London (Jonny Lee Miller) in one-on-one combat, the Ploughman – or Robin Hood, if you will – pins the King to the ground. But rather than kill him, he leaves the monarch with a warning: We will haunt you forever.
The final shot of the movie is of Windsor Castle where we can hear the King screaming from night terrors. During the first half of the movie, Richard II had been paralyzed with fear and indecision, praying to God to save him from those he dreams are coming to get him. Richard II eventually finds his backbone as a leader, proclaiming he will grant the rebelling peasants’ petitions for freedoms. But then at Smithfield on June 15, 1381, Richard II betrays the serfs, and has his troops kill a slew of them, including rebel leaders Wat Tyler (Cosmo Jarvis) and John Ball (Jamie Bell). In real life, Tyler was killed there and authorities hunted down a great number of rebels in the following weeks.
Ploughman and Alyce are among those rebels who escape Smithfield alive, making their way back to Ploughman’s farm where he finds his home burned down. With nothing left, Ploughman weeps at the graves of his dead family and takes fistfuls of dirt and smears it across his face. The Ploughman is symbolically buried with them, and the outlaw who will inspire the legend of Robin Hood is born. The film then jumps ahead a year to depict the attack on the King’s convoy described above.
I recently chatted with the film’s writer-director, Paul Greengrass, who explained that his intent was always to incorporate the legend of Robin Hood into his story and that he was supportive of Focus Features’ brief pivot to marketing the film as The Uprising: The Rise of Robin Hood.
IGN: Focus very briefly marketed The Uprising as literally "The Rise of Robin Hood." What were your thoughts on that? And is that true to your film?
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.ign.com/articles/the-uprising-robin-hood-ending-explained
