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Beowulf | |
---|---|
Directed by | Graham Baker |
Screenplay by | Mark Leahy David Chappe |
Based on | Beowulf |
Produced by | Lawrence Kasanoff |
Starring | Christopher Lambert Rhona Mitra Oliver Cotton Gotz Otto Layla Roberts Patricia Velásquez |
Cinematography | Christopher Faloona |
Edited by | Roy Watts |
Music by | Jonathan Sloate Ben Watkins |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | Dimension Films The Kushner-Locke Company Capitol Films Limited |
Release date |
|
Running time | 93 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $20 million [1] |
Beowulf is a 1999 American science fantasy-action film loosely based on the Old English epic poem Beowulf. The film was directed by Graham Baker and written by Mark Leahy and David Chappe. Unlike most film adaptations of the poem, this version is a science-fiction/fantasy film that, according to one film critic, "takes place in a post-apocalyptic, techno-feudal future that owes more to Mad Max than Beowulf." [2] While the film remains fairly true to the story of the original poem, other plot elements deviate from the original poem (Hrothgar has an affair with Grendel's mother, and they have a child together, Grendel; Hrothgar's wife commits suicide).
A castle-like outpost comes under attack by a creature, named Grendel, on a nightly basis. However, it refuses to attack the border lord Hrothgar. One of the outpost's residents, Pendra, escapes the following morning but is captured by a rival siege line who intend to kill her to prevent the outpost's evil from spreading. Pendra is saved by a mysterious warrior named Beowulf and rides with him, but when she realizes Beowulf is riding for the outpost, she runs back to the siege line and is killed. Beowulf meets Hrothgar and is permitted to stay to help slay the beast. Hrothgar, his daughter Kyra, and his military leader Roland suspect that Beowulf was sent by a rival family to avenge the death of their son Nivri, Kyra's former husband. However, Kyra's suspicions dissipate when she realizes that Beowulf can sense evil.
For a few nights, Hrothgar experiences nightmares about his late wife's suicide, triggered by a mysterious woman who stalks him in his sleep. When Grendel attacks during the day, Beowulf and Hrothgar's remaining soldiers are forced to confront Grendel. They evacuate the women and children to a sanctuary, but they are immediately slaughtered by Grendel. Beowulf manages to wound Grendel, but is also wounded in the process. As Kyra attends to Beowulf, Roland confesses his romantic feelings for her; however, she only sees him as a brother. After Beowulf recovers, Kyra reveals that Nivri was an abusive spouse and she killed him after he attempted to force himself on her. Beowulf believes she was justified. Beowulf faces Grendel again and severs its arm. Believing Grendel to be dead, the survivors celebrate and Roland is lured by the woman, who kills him.
Kyra discloses her romantic feelings to Beowulf and the two have sex. Afterwards, Beowulf reveals to Kyra that he is half-human because his mother was impregnated by Bael and he is only able to suppress his inner evil by battling evil. Beowulf senses the mysterious woman and rushes to find her. Kyra and Hrothgar return to the dining hall to find everyone dead, including Roland. They encounter her, who reveals herself to be Grendel's mother and Hrothgar as its father, hence why Grendel had spared him before. Hrothgar's unfaithfulness led to his wife's suicide. Hrothgar attempts to kill the succubus but is killed by Grendel. Beowulf arrives and kills the beast. Grendel's mother attempts to appeal to Beowulf's inner evil to seduce him, but fails and transforms into a giant humanoid spider-like creature. After Beowulf defeats her, their battle forces the outpost to collapse on itself. Beowulf and Kyra escape, and she convinces him to let her accompany him on his journeys.
The production was filmed in Romania. The film's end credits says: "Filmed on location in Romania". The specific location is the city of Rupea, in Transylvania.
As with other Beowulf adaptations, the film reinterprets the poem, blending its original genre with "tropes from horror and soft pornography," but it also retains and expands on its original elements. [3]
The film addresses the poem's plot point of Beowulf not having a wife or an heir, as it reveals Beowulf to be the same kind of creature as the monsters themselves, making him refusing to produce offspring. The poem's emphasis on genealogy is represented by humans and monsters mating with each other, with Grendel being the son of Hrothgar and Beowulf being the result of a god of darkness inseminating a woman. [3] [4] Beowulf and Grendel are shown as mirror images of each other, as the former harbors an internal struggle to contain his monstrous nature, while the latter was conceived by his mother as a revenge for an external oppression. [4]
Grendel's mother is portrayed as a representation of monstrous female sexuality. [3] [4] She operates as a seductive succubus, giving birth to monsters, but can also shapeshift into a monster herself. This form resembles a dragon, an arachnid and a gorgon, [3] not only evoking the Freudian Medusa's Head, but also evoking the archaic mother by resembling a vagina dentata with phallic talons. [4] She also sexually attacks Hrothgar, inverting the trope of horror film monsters chasing after female leads. [3]
The film's soundtrack mainly featured electronic and industrial songs from various artists and original score material by Juno Reactor's Ben Watkins.
Critical reaction to the film has been highly negative. The general criticisms for the film were the weak script, below-average acting, corny dialogue, deviations from the source material, and over-reliance on camp, although it was hailed for its production design. Danél Griffin of Film as Art said the film "understands that liberties must be taken with the poem's characters to create a more cinematic experience, and there are moments that, even in its liberties, it reveals a deep appreciation for the poem, and a profound understanding of its ideas. There are other moments, however, that seem so absurd and outlandish that we wonder if the writers, Mark Leahy and David Chappe, have even read the poem." Griffin added that "Lambert is certainly effective", but concluded that "clever ideas aside, the film is unfortunately mediocre at best. The set design and some of the revised storyline are both stupendous, but the overall experience makes for poor cinema." [2]
Beyond Hollywood's review said that "genre films don't get any sillier than this", but called the film "above average". The review praised the film's "energetic action" and said that it "excels in set design", but added that "the techno (music) is pretty annoying." [5] Calling the film "a cheesy post-apocalyptic update of the ancient tale", Carlo Cavagna of About Film praised the film's action scenes but felt that Lambert and Mitra had no chemistry. [6]
Literature scholars have been negative as well. Michael Livingstone and John William Sutton are brief, calling it an "an otherwise ridiculous" film, though they say it well reflects the problematization of "black-and-white morality" "in our postmodern, post Vietnam, post-9/11 era." Commenting on the movie's proposed similarity between Beowulf and Grendel, they say, "although the film is cringingly hokey and melodramatic, it effectively illustrates the idea of the aeglaeca —that Beowulf and the monsters may have more in common than we care to admit." [7]
Beowulf is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often translated works of Old English literature. The date of composition is a matter of contention among scholars; the only certain dating is for the manuscript, which was produced between 975 and 1025 AD. Scholars call the anonymous author the "Beowulf poet". The story is set in pagan Scandinavia in the 5th and 6th centuries. Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, whose mead hall Heorot has been under attack by the monster Grendel for twelve years. After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother takes revenge and is in turn defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland and becomes king of the Geats. Fifty years later, Beowulf defeats a dragon, but is mortally wounded in the battle. After his death, his attendants cremate his body and erect a barrow on a headland in his memory.
Grendel is a character in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem Beowulf. He is one of the poem's three antagonists, all aligned in opposition against the protagonist Beowulf. He is referred to as both an eoten and a þyrs, types of beings from wider Germanic mythology. He is also described as a descendant of the Biblical Cain and "a creature of darkness, exiled from happiness and accursed of God, the destroyer and devourer of our human kind." He is usually depicted as a monster or a giant, although his status as a monster, giant, or other form of supernatural being is not clearly described in the poem and thus remains the subject of scholarly debate. The character of Grendel and his role in the story of Beowulf have been subject to numerous reinterpretations and re-imaginings. Grendel is feared by all in Heorot but Beowulf, who kills both him and his mother.
Hrothgar was a semi-legendary Danish king living around the early sixth century AD. Many years later, Hrothgar paid money to the Wulfings to resolve a blood feud they had with Ecgtheow, Beowulf's father.
Hrunting was a sword given to Beowulf by Unferth in the ancient Old English epic poem Beowulf. Beowulf used it in battle against Grendel's mother.
Wealhtheow is a queen of the Danes in the Old English poem, Beowulf, first introduced in line 612.
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).
Grendel's mother is one of three antagonists in the anonymous Old English poem Beowulf, the other two being Grendel and the dragon. Each antagonist reflects different negative aspects of both the hero Beowulf and the heroic society that the poem is set in. Grendel's mother is introduced in lines 1258b to 1259a as: "Grendles modor/ides, aglæcwif".
Grendel Grendel Grendel is a 1981 Australian animated film written, directed and designed by Alexander Stitt and starring Peter Ustinov. It was based on John Gardner's novel Grendel. The music was composed and conducted by Bruce Smeaton and has been released on the 1M1 Records label.
In the Old English epic poem Beowulf, Unferth or Hunferth is a thegn of the Danish lord Hrothgar. He appears five times in the poem — four times by the name 'Hunferð' and once by the appellation "the son of Eclafes". The name Unferth does not appear in any Old English manuscript outside of the Nowell Codex, which contains Beowulf, and the meaning of the name is disputed. Several scholarly theories about Unferth have been proposed. Unferth is also the name of a character in the modern novel Grendel by John Gardner, based upon the Beowulf epic.
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.
In the Old English epic Beowulf, Æschere is Hrothgar's most trusted advisor who is killed by Grendel's mother in her attack on Heorot after her son's death. His name, mentioned four times in the poem, is composed of the Germanic elements "æ", meaning 'ash', and "here", meaning 'army'. King Hrothgar describes Æschere as 'min runwita ond min rædbora', which implies that he knows mysteries or enigmas and also has a duty to explain those mysteries aloud to a community. But by killing and decapitating Æschere, Grendel's mother highlights an anxiety within the poem about things that defy human interpretation. Beowulf and his Geatish warriors find Æschere's severed head at the entrance to Grendel's mother's lair.
Grendel is a 2007 American action-fantasy television film directed by Nick Lyon and very loosely based on the Old English epic poem Beowulf. The television film was produced by the Sci Fi channel as an original movie for broadcasting on the Sci Fi cable television network, and began airing on January 13, 2007. In 2010 it was released on DVD from the sister company by Universal Pictures.
Beowulf is a fictional character of the swords and sorcery genre published by DC Comics. The character debuted in Beowulf: Dragon Slayer #1, and was created by Michael Uslan and Ricardo Villamonte. The character is based on the Anglo-Saxon mythic hero Beowulf, first depicted in the Nowell Codex.
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.
Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary is a prose translation of the early medieval epic poem Beowulf from Old English to modern English. Translated by J. R. R. Tolkien from 1920 to 1926, it was edited by Tolkien's son Christopher and published posthumously in May 2014 by HarperCollins.
"Ill-Boding Patterns" is the thirteenth episode of the sixth season of the American fantasy drama series Once Upon a Time, which aired on March 19, 2017. In this episode, Gold must find a way to stop Gideon from going dark as he prepares to kill Emma, while Hook must find a way to hide the truth about Robert from her, and Wish Realm Robin seeks an ally to help escape Storybrooke. In the past, the legend of Beowulf and how he crossed paths with Rumplestiltskin is revealed.