William Tell director on why the tale is more relevant than ever

William Tell may have been a fictional character, but the story of the Swiss huntsman and resistance leader forced to shoot an apple from his own son’s head has endured for over 500 years.

Nick Hamm, the director of a new movie based on the story, told Channel 4 News why this brutal tale from long ago has resonance in today’s world.

Nick Hamm: Because it’s a film about political liberty and how you can lose it very easily, how you fight for it and then what happens is the consequences. The consequence of fighting for it. It’s a legend that’s been around for, let’s face it, 400 or 500 years. And really, nobody ever understood or understands why it’s existed for this long. So for me, to explore that, I thought, ‘well, hold on why has it existed? Why is he a hero? What’s the meaning of heroism in William Tell? It’s not the same level of heroism that you get from a kind of Hollywood hero movie.

Matt Frei: Why is it different?

Nick Hamm: This is a man who understands the consequences of war and knows what will happen if this tiny little community that he’s sort of a part of, is attacked by a much more autocratic power that’s coming in to take their land and their wealth.

Matt Frei: And of course, the one thing that people know about William Tell is the apple on the boy’s head, the apple on his son’s head, which he then has to shoot from a distance as a great marksman. And if he misses, he kills his son. This is such an iconically brilliant sort of evil thing to do to someone, isn’t it?

Nick Hamm: (Albrecht) Gessler, who’s the Austrian commander. There’s no way he believes that Tell can make that shot. So what’s he actually doing? He’s actually looking for a public execution of a young boy in a town square. That scene is a vicious piece of political theatre. It’s an absolute, complete parallel to men in jumpsuits getting their throat cut in the desert and then put on social media. That’s what it is. It’s an exercise of fascist power and how you demonstrate that and how you benefit from it. And that’s why that scene has lasted for 400 years. It couldn’t be more prescient. It couldn’t be a more current argument to what we’re all dealing with and facing.

Matt Frei: In different incarnations. So if you’re watching this in Gaza, you will say to yourself, ‘I know what this is all about’. But also, if you’re watching this in Israel and you feel kind of put upon by your neighbours who all want you dead, you think ‘I know what this is about.’

Nick Hamm: When I started writing it, Ukraine happened. When I was shooting it and finished filming it, Gaza happened. So there is no sides in a movie like this. The side in this movie is to point out the horror that can happen to a local community and how that can destroy everybody around.

Matt Frei: Do you think a movie like this, which has this sort of timeless appeal, does it change anything?

Nick Hamm: It’s an anti-war movie. How do you make an anti-war movie? The first thing you do is make a war movie. And you make a war movie that is entertaining, that is deliberately sometimes vicious and horrible. But that takes the audience on a great ride.