Beowulf in the digital age
Beowulf: a digital hero from England’s lost culture
The 3-D blockbuster will redefine what it is to be English
Burrowing far deeper in search of the continuities, the late Patrick Wormald transformed the writing of Anglo-Saxon history by arguing that the English common law, far from being the invention of Henry II’s reign in the 12th century, was already evolving three centuries earlier in the Wessex of Alfred the Great. Anglo-Saxon law and monarchy might have been influenced by Charlemagne, but these were independent and precocious growths — a scholarly conclusion which also reflects Euro-sceptic opinions in late 20th-century England.
Zemeckis’s Beowulf is the latest stage of Anglo-Saxon interpretation — one that equips that culture’s epic for a high-tech age which also enjoys camping it up. Actors are encased in close-fitting Lycra suits — the medium through which digital sensors can be attached to their faces and bodies. The filmed performances are then merged with computer-generated graphics. But the effect — although productive of some vertiginous battle scenes — gives the actors an oddly washed-out look. Angelina Jolie survives the treatment and, as Grendel’s mother, transmutes into a convincingly semi-human lizard. She has form in the deranged mother department, having played the snake-worshipping Bacchante Olympias in Oliver Stone’s Alexander the Great. But the film’s introduction of a love interest between herself and Hrothgar, followed by one with Beowulf, is a vampish conceit which collapses into sexualised absurdity. As for Beowulf himself — the film buries the humanity of the character portrayed in the epic beneath the carapace of those digitalised pectorals which turn him into Conan the Barbarian.
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ian skidmore
November 22nd, 2007 1:46pmWelsh grew out of Old English? Whisper it not in Blenau Ffestiniog. Hopkins will never dare cross the border again. I must say it sounds dreadful. I think I will stick to Heaney's version and it won't get the chance to redefine anything for me
Nicholas Millman
November 24th, 2007 12:27amIt looks dreadful too. There is nothing worse than the machine-created computer animation that bleeds the imagery of any humanity and force-feeds a singular, cloned "style" in everything. I'd rather watch Noggin the Nog - there was style! Having said that there does seem to be a rekindling of the Old English about. A welcome trend, especially if more folk thump the table with common law and challenge Nu Labor barmy law a bit more.
Paul Myers
November 24th, 2007 1:07pmMass immigration has already redefined what it is to be English. The bottom of the heap, a dispised and destroyed people. And the film is garbage.
DB Hart
November 24th, 2007 4:59pmFor God's sake, not Heaney's horridly bland version. Better to get out the old Gummere translation, which at least retains the rhythm, aliteration, and vigour of the original. The only good thing in the Heaney edition is the facing Old English text.