Robin Hood. The beloved folk hero known for his quiver of arrows and philosophy of stealing from the rich and giving to the poor.
Whether it’s Disney’s kid-friendly version with the singing Rooster or Michael Sarnoski’s brutal The Death of Robin Hood, the apocryphal character has enjoyed a rich history onscreen.
Writer-director Paul Greengrass (The Bourne Ultimatum) explores the origins of the myth in his latest film, The Uprising, which stars The Amazing Spider-Man alum Andrew Garfield as the man who would apparently become the iconic desperado.
The historical action-drama takes place in England, circa 1381, after the Black Death pandemic raged across Europe from 1346-1353. As if a disease with a high mortality rate wasn’t bad enough, the poorest members of society are also forced to pay heavy taxes to King Richard II (Woody Norman). Haunted by the death of his family and enraged by the monarchical malfeasance, Ploughman (Garfield), named literally for his job as a farmer in the fields, wages a brazen peasant rebellion against the crown.
“The original Hood was a simple man, an outlaw,” Greengrass explained in the official production notes. “And so, in a way, it felt fitting, and right for my Ploughman in the aftermath of the Uprising to become a kind of Robin Hood outlaw, reflecting that same yearning—the desire to stand up to power, to resist injustice at all costs and to believe that a fairer world might still be possible.”
With that said, the archetype of Robin Hood doesn’t begin to take shape until the very end of the movie.
How The End of Andrew Garfield’s The Uprising Connects to Robin Hood
Just as it did in real life, the movie version of the Peasants’ Revolt crumbles, though the Ploughman is able to escape with his life.
A year later, as seen in the film’s epilogue, he and a band of merry outlaws attack the king’s convoy with a hailstorm of arrows. With the guards taken out of commission, the hood-wearing archer who would become a legend puts the fear of God into the young royal.
“The flame of freedom stays alive, and the hero’s journey continues,” Greengrass told IGN. “And I never wanted my character to die because it didn’t feel interesting to me. It felt interesting to me to end him as an outlaw. That was the place where he was headed and a sort of mythic one where he shed all his identity, became a sort of mythic, a never named outlaw who took on the king and said, ‘No, I could kill you, but instead, we’ll just stay and haunt you forever.'”
The Uprising is now in theaters. Click here for tickets.
