Beowulf: Prince of the Geats is a 2007 film based on the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf . The film was made by Scott Wegener on a shoestring budget with proceeds benefiting the American and Norwegian Cancer Societies. [1] The film was shown only briefly in theaters, but that its central character was played by a Black actor generated much racist online commentary. [2]
The film addresses issues of "colonialism and exploitation", according to Kathleen Forni. [3] Unlike earlier film versions, the main character is played by a Black actor. Director Scott Wegener had cast the African-American actor Jayshan Jackson for the main part, and then reworked the script accordingly: in Wegener's version, Beowulf's father was a fisherman from an African people, who ended up in Northern Europe where he fathered a child with a local woman. This led to protests from neo-Nazis and other white supremacists, via email and on websites. [1] Neo-Odinists, who consider Beowulf as equivalent to a sacred text, were offended by Wegener's choice. [2]
William Clark Gable was an American film actor. Often referred to as the "King of Hollywood", he had roles in more than 60 films in a variety of genres during a career that lasted 37 years, three decades of which was as a leading man. He was named the seventh greatest male movie star of classic American cinema by the American Film Institute.
David Wheeler, better known as David Thewlis, is an English actor and filmmaker. He is known as a character actor and has appeared in a wide variety of genres in both film and television. He has received the Cannes Film Festival Award for Best Actor and nominations for two BAFTA Awards, a Golden Globe Award, a Primetime Emmy Award, and a Screen Actors Guild Award.
The Wægmundings were a prominent probably Swedish clan in Beowulf. A name such as Wægmunding meant "belongs to Wægmund", i.e. they were the descendants of a man named Wægmund. This was the normal way of naming a Germanic clan.
Wiglaf is a character in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf. He is the son of Weohstan, a Swede of the Wægmunding clan who had entered the service of Beowulf, king of the Geats. Wiglaf is called Scylfing as a metonym for Swede, as the Scylfings were the ruling Swedish clan. While in the service of the Scylfing Onela, king of the Swedes, Weohstan killed the rebel prince Eanmund and took his sword as a trophy; Wiglaf later inherited it. Weohstan belonged to the clan of the Wægmundings, the same clan Beowulf's father Ecgþeow belonged to; so Wiglaf is Beowulf's distant cousin, and his only living relative at the time of Beowulf's death.
Beowulf is a legendary Geatish hero in the eponymous epic poem, one of the oldest surviving pieces of English literature.
Wotansvolk promulgates a white nationalist variant of Neo-Paganism—founded in the early 1990s by Ron McVan, Katja Lane and David Lane (1938–2007) while Lane was serving a 190-year prison sentence for his actions in connection with the white supremacist revolutionary domestic terrorist organization The Order. After the founding of 14 Word Press by David Lane and his wife Katja to disseminate her husband's writings, Ron McVan joined the press in 1995 and founded Temple of Wotan. 14 Word Press - Wotansvolk proceeded to publish several books for the practice of Wotanism before becoming defunct in the early 2000s.
Paul Wegener was a German actor, writer, and film director known for his pioneering role in German expressionist cinema.
Beowulf is a 2007 American adult animated fantasy action film produced and directed by Robert Zemeckis, written by Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary, based on the Old English epic poem Beowulf, and featuring the voices of Ray Winstone, Anthony Hopkins, Robin Wright, Brendan Gleeson, John Malkovich, Crispin Glover, Alison Lohman, and Angelina Jolie. The film depicts the rise and fall of the warrior Beowulf after he travels to Denmark to kill a monster. It was produced by Shangri-La Entertainment and Zemeckis's ImageMovers and features characters animated using motion-capture animation, which was previously used in The Polar Express (2004) and Monster House (2006).
Alexander Rud Mills was an Australian barrister and writer, interned in 1942 for his Nazi sympathies and fascist beliefs. He was also a prominent Odinist, one of the earliest proponents of the rebirth of Germanic Neopaganism in the 20th century, and an anti-Semite. He founded the First Anglecyn Church of Odin in Melbourne in 1936. He published under his own name and the pen-names "Tasman Forth" and "Justinian".
Beowulf & Grendel is a 2005 Canadian-Icelandic fantasy adventure film directed by Sturla Gunnarsson, loosely based on the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf. It stars Gerard Butler as Beowulf, Stellan Skarsgård as Hrothgar, Ingvar Eggert Sigurðsson as Grendel and Sarah Polley as the witch Selma. The screenplay was written by Andrew Rai Berzins. The soundtrack was composed by Hilmar Örn Hilmarsson.
Grendel is a 1971 novel by the American author John Gardner. It is a retelling of part of the Old English poem Beowulf from the perspective of the antagonist, Grendel. In the novel, Grendel is portrayed as an antihero. The novel deals with finding meaning in the world, the power of literature and myth, and the nature of good and evil.
Stalker is a fictional antihero and swords and sorcery character published by DC Comics. The character, created by Paul Levitz and Steve Ditko, debuted in Stalker #1. The art in all four issues of Stalker was handled by the team of Ditko (pencils) and Wally Wood (inks).
Bob Elkins was an American character actor who appeared in movies, plays and television productions. He was sometimes credited as Robert Elkins.
Skokie is a 1981 television film directed by Herbert Wise, based on a real life controversy in Skokie, Illinois, involving the National Socialist Party of America. This controversy would be fought in court and reach the level of the United States Supreme Court in National Socialist Party of America v. Village of Skokie.
Clark Reid Martell is an American white supremacist and the former leader of Chicago Area SkinHeads (CASH), which was founded in 1985 by six skinheads under his leadership. This was the first organized neo-Nazi white power skinhead group in the United States. The group was also called Romantic Violence, and was the first US distributor of records and tapes from the English band Skrewdriver.
The final act of the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf includes Beowulf's fight with a dragon, the third monster he encounters in the epic. On his return from Heorot, where he killed Grendel and Grendel's mother, Beowulf becomes king of the Geats and rules wisely for fifty years until a slave awakens and angers a dragon by stealing a jewelled cup from its lair. When the angry dragon mercilessly burns the Geats' homes and lands, Beowulf decides to fight and kill the monster personally. He and his thanes climb to the dragon's lair where, upon seeing the beast, the thanes flee in terror, leaving only Wiglaf to battle at Beowulf's side. When the dragon wounds Beowulf fatally, Wiglaf attacks it with his sword, and Beowulf kills it with his dagger.
Wyatt C. Kaldenberg is an American white supremacist and a supporter of Tom Metzger's Neo-Nazi White Aryan Resistance (WAR) organization. He is also an Odinist, and an author of several books.
The difficulty of translating Beowulf from its compact, metrical, alliterative form in a single surviving but damaged Old English manuscript into any modern language is considerable, matched by the large number of attempts to make the poem approachable, and the scholarly attention given to the problem.