O.G. homeslice Aaron pointed me to the Beowulf and Grendel movie website featuring a two-minute trailer. Here’s my timed reaction:
01-05 seconds: Awesome!
05-30 seconds: Suspicion
30-65 seconds: Huh?
66-99 seconds: (lamentable sigh)
Here’s a synopsis of the film:
Synopsis:
Beowulf & Grendel is the harrowing fantasy adventure tale of a Norse warrior hero BEOWULF (Gerard Butler) pitted against the monstrous murderous troll, GRENDEL (Ingvar Eggert Sigurdsson). Adapted from the Anglo-Saxon epic poem, Beowulf, Beowulf & Grendel is a medieval story of soldier prince Beowulf a victorious soldier in his own right troubled by the hero-myth rising up around his exploits. His relationship with the mesmerizing witch, SELMA (Sarah Polley) creates deeper confusion A story of blood, and beer and sweat, Beowulf & Grendel strips away the mask of the hero-myth, leaving a raw and tangled tale that rings true through the centuries.
Point of clarification: the “raw and tangled tale that rings true through the centuries” is the one written by the ancient poet, not the adaptation. Something has to exist through the centuries before it can ring true through them. Other knee-jerk quibbles include the fact that there is no witch love interest in Beowulf and in the poem Grendel does not look like the bassist from a Swedish hair metal band. These I could perhaps forgive.
But one thing I cannot forgive. Beowulf never, never utters anything even remotely close to “I know he was wronged” when it comes to Grendel. Not even close. Full stop. Grendel is a monster sprung from the race of Cain, an evolutionary holdout from a more brutal and primal age. He deserves no sympathy. He eats human flesh. Beautiful music pierces his ears and causes him pain. He seeks to destroy order and snuff out light. He represents the chaos that existed before the Creator. He is not seeking revenge on the Crips who took out his daddy on a drive-by.
In times like this, I like to ask W.W.T.S.? (What Would Tolkien Say?) Luckily, I have the answer to that as I just wrote a 4,000-word essay that centered on Beowulf and Tolkien’s work. Lemmie see if I can pull a quote that might sum it up…
“It is just because the main foes in Beowulf are in-human that the story is larger and more significant [. . .] It glimpses the cosmic and moves with the thought of all men concerning the fate of human life and efforts; it stands amid but above the petty wars of princes and surpasses the dates and limits of historical periods, however important.” Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, 33
To really get Beowulf I think you need to understand the context of the poem. It was written by a Christian poet who was telling the story of a noble pagan warrior. Christianity came to Scandinavia pretty late in the game and it didn’t happen overnight. Attempts at conversion started in the 8th century and went well into the 11th century. Most scholars peg Beowulf at about 1000 AD. The literature of the north is fascinating if you’re into religion and literature (which I am) because there are a lot of documents about the culture’s struggle to adapt Christianity and make it work with a traditional Norse belief system that was based around pride, honor, and not much turning-of-the-cheek. So I would argue (and I’m far from alone) that the major thrust of Beowulf is the poet telling his listeners that it’s okay to value the pagan past and the rich history of the Scandinavian countries but, in the end, their heroes of old were just mucking around in the dark without the light of Christ.
Needless to say, this isn’t the movie’s take on things. Is this wrong? Well…
I am a real scrooge when it comes to sticking to the story at hand when it comes to film adaptations. Generally speaking, I feel Peter Jackson did a very good job with Lord of the Rings. My biggest complaints come with the areas that he tinkered with. Why? It’s not because he had the gall to deviate from the script, but because the changes weren’t as good as the original. The Two Towers is the worst offender. How did the invented warg ambush improve the plot? Why was Aragorn lost, believed to be dead, and then found in that sequence? Why in the world would the elves of Lorien come to the Hornburg in the battle of Helm’s Deep? Why did Frodo show the Ring to the Nazgul in Osgiliath, and why doesn’t Sauron ever find out exactly where the Ring is? Why is it that I can come up with all of these examples (and spell them correctly) off the top of my head? In short, none of these changes improved the story. In fact, all of them made it worse.
Troy is ten times more criminal. I readily admit that The Iliad wouldn’t work if you stuck to the poem, but Troy has too many crimes to count. One of the most grievous sins is the flattening of the story so the whole shebang happens in about a month. A ten-year siege shrunk to one month? Something gets lost there. And Patroclus is almost an afterthought when his relationship with Achilles should be more Brokeback Mountain than anything else. Menelaus buys the farm in his duel with Paris? Why? Achilles rides unimpeded to the walls of Troy? Why? Before seeing it, I actually thought it would be cool to tell the story without the gods being involved and it could have been. Yet every time they deviated from the established myths (which was about 85% of the time) the story made No Sense. Memo to Hollywood: if it’s been around for at least a thousand years, it’s working as-is; no “improvement” is needed, thanks.
The great adaptation exception for me is Blade Runner which I found to be complimentary to Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Dick’s story is quite good and the film captures all of the dirtiness, gloom, and doom of the novel even though it only uses the novel as a starting point. The movie’s infinitely more violent than the story but, for once in Hollywood, the violence actually serves a purpose. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that Blade Runner is better than DADOES, but it gets major props for doing just about everything right. Another decent film is Excalibur which retells the Arthur myth pretty well by doing what? That’s right, sticking to the main points of Mallory’s Morte D’Arthur.
My real problem is that the majority of films say they’re “based” on these ancient stories and then wind up being nothing but pale imitations of the real thing. Troy is a far cry from The Iliad, and it appears that Beowulf and Grendel is a far cry from Beowulf. What bothers me is that the average movie-going yokel will think s/he has for all intents and purposes read the ancient works when they’ve really just seen a movie that’s borrowed a few key characters and locales. Don’t believe me? Tell that to the dude who matter-of-factly told me that The Iliad really wasn’t Achilles’ story–based on his interpretation of the film, of course. That comment nearly induced an aneurysm.
So here we go with a “fresh” take on the Beowulf story where we have reluctant hero who is in love with a witch and has to struggle with the reality of the legend growing up around him as he faces a big nasty man who understandably wants revenge for the wrongful death of his father. That’s an interesting interpretation for people who have read the actual story;
the majority just assumes that is the story, and that’s a crime.
My question: do we need a “fresh” take on the Beowulf story when no one knows the story as it is? Ask someone on the street to summarize the key events of Beowulf. If they’ve even heard of it (which is doubtful,) I would bet nearly all of them would say “It’s about a hero who kills a monster that’s terrorizing a kingdom.” To which I would say, “Congratulations, you know about 25% of the story.” Perhaps you don’t know the story, and that’s fine. Here’s a bit more fleshed out version:
- Early history of a kingdom, the monster that comes to haunt it, and the hero who comes to kill it
- Beowulf sets a trap for Grendel and mortally wounds him with his bare hands.
- Beowulf hunts down Grendel’s mom and kills her too.
- Amidst much rejoicing, we hear about the various cicular blood feuds that are carried on for generations.
- Beowulf grows old and we don’t hear much about his later life, except for when a dragon is roused.
- Beowulf, although really old, battles the dragon and they kill each other.
- Beowulf has a big funeral.
Only focusing on the Beowulf and Grendel portion of the story is understandable; most high school readings stop after this point (I suspect because the teachers find it as impenetrable as the students do.) There’s a lot of stuff here that’s good. What does it mean to be a hero? What does it mean to be a monster? [Highest recommendation for John Gardner's Grendel on this subject.] But I don’t see any possible way the movie can stay true to the story when Grendel isn’t a monster but rather a somewhat sympathetic victim of a miserable life. In a word, and as Tolkien said, the story is diminished. If I’m correct and few people actually know the “real” story, the one that’s captivated imaginations for a little over one thousand years, is it so wrong to suggest they make a movie keeping with the spirit of the original?
Is it fair to judge a Beowulf and Grendel without having seen it? Undoubtedly not, but I’m going to do it anyway. Believe me, they’re going to get my $9 and I reserve my patriotic right to complain before, during, and after even if that means I don’t always know what I’m talking about. Hopefully it will be a good and they’ll do some interesting things with their adapted story that will make it (unlike Troy) worth the time and money.
But trust me: it’s not Beowulf.
I’m mulling over cleaning up this tirade and submitting for publication somewhere other than here.
Current Mood - Irritated | 
Currently Listening To - David Helfgott - “David Helfgott Plays Rachmaninov”
