Beowulf

[jack]

I finally saw the Beowulf film. On reflection I decided the story, although it had bothered me somehow at the time, was actually really interesting, very much in the spirit of the original, but doing interesting things too. And that the filming had some iconic moments, and many moments that were notably 3d but not particularly interesting in any other way, and otherwise was rather perfunctory.

For instance, as in the opening scene, depicting a roistering mead hall. But they seemed to glide around the hall showing each appropriate thing "drunken people, check, vomiting, check, persuing swedish wench, check, heaving bosoms but nothing inappropriate, check". But no real sense of majesty or exuberance or chaos — or even decadence — was particularly evoked.

This dichotomy was explained nicely when I looked the film up on wikipedia, and discovered it had been co-written by Neil Gaiman, but directed by someone other than Neil Gaiman.

Spoilers

The best example of the perfunctory filmography was near the end, with the thin spot in the dragon's neck. This was wonderfully described, it sounded natural that the anatomy should have a weak spot there, and that a dragon was a nearly impossible enemy, but if you knew that spot, you stood a chance. And cool that beowulf rips his way in and tears its heart out.

However, it looked kind of stupid. It was a glowing hole in the neck. Well, it was supposed to be. But it didn't look natural, or anything, just like someone had said "what should a glowing hole look like? Well, let's make a hole glow, ok." (And kind of stupid that the whole inside of the dragon is hollow, wasn't this designed by, you know, humans? Who let alone ever having seen, actually are non-hollow vertebrate bodies?)

Story

Nowadays I can do a fair job of watching a film and seeing what's derived from the underlying work, but I'm still often surprised, often pleasantly so. I admit, I hadn't read the story of Beowulf, all I knew was that Beowulf defends someplace called Heorot from something called Grendel who marauds every night. I had impression of Grendel as a monster, and that it was more complicated than that, but didn't really know any more.

If anyone doesn't know, the basic idea is: Beowulf is a roving hero, coming when he hears Heortot's distress to discharge his father's debt to the king (on account of killing his kin and not being able to pay restitution and being banished). Grendel is disturbed by the mead-halls singing and repeatedly attacks it, eventually squatting in it. It's not clear what Grendel is, there was probably less clear distinction than now between humanoid/monstrous and sapient/animalistic, so most conceptions have him as some sort of troll, human enough to be considered a warrior, but outcast/monster enough to beat up a hundred vikings and be outside any sort of civilised society.

Eventually Beowulf rips his arm off, he flees and dies, his mother slaughters everyone, Beowulf goes out and battles the mother under a lake, and returns a hero. Then he becomes king of some other place, someone accidentally boosts a gold cup from a dragon's horde, which attacks the kingdom, Beowulf goes out to fight it to a standstill, dies, and Wiglaf finishes it off.

This film adds the idea of successive heroes vanquishing successive monsters, and incautiously siring the following monster on their common mother. Including that Beowulf accepts a devil's bargain with Grendel's mother, ensuring a nice reign for the kingdom, but eventually producing a dragon. The old king sired Grendel. Wiglaf locks eyes with Grendel's mother as he lies crying over Beowulf's body.

That's really interesting. I'm normally leery of derivative works which totally subvert the original (it's an interesting idea, but often done a bit perfunctorily: I've witnesses some great "Snow White as revisionist history, actually the step-parents were the heroes" stories, but many dire ones). And of ones that make up a whole bunch of different stuff. But this seems somewhere in the middle. The changes ring very true: I wouldn't know how to classify them, but I like it a lot, it feels like a different, fascinating norse myth.

Comments

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh, and there was some sort of 3d thing. I didn't have anything to say about that that wasn't already said, so I concentrated on the plot, characters, dialogue, and design.

[simont]

And kind of stupid that the whole inside of the dragon is hollow

Although, hmmm. Humans are non-hollow vertebrate bodies, but even if they had wings they'd be too heavy to fly. A dragon that size suffers even more from the cube-square law, meaning it's hard to make it light enough to fly – so perhaps being hollow is a feature, not a bug!

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh, hm. Maybe. But it's hard to see why it should be hollow, rather than smaller :)

[simont]

Also, the thing that bothered me was the way that after Beowulf ripped Grendel's arm off and Grendel legged it, everyone celebrated the fact that Grendel was dead. OK, so it turned out he was dead, but how did they know that at the time?

Sure, he's minus one arm, Beowulf has done better against him than anyone else so far, and everyone has renewed hope, so there's definitely cause for at least some kind of celebration. But the blithe assumption that obviously he must have run away to die just smacks of huge and unwarranted optimism to me. Who says a monster like that won't just spend a month convalescing and then come back with vengeance aforethought and with some serious weaponry to compensate for his lack of arm? And, indeed, who says a supernatural weirdything like Grendel can't regrow arms anyway?

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

I found it fairly obvious: my friend leant over and said "By the way, it may not be clear, but he's supposed to be dead" :)

I think it's just sloppy. They had the idea of what should happen, and forgot it wouldn't be clear when people saw it. Although alternative hypotheses include:

* The film is intended for people who know enough Beowulf to get the reference
* At that time, losing a limb was almost certain death from blood loss or gangrene, and we're supposed to infer that from cinematographic cues presented, such as people celebrating
* They're celebrating that he's gone, assuming that even if he survives, he'll be even less of a match for Beowulf with one arm, and is either dead, skulking or fleeing

[simont]

I found it fairly obvious

Oh, well, yes, obviously I knew he was going to turn out to be dead, because I know that much about the source material (though I've never actually read it). But the townsfolk's optimism still grated on me, because I knew they didn't know about the source material :-)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Oh sorry, I was being ironical at you, I found it obvious only because my friend told me. It was obviously inconsistent in the film, and I actually didn't know enough of the original to know what was going to happen, but friend swooped in just in time to prevent me discovering if I could have picked it up from context or not.

[atreic.livejournal.com]

I think the film was remarkably true to the original text, in that it was set up so that the film explained everything in the epic poem - it was the story behind how people came to tell the epic poem. In said original epic poem, all the stupid mead-hallers assume he's dead because his arm's been ripped off, and luckily he is. But it's hard to see that as a problem with the _film_ - it's a big gaping flaw in _beowulf_

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

so that the film explained everything in the epic poem - it was the story behind how people came to tell the epic poem.

That's a good description, I think that's what I was thinking about the sort-of-like-a-reinterpretation-unreliable-narrator-thing, but not unsatisfyingly so.

But it's hard to see that as a problem with the _film_ - it's a big gaping flaw in _beowulf_

I was looking up the poem. You need someone who actually knows it, but to me it looks like unspecified holes like that work a lot better in a poem. The relevant text (from a random translation) is:

The outlaw dire
took mortal hurt; a mighty wound
showed on his shoulder, and sinews cracked,
and the bone-frame burst. To Beowulf now
the glory was given, and Grendel thence
death-sick his den in the dark moor sought,
noisome abode: he knew too well
that here was the last of life, an end
of his days on earth. -- To all the Danes
by that bloody battle the boon had come.
From ravage had rescued the roving stranger
Hrothgar's hall;

So the poem specifies that Grendel crawls off and dies from a mortal would, and you might infer that the would was obviously mortal, or just that the danes went and looked later, because the epic poem describes what happens in general terms, but doesn't give a minute-by-minute rendition you can say "why didn't they do this" to :)

[atreic.livejournal.com]

I guess. But "beowulf" isn't just the poem, it carries a lot of baggage from being retold over the years. I think in "beowulf" the collection of folk stories everyone knows it's pretty much cannon that "beowulf rips off his arm and then he runs away to die".

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Yeah, probably. I think you're right that bit of ambiguity came out of the original story. But I don't think it had to, I think the film could easily have made it clear that he was obviously dying if they'd thought that far ahead.

(Now I'm amused by the idea of it in the oral tradition, where you can just ask the person telling you. But I admit I probably wouldn't have thought to have done.

Bard: And then the celebrating thains...
Audience: Wait? Celebrating? But it was just his arm!
B: No, no, beowulf killed him.
A: But you said he ran away.
B: He was mortally wounded, but not dying immediately.
A: So how did the danes know?
B: They could see he was injured enough to die, but well enough to walk most of the way home first.
A: That's an awfully specific level of wounded. How much did these vikings know about anatomy anyway?
B: Shut up!
A: But are you sure?
B: YES! HE'S PINING FOR THE SWEDISH FJORDS, OK? HE'S DEAD!
A: Also, I've a variety of questions about swimming "with their naked swords to repel whales"...

:)

)

[atreic.livejournal.com]

LOL

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

I could have done without the in-your-faceness of the 3D, and the trying to make keeping Beowulf's genitalia covered a running gag.

Also, despite not having met her (though she is a local so it might yet happen), I do not myself believe that naked Angelina Jolie has high-heel-shaped feet.

That said, there was a lot that was good in it, and keeping Grendel and his mother's dialogue in Old English I really liked. My family discussed afterwards whether it would have worked better to keep the whole film in Old English, and whether if that had been the case it would have, in Montreal, only been available subtitled in French, and whether suitably contemporary French would just come out as Latin, and then remembered again that not everybody reads Latin so that would not, alas, work for most of the Montreal audience as well as it would for us.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

if that had been the case it would have, in Montreal, only been available subtitled in French, and whether suitably contemporary French would just come out as Latin,

ROFL. I don't know. I can think of a few alternatives:

* Keep it in Old English. Barely fewer French speakers then English speakers could understand Old English, on account of so few English speakers doing so :)
* Find a language with a similar relationship to French as Old English has to English: that might be Latin, or something even older?
* Keep it as is, but have a constantly coming-to-the-fore voice-over of the original poem, perhaps overlapping voices in old English and modern. Whoops, an actually sensible idea snuck in there somehow :)