Beowulf: The Movie
Neil Gaimen's Beowulf finally hits the theatres this weekend and expectations are high, both because this is the first blockbuster Beowulf movie ever and since Gaimen has a devoted following. As a Medievalist, an Anglo-Saxonist in particular, I'm in the first crowd, though I've seen the previews so know it's Beowulf with a twist.
Jack Niles, the Old English professor here at Madison, invited the department to a special screening (3D! Imax!) the night before opening day. He also led a Q&A following the movie, which was neat since we got to see him field questions ranging from, "how is this like the book" (my answer: there are characters who have the same name) to Beth's great question about the role of adaptation in Medieval literature. So we got the red carpet treatment which meant we were given priority seating and didn't have to wait in the humongous line and get turned away. Here's a brief overview of the movie alongside some analysis of it. (WARNING: spoilers follow.)
The poem has three major fight scenes: Beowulf vs. Grendel, his mother and a dragon. This traditionally flummoxes directors and scholars seeking to connect the first two with the last. Gaimen does manage to do it. He turns Grendel's mother into a seductress who tempts: 1) Hrothgar, 2) Beowulf and 3) possibly Wiglaf, which is where the movie ambiguously ends. (Wiglaf has been the closest thing we've gotten to a hero in the movie, though it's because he cares for people and does his job well rather than any great actions he accomplishes.) Angelina Jolie's -- err, I mean, Grendel's mother's -- motivation is to have children. (They keep getting killed by their fathers when they try to ravish the kingdom.)
Which is part of the movie's point, I think. Noble dialogue would have suggested that there as some nobility to be found -- even Wiglaf is revealed throughout to be insufficient. What I did like about the movie was how it deconstructed the notion of the hero and fully reflected a modern temper.
So while this isn't Beowulf at all, it's a fascinating commentary on our own time. The coolest part of the movie (aside from the scenes that just made me giggle because they were so poorly written -- I expected something more from Gaimen...) was this scene where a rat scampers across the roof beams of the mead hall, chats briefly with another mouse who is promptly carried away by a hawk. What makes this so neat is it's an inversion of the famous sparrow through the mead hall image quoted by Bede. He recounts the conversion of Northumbria, where one of the pagan advisors listens to stories of the new religion and advocates accepting it because it offers more information about the afterlife than their own religion does. The counsellor describes the soul as a sparrow, driven by the winds who briefly flies through a mead hall and then dashes back out into the unknown. The mead hall is life and the snow eternity.
Gaimen turns this hopeful conception on its head: instead of a sparrow, we have a rat. Instead of the storm, we have the loss of a friend because of a hungry hawk. It unsettles the notions of the expected order of the universe while emphasizing the uncertain cruelty of the world. And captures the spirit of the movie perfectly.
1 comment:
I really liked reading your thoughts about the movie. I haven't read Beowulf in ages! Hope you are well, friend!
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