The name William Tell will probably bring one of two things to mind: the famous opera overture that got recontextualized by The Lone Ranger and Mickey Mouse, and the image of a man shooting an apple off someone else’s head with a bow and arrow.
Nick Hamm, director of the new film starring Claes Bang as William Tell, wants you to know this: the 14th century Swiss folk hero was forced to shoot that arrow by a Habsburg tyrant named Albrecht Gessler, and the apple was on the head of his son.
“It’s the scene that everybody knows, but nobody knows the reason why it happened.