First of all I must say that I went out with the gang to Revolution and got hot chocolate only they made it with white chocolate instead of chocolate chocolate and it was AWESOME and I got it at like 6:30 and I'm still bouncy as all get out. Second of all I must say I'm going to natter on at length about
Beowulf but I'm not going to spoiler it cos well it's about Beowulf and spoilering it is like spoilering Titanic. Thus let me explain why my inner English major is orgasmic right now and how I imagine lots of English professors are going to handle some bemused students.
1) Beowulf and Language.
Most of the movie they use pretty normal English for the general dialogue and then switch to Old English for the use of Grendel, Grendel's Mother when she's
talking to Grendel, and the recitation of a poem or play about Beowulf's deeds (btw I wish I could watch this on DVD as I would be fascinated to learn if the recited poem is actual
Beowulf text). There is also a scene of Geat merrymaking where they sing a bawdy song: it's definitely not in Old English but they do use some outdated terminology, e.g. "swive" which I don't think has been used since the late eighteenth century.
ETA: This
interview with an English teacher confirms the performance scene as actual Beowulf text in Old English.
2) Historical Context.
I want to direct people to
Beowulf in Hypertext where they cover lots of useful stuff better than I could about Geats, Danes, Christianity, etc. Also it has some nice scans of the original text. Suffice to say: fifth century Denmark was really friggin' cold, hard, and depressing. That lil mouse killed by a hawk? It's a really useful metaphor.
3) Sex and Reproductive Anxiety.
No I'm not going to talk just about Angelina Jolie, though I could. First of all you see the sexual mores of the time: Hrothgar has the use of his wife and other pretty girls. So does Beowulf. Adultery isn't much of an issue beyond the emotional. Worth noting is the fact that the Danish women can and do say "no" and when they do so it is respected.
Sexual imagery pervades the film. A woman jokes about Beowulf's three legs. When he has his nude fight sequence, the sword is strategically placed, and not just to keep that PG-13 rating if you know what I mean. The very bawdy song is very bawdy indeed.
The sexual imagery is deeply representative with Grendel's Mother. Her cave *coff* happens to have a slit of an entrance and be covered with pubic-like brambles. Wiglaf warns Beowulf that she is likely a "water demon" and should therefore "not be fought in her element." Guess where he fights her--and loses. She dissolves his sword *coff* into silvery drops that pool on the ground and display their embrace to the audience.
[I also have to comment on the fact that Grendel's Mother has high heel-like talons on the back of her feet. Begging the question: what is it with guys and the naked women clad only in heels??]
Water is the feminine realm here. We also see in a flashback Beowulf's fight with sea monsters and his embrace with a mermaid. Grendel's Mother (and I'm so tired of typing that, they really should have given her her own name) visits Beowulf in his sleep, succubus-like; taking the form of Queen Wealthow, she hovers over him, her hair floating about and generally looking wavery like the mermaid. When Hrothgar dies, his body is washed into the sea with Grendel's Mother's--to heck with it, she's GM from now on--trademark gleam under the water. When Beowulf's funeral barge is out in the waves, we see GM embracing him once more as he goes under the water.
I also want to mention GM's nipples: suggestively demonic or at least asexual. [I'm pretending the MPAA Ratings Board had no say.]
Alright, Fathers and Sons time. Grendel is Hrothgar's nightmare: Beyond being horrific in appearance and fond of eating human flesh, he is also stolidly a Mama's Boy. Ditto for Beowulf's Dragon. It's telling that these are the only sons each bear: what worse in those days to not only have an evil son, but have to kill him and become a kinslayer? (as invoked by Unferth who slew his brothers)--which back in the day usually meant you'd get kicked out of your own hearth and clan and have to find a new home if you could (Unferth's own background??) It's sort of a retro thing that guys are afraid of feminine biology--the birth process (Grendel looks rotting and unfinished--a bit of aa scaling rotting abortion), the large creepy cave; possibly even child-rearing (hey, GM does it all).
ETA: Cf. the same issue in the Arthur legendry. Insert "Arthur", "Morgause," and "Mordred" where necessary.
4) Christianity vs. Paganism
The aforementioned site covers what we know of the manuscript, so I'm just going to cover what we see in the film. We first hear of the Christ from Unferth as he has a companiable pee with another thane. Apparently, if you follow this guy, you'll get to live forever. (Beats Valhalla and Ragnarok and fighting until the end of the universe maybe, right?) Unferth brings it up again in a scene I'm hazy with now but is when Beowulf is introduced and he calls him a liar; Beowulf reveals Unferth's kinslaying past. Forgiveness must sound nice to a kinslayer, right? Maybe it's unsurprising then that it appears that Unferth becomes a priest; his chapel's cross-steeple burned away by the dragon, he himself is rescued and brought to the Hall on a litter that looks suspiciously cross-like.
When Beowulf is old, he claims the Christ-God has killed all the heroes; war is not heroic, it is just a sad, dirty thing. We later see him with the Queen, who carries an embroidery thingie with an image that looks Mary-like half-done; accompanying her is a silent, grim looking fellow in a red robe with a big gold cross on it. It should be noted that in the manuscript, which may or may not have been Christian in origin, peace is a virtue--anachronistic in what we know of fifth century Nordic culture. So feel free to read war=good=pagan and peace=good=Christian.
Contrast with paganism: people talk about prayers to Odin a fair bit. I have to digress here twice. The first is when I was in high school and my English teacher was explaining Beowulf in the context of how everything was cold and scary and everyone absolutely "flocked" to Christianity cos it offered that Heaven thing that sounds so nice. The second is the fact that in modern-day Scandinavia, the old ways are still very much in play and never left. People may go to Orthodox church but they also give propitiary prayers to Odin everytime they want to build a bridge or what have you.
GM is introduced as the last of the demons. Now it's also quite true that Christianity has been known to demonize the old gods when they can't co-opt them. E.G. Brigid can be a saint but Cernunnos becomes a devil figure. Thus we can read GM as a pagan goddess: the one who lies with her becomes the king of the land (Celtic myth), she represnets fertility and seduction as traditionally frowned upon in the church, and she is everlasting even when people keep insisting on her death (modern paganism itself).
ETA:
5) Mythmaking and Identity.
How many times do we hear "I am Beowulf!" or "You are Beowulf!" Beowulf the hero is a badass. Beowulf the man is a fuckwit and he knows it. It is telling that he tries to keep telling people and they can't or won't see it. Who wants a man when they can have superman? "Is Clark Kent really Superman or maybe just an asshole?" goes Bowling for Soup lyrics.
Much is made of songs of glory. This is contrasted with the slaughter of the Friesians.
Note also Beowulf's nudity: "I will fight him as a man." He partially strips himself before the Friesian, who cowers in bewilderment. (Compare with the Picts and Celts who *loved* to go to war in the nude; they all died with Christianization too.)
Okay it seems like I had even more but my sugar rush has worn off and I'm really sleepy now. More later.
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