{"id":72,"date":"2014-10-28T15:51:01","date_gmt":"2014-10-28T15:51:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thegrinnellbeowulf.com\/?page_id=72"},"modified":"2015-09-28T18:30:42","modified_gmt":"2015-09-28T18:30:42","slug":"reviews-of-adaptations","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/timarner.sites.grinnell.edu\/beowulf\/beowulf-adaptations\/reviews-of-adaptations\/","title":{"rendered":"Beowulf, dir. Graham Baker (1999)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Backflips and Demons: A Review of Graham Baker\u2019s Beowulf<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

As a poem, Beowulf<\/em> has been beloved by audiences for centuries. Its story of a hero\u2019s struggle against the monster Grendel, Grendel\u2019s mother, and a fearsome dragon emphasizes the temporary nature of human existence and the importance of knowing one\u2019s place within society through ancestry and social status. Beowulf is a human hero, albeit one of prodigious strength, and his motivations are human as well: pride and the desire for glory.<\/p>\n

In his 1999 film, Beowulf<\/em>, director Graham Baker took a look at those themes and decided that he could spice things up a bit. How? By setting it in the future, filling it with tired film tropes, and casting action star Christopher Lambert (Highlander<\/em>, Mortal Kombat<\/em>).<\/p>\n

\"Beowulf<\/a>
Beowulf is more of a cowboy than an Anglo-Saxon warrior in Graham Baker’s film<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Over the course of 90 minutes Baker takes a hero whose story is fundamentally concerned with social hierarchy and turns him into a lone traveler with no companions. Beowulf\u2019s humanity, ancestry, and motivations are completely altered as he becomes a half-demon who is forced to hunt down evil. Baker also cuts the story short, removing the dragon and any threat of death for the hero.<\/p>\n

Heorot, the renowned hall of King Hrothgar of the Danes, turns into a clunky, futuristic outpost\u2014part of the film\u2019s blending of sci-fi and a historical Anglo-Saxon aesthetic. The effect of this is to confuse two genres that don\u2019t fit together well. The film wants Beowulf to be both an Anglo-Saxon warrior and an American cowboy, but the film is still primarily set in a pseudo-medieval world, despite the sci-fi, so the American tropes seem out of place. The one way in which the sci-fi setting works with the American action movie style is it provides the opportunity for some cool props and weapons.<\/p>\n

\"Castle<\/a>
The mead-hall, Heorot, re-imagined as a technological frontier outpost.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

 <\/p>\n

These changes fit with the rest of the film as well. A repetitive techno soundtrack and numerous battles (featuring backflips, futuristic weapons, and a high body count) make it clear that Baker was setting out to make a generic sci-fi\/action movie. Beowulf<\/em>, as a classic story of heroism and valor, seemed like the perfect candidate for Baker to adapt into an action film, since Beowulf, with his arrogance, charm, strength, and fantastic opponents, is basically the model for the modern action hero.<\/p>\n

Of course, no film adaptation of Beowulf<\/em> could be entirely faithful to the poem. It is impossible to perfectly translate 3182 lines of Old English poetry into a 90 minute film, but the problem with this movie is that it ignores the spirit of the poem and distorts the character to fit the model of a modern, rather than medieval, action hero. Everything essential about Beowulf\u2019s backstory and motivation is replaced with its opposite in the film. A leader becomes a loner, a human becomes a demon, and a character with no apparent interest in sex gets his own romantic subplot.<\/p>\n