The bravest epic story in history
The film sets the background of the story in an incredible era, full of heroic knights and evil monsters, and full of fantastic adventures and brave stories, of course the temptation of wealth and glory is also indispensable... There seems to be only one person here who seems to be incompatible with the entire era, and that is Beowulf, because he annihilated a terrifying creature and then saved an ancient Kingdom of Denmark, he quickly became a hero admired by thousands of people. In return, this Viking, who was nearly two meters tall and full of legends throughout his life, successfully inherited the throne with bold confidence and ambition.
For the saved kingdom, Beowulf has become synonymous with praise and bravery. After he saved the kingdom and its ruler King Hurusga who were suffering from Grendel's fatal destruction, The subjects there continue to glorify his unusual achievements and power with hymns. Due to the long-term torture and devouring of Grendel, the cruel and merciless monster, the residents of the entire kingdom have been in panic and terror.
Not only did Beowulf completely free a country from the ravages of ferocious beasts, Beowulf himself also gained fame and wealth. The huge charm of money and boundless temptations came to him from all directions, but he was shrewd. Seems more interested in what to do with his newfound power. Beowulf finally set his destiny forever as a warrior, winner, leader and husband...the most important thing is that he is still a man.
In the history of English language development, the narrative poem about Beowulf should be the oldest remaining record. This film adaptation directed by Robert Zemeckis contains the original work. Many characters and themes in the film - including the great devil, the eternal hero, and of course the endless disputes between good and evil - are exploring everything about courage and glory layer by layer. But one thing is very clear here. The Beowulf in the film is definitely not what your history teacher said in middle school. Zemeckis admitted: "Frankly, the original poem did not have any elements that attracted me. I still remember that when I was in junior high school, the poetry version of "Beowulf" was a reading task assigned to me by the teacher, but I didn't understand it at all because it was all in Old English... For me, that It was a terrible reading experience, and I was even a little reluctant to recall it, and I never imagined that I would turn that nightmarish poem into such an interesting film. To be honest, when I read this, it was directed by Neil Gaiman. When I wrote the script with Roger Avery, I was instantly hooked, so I asked them, 'Why did your script make what I thought was a boring and scary story become so engaging? ? ' Their answer was, 'Well, let's make a quick guess for you, because the poem was written between the 7th and 12th centuries, but the story of Beowulf had been told orally before that. It has been circulating for hundreds of years. At that time, the only people who could write poetry were monks, so we have reason to think that many interesting parts of the story have been artificially edited out. 'Indeed, Gaiman and... Avri's script digs deeper into the overall content, re-editing and editing the imperfect and doubtful parts of the original poem. They speculated on the possibility by analyzing the monks' habits. The hidden part of the story, while maintaining the basic essence of the poem, appears in a new look, so as to cater to the preferences of modern audiences. I believe that the film has made so many revolutionary contributions. The changes and extensions may even cause controversy in the academic community.”
When Robert Zemeckis and the two screenwriters continued to delve into the story about Beowulf, he He almost turned into a diligent and studious student, and his desire for knowledge was enough to make his junior high school teacher extremely proud. Zemeckis said: "When I was stuck in the script and couldn't extricate myself, I went back and re-read the popular story. I also talked with scholars who specialize in researching this ancient poetry, and completely immersed myself physically and mentally in this legendary story. It turned out that many themes in the poetry actually evolved from the Bible. , for example, the legendary experience of a brave man, the battle between good and evil, the price to be paid for glory... Of course, you can regard Beowulf as the most basic reference for modern heroes, from Conan to 'Superman' to 'The Incredible Hulk'"
Capturing great historical moments
Producer Jack Rapke added: "About Beowulf. The reason why the legendary story has such great appeal is that it is contained in a world that never fades and is a great epic adventure myth. It is full of monsters, witches and certain consciousnesses that only exist in humans. and strange creatures from imagination. ”
Looking back on the past, Neil Gaiman and Roger Avrey seem to have a perfect instinct for such a story subject, as Gaiman introduced in his autobiography: Listed in the Dictionary of Literary Biography as one of the top 10 modern living writers, he is also a prolific master of literature, including prose, poetry, plays, magazine columns, comedies, operas, and plays.
Meanwhile, Gaiman is particularly beloved by comic book fans as one of the creators of DC Comics' Sandman, a comic series that won nine Will Eisner Comics Awards and 3 American Harvey Awards, the 19th episode of which also won the 1991 World Fantasy Award for Best Short Story. It was the first comic book to win this literary award.
As for Roger Avrey, he is famous for his dark, edge, and innovative plays and films, including "Pulp Fiction" which won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay- -Shared with Quentin Tarantino. In addition, he also directed several very influential cult films, namely "The Desperado" which became famous at the Cannes Film Festival and the adaptation of Bret Easton Ellis's creation "Love Magnetic Field" of the novel of the same name.
In the beginning, Neil Gaiman and Roger Avrey came together because they decided to write the movie script for "The Sandman" together, and the partnership began. . Unfortunately, this plan did not come to fruition, but it did not prevent the two like-minded people from becoming good friends. However, for both Gaiman and Avre, adapting "Beowulf" from poetry to screenplay was a long, weird, and ultimately extremely meaningful experience. Gaiman said: "Avery and I got along really well during the Sandman days, and I really liked him and the way he conceived his work. I forget when it was, but Avery once mentioned to me, He had always wanted to bring "Beowulf" to the big screen, but struggled to find a suitable way to connect all the threads, because it all started with Beowulf's battle, first with Grendel and then with Grendel's mother, and the battle with the dragon 50 years later, you know, this is not an ordinary 'three-part' script, and I gave him a lot of suggestions, and Avery was a little bit. He hesitated and asked me suddenly, 'When do you have time? '"
Roger Avery recalled: "Basically, Neil Gaiman proposed the idea of ??unifying " The key method of operation of all the theories in "Beowulf", but I have been thinking hard for 10 years but can't figure it out. For me, the stylistic form of poetry is always messy and disjointed, especially the narrative of "Beowulf". The author's credibility was highly doubted. For example: Why didn't Grendel attack King Huluthgar and just torture him? Then I asked a simple question that, for some reason, no one had ever shown this before. I had questions - who is Grendel's father? It has always bothered me, and after repeated academic verification, all of Grendel's actions finally began to make sense. Later, Beowulf defeated. Grendel's army, Grendel fled back to his cave and died... After experiencing Grendel's mother's frenzied revenge, Beowulf ventured to that cave and killed Grendel's mother. When Beowulf emerged from the cave, he held Grendel's head instead of his mother's. When I read this part, I became really confused, even though Beowulf insisted. He killed the woman, but where is the evidence? It seems to me that Beowulf was clearly subject to the same temptation that King Huluthgar had experienced, from the same witch with whom Beowulf had made a bet. The devil's pact. Then, in the second half of the poem, after Beowulf became king, a dragon attacked him and his kingdom. I couldn't understand how this happened, and I told Guy what I thought. Man, it turns out he gave me a very startling hypothesis: the dragon was Beowulf's son - and his sin came back to torture him. Suddenly, the two halves of Beowulf, What used to look like chaos and disorder now has the most perfect sense of story. After hundreds of years, the key elements of these story structures were probably lost in the process of oral transmission, and then Christianity. The monks added some artificial elements to it."
Neil Gaiman and Roger Averie were not the first to notice the structure of the original poem. The less rigorous David Wright has pointed out problems with the Penguin Classics version of Beowulf: "Early critics and commentators, and certainly some later ones, all In response to the incoherence of Beowulf's plot.
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