Montmartre: The Minor Mundi of John Wick
Sacre Coeur as Symbol and Microworld Building.
In his cleverness, John Wick evades judgment over the course of three movies but is never happy nor at rest. By the fourth and final film, the character realizes he is out of gambits and tricky interpretations of the rules that bind him to the world of assassins. In John Wick 4, the hourglass sands eventually run out for the hero, but not before the world throws another challenge at his feet. Wick's life becomes that of Sisyphus in the final film. For all his talents, there is no escape from the obstacles or death, and like Sisyphus, he must ascend against tests that dare to push him to the bottom again. Wick's showdown takes place on a hill overlooking Paris, up hundreds of steps, to the looming cathedral, Sacre Coeur. The hill that Wick must climb and fight his way up is worldbuilding in a microcosm.
John Wick 4's duel occurs under the warm morning glow of Sacre Coeur, the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, France's revered Catholic centerpiece. Awaiting Wick will be his foe, the Marquis. However, like the High Table elite before, the Marquis wants to reduce Wick's chances of arriving at the iconic site. So, over the film's last act, Paris's underground network of killers challenge Wick. They all fail. However, at the foot of Montmartre, Wick must go up against a final cadre of high-ground gunfighters in an attempt to kill or weaken him so the duel will be a foregone victory for the Marquis. At the foot of the steps, Rue Foytier, Wick begins his ascent. Not once, but twice. Near the top of the 222 steps, Wick is beaten down and hurled to the bottom. Victory over the first round of killers means nothing. Wick gains no ground. His is an ascent of futility. He is Sisyphus, all of his cleverness and power mean nothing in the end. However, the appearance of a friend and soon-to-be dueling foe, Caine (Donny Yen), levels the playing field, allowing Wick a shot at the dawn rendezvous with fate atop Montmartre, the Hill of Martyrs.
Montmartre, as a place of sacrifice and ritual, dates to antiquity. Some estimates place religious activities on the butte overlooking modern Paris to the pre-Roman period. Julius Caeser referenced Druidic Gauls in what we know as France, and this group might have worshipped on the hill then reconsecrated by Rome. According to Bailey Young, it's believed that Roman temples to Mercury and Mars occupied the mount.[1] Roman occupation of the site brought construction and worship and, eventually, a changing of the guard. During the rise of Christianity, Montmartre earned its new moniker- Hill of Martyrs.
Young writes of the ninth-century 'discovery' of the martyrdom site of "Saint Denis, and his two companions Rusticus and Eluthere were arrested and condemned during the Roman persecutions of the Christians in AD. 250. The three martyrs were led out of the city halfway up the southern slope of the hill and were beheaded. Miraculously, the saint gathered his head under his arm and walked over the hill until he reached the site where the Abbey bearing his name would one day stand. There he fell at the feet of a pious Christian widow who buried him." [2] The first Christian church on the mount would eventually give way to the 19th-century cathedral looming over the city today.
The symbolism of placing Wick's climax on Montmartre perfectly captures the mythic worldbuilding of the series' creators. For Wick's duel to take place anywhere else, whether atop the Eiffel Tower or Arch de Triumphe, would be scenic. Selecting Sacre Coeur atop Montmartre redirects the duel from a stylish Spaghetti Western homage to a confrontation where the existential struggle is finally realized. Montmartre encapsulates the world of the four films. It is a seemingly endless push toward peace that never comes. It is the world built by the High Table, seated at the peak, ordering minions to their deaths while flaunting the law as much as supporting it. And those steps, rising in the dark, are the many places Wick has wandered through to hopefully find peace. Montmartre is John Wick’s world.
Wick must climb the hill of martyrs to end his suffering, come to grips with his mortality, and be remembered as a loving husband, not an infamous gunfighter. What is the purpose of living to remember his wife when every waking moment without her hurts too much. He cannot live to keep her memory alive, as his enemies want him dead at all costs. So, he must make an autosacrifice, offering himself not to the High Table but by seeing to the destruction of the High Table elite, freeing his friends, and dying in peace.
Next week, we’ll complete our journey through John Wick’s worldbuilding and look back on the unexpected phenomenon’s worldbuilding lessons.
[1] Young, Bailey K. "Montmartre: The History of a Hill." Archaeology, vol. 32, no. 6, 1979, pp. 43–52. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41726300.
[2] ibid.