The legend of Beowulf

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Movie
German title The legend of Beowulf
Original title Beowulf
Country of production United States
original language English
Old English
Publishing year 2007
length 113 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
JMK 12
Rod
Director Robert Zemeckis
script Neil Gaiman
Roger Avary
production Martin Shafer
Jack Rapke
Robert Zemeckis
music Alan Silvestri
camera Robert Presley
cut Jeremiah O'Driscoll
occupation
synchronization

The legend of Beowulf (original title Beowulf ) is a computer-animated fantasy film by director Robert Zemeckis from 2007. The motifs of the film are based on the old English heroic poem Beowulf from the Codex Cotton Vitellius , which was written around the year 1000. The epic was probably written after the year 700 and is set in Scandinavia before the year 600.

action

The Danish king Hrothgar and his people are tyrannized by the monster Grendel . The monster, similar to a decaying corpse in the film, deliberately haunts the Met Hall in Hrothgar because his sensitive hearing cannot stand the noise from the hall. The king promises whoever kills the monster half of his gold treasure. One day the experienced Gautian warrior Beowulf lands on the coast with 14 companions and agrees with the king to kill Grendel.

After a verbal argument with Unferth, the king's adviser, who questions Beowulf's heroic deeds, he convincingly explains in front of the court why he lost a swimming competition with Brecca. Beowulf receives the order to free the afflicted country from Grendel. Then he lures the monster into the great hall of the city. Grendel, plagued by the noise of dancing, singing and debauchery, fights against the naked and unarmed hero. With great courage and after attacking Grendel's sensitive hearing, he succeeds in severing Grendel's left arm. Grendel, who previously killed three of Beowulf's men, fled wailing to his hiding place, where he died at the feet of his mother. Furious with rage, she arrives at the city and haunts Beowulf in a dream before she kills all of his men - except for Beowulf's best friend Wiglaf, who was not in the hall - and hangs them on the ceiling. Beowulf, who receives a golden horn from King Hrothgar as a reward, makes his way to the cave in which Grendel's mother, a water demon, lives.

In her cave, however, Beowulf succumbs to her beauty and her tempting offer and fathered a son with her, for which she promised to make him the most powerful king on earth. However, the water demon sets a deadline for the agreement: as soon as the cornucopia that Beowulf gives her finds its way back to the city, the agreement is void and the "sins of the fathers" will haunt Beowulf. On his return to the village, Beowulf announced that he had killed the "sea woman". Only King Hrothgar, who, as it turns out later, once fathered the monster Grendel with the water demon, does not believe him. He orders that Beowulf will be the new king in the event of his death, confronts Beowulf and throws himself down the cliff. After a leap in time - the protagonists have aged considerably - the cornucopia found by Unferth's slave Cain returns to the village. Beowulf makes his way to the cave full of fear - still hiding the truth about the sea-woman - to bring the cornucopia back to Grendel's mother. However, this realizes her threat and introduces Beowulf to his own son; a fire demon, which has already caused great devastation in the kingdom and who lives in the cave in the form of a gigantic fire-breathing dragon. The dragon then attacks the city. Beowulf and his friend Wiglaf pursue him.

The final battle between the dragon and Beowulf ensues. He rams a short sword into the back of the kite , which he holds on to in flight. The dragon flies on the cliffs over to keep up, sitting on the Beowulf's wife Queen Wealthow and his mistress Ursula trapped. While the dragon tries to kill the two with his fire breath, Beowulf manages to thrust a sword through a thin skin on the monster's neck, thereby depriving him of his fire breath. While the dragon tries to devour the women, Beowulf realizes that the dragon's heart is beating directly behind the pierced place and tries to injure it with the sword. Beowulf, who is tied to a chain tied around the monster's neck, cannot get close enough to the heart and sees no other option but to cut off his own arm. He loses his sword in the process, but can tear out the dragon's heart with his other arm.

The dragon falls with Beowulf on the beach, where he dissolves and his body is transformed into the golden human body of Beowulf's son. Like Hrothgar before, the sea devours him before Beowulf can contact him. His friend Wiglaf wants to save Beowulf and rushes to him on the beach, but the king is fatally injured and dies. As stated earlier, Wiglaf becomes the new king. Wiglaf follows the death ritual for Beowulf - the burning sinking of Beowulf's ship with his corpse. Shortly after sinking, the sea woman emerges from the water. The film ends with a long eye contact. It remains to be seen whether the cycle of the “sins of the fathers” will continue.

synchronization

role actor German speaker
Beowulf / Golden Man / Dragon Ray Winstone Erich Rauker
Queen Wealthow Robin Wright Penn Christin Marquitan
Wiglaf Brendan Gleeson Roland Hemmo
King Hrothgar Anthony Hopkins Joachim Kerzel
Grendel Crispin Glover Original voice
Hondshew Costa's Mandylor Thomas Nero Wolff
Grendel's mother Angelina Jolie Claudia Urbschat-Mingues
Unferth John Malkovich Joachim Tennstedt

background

  • As before The Polar Express , the film was created using motion capture , completely converted into IMAX 3D format and shown in IMAX cinemas.
  • Production cost was estimated to be $ 150 million. The film grossed around US $ 82 million in cinemas in the United States and around US $ 114 million in other countries.
  • The theatrical release in Germany was on November 15, 2007 and in the USA on November 16, 2007, after the world premiere on November 5, 2007 in Westwood, California .
  • The Legend of Beowulf is the third film adaptation of the well-known material. In 1999 Graham Baker interpreted the story under the title Beowulf with Christopher Lambert in the title role. In 2005, Beowulf & Grendel by Sturla Gunnarsson appeared with Gerard Butler in the lead role.

Differences between film and hero poem

  • The "sins of the fathers" do not appear in the heroic poem.
  • In the heroic poem Grendel's mother is described as an ugly sea witch, while in the film she is portrayed as a seductive sea woman. So she seduces Beowulf and promises to make him the most powerful king of all time if he gives her a son (who later becomes the dragon). In the heroic poem, Beowulf slays Grendel's mother with a giant sword that no normal fighter could carry.
  • The monster Grendel is only in the film King Hrothgar's son.
  • King Hrothgar commits suicide in the film, not in the hero poem.
  • In the heroic poem, Beowulf does not become the successor of the Danish king Hrothgar, but inherits the throne of the Gautenkönigs Hygelac as a nephew after he and his three sons were killed in battle.
  • The figure of Ursula, Beowulf's lover, does not appear in the heroic poem.
  • Wiglaf is Beowulf's most loyal comrade in arms and best friend, in the heroic poem he is a young man with whose help Beowulf kills the dragon. Nor will he be Beowulf's successor.
  • Queen Wealthow is only coveted by Beowulf in the film, and only there his wife.
  • Unlike in the film, the dragon in the heroic poem is not the son of Grendel's mother and Beowulf.
  • The golden cup ( cornucopia ) appears in the heroic poem as part of the treasure guarded by the sleeping dragon. Only its theft leads to attacks and devastation by the fire-breathing saga animal.
  • In the film, Beowulf is buried on a Viking ship that flies out into the open sea. Before it sinks, the corpse is kissed and hugged by the seductive mermaid (emerging from the sea). In the legend, the king's corpse is burned on a pyre and then buried in a barrow with the curse-laden dragon treasure .

Others

Shortly before Beowulf takes up the fight with Grendel, Beowulf's warrior Hondscioh attacks Grendel and hits him in the head with a sword (but without dying Grendel; only a little yellow blood flows from the wound and the sword gets stuck). At this moment you can clearly see the inscription "VLFBERH" on the blade. Swords with the inscription "+ VLFBERH + T" (the "T" after the cross is missing in the film) do exist; the oldest is from the 9th century, the youngest from the 11th century, there are a total of 120 swords, all of northern European origin. VLFBERHT was probably originally the manufacturer's name (Ulfbert), later this name was used as a quality designation. Swords marked "+ VLFBERHT +" (the cross behind the T is the typical spelling for iron swords, in which only the blade edges are made of steel) were, according to studies by A. Williams (Wallace Collection / London), a case of Brand piracy in the Middle Ages, in which inferior material was used for manufacture. Then the sword "VLFBERH" (without T) shown in the film would be real. See: Ulfberht .

Reviews

  • The film review was divided; On the one hand, the technical brilliance of the 3D animation process and its cinematic implementation in spectacular images is often praised, on the other hand, the weakness of the character drawing and the narrative technique, which primarily relies on the superficial visual effects, is criticized. Actually, Beowulf is more vocally than visually impressive.
  • Angela Zierow wrote in TV Digital 23 of November 2, 2007 that the excerpts shown at the Comic-Con wowed the fans. It is a grandiose animated punching and stabbing from director Robert Zemeckis.
  • Cinema.de describes the implementation as a “unsuccessful experiment”, partly because “too little care was taken here in developing the story”. What is missing is “an arc of tension that would keep curiosity about the story high. That is why we notice inconsistencies that one would find insignificant in a gripping film ”.
  • Filmspiegel.de says: “'Beowulf' almost always offers the best animation that has ever been seen on the screen so far”, which helps the film “over the sometimes very tired rounds. [...] Numerous shock moments in the deep space are preprogrammed and let the pulse soar to unimagined heights [...]. Spectacular viewing experience in 3D, which knows how to pleasantly whitewash the lengths and the lack of tension in the film. "
  • br-online writes that the film is “[heavy] and quite entertaining animation for anyone who knows something about myths and fighting men. Technically, 'Beowulf' is innovative and shows what the cinema of tomorrow could look like. "
  • The lexicon of the international film judges: “It is due to the animation variant of performance capturing used and the constraints of a prudish understanding of entertainment that an archaic-barbaric story became an aseptic fantasy fairy tale that hardly conveys feelings. In the 3-D version, the three-dimensional effects entertain you, especially in the furious finale, without, however, accentuating the events in a particularly original way. "

Awards

  • The film was nominated in two categories for the Satellite Awards 2007 : best animated or real / animated film and best visual effects .
  • For the MTV Movie Awards 2008 Angelina Jolie was in the category Rogue Best nominated.
  • The German Film and Media Assessment FBW in Wiesbaden awarded the film the rating valuable.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Release certificate for The Legend of Beowulf . Voluntary self-regulation of the film industry , October 2007 (PDF; test number: 111 933 K).
  2. ↑ Age rating for The Legend of Beowulf . Youth Media Commission .
  3. ↑ The Legend of Beowulf. German synchronous index , accessed on December 7, 2011 .
  4. ↑ boxofficemojo.com
  5. ↑ Release dates for Beowulf. Internet Movie Database , accessed May 22, 2015 .
  6. ↑ Robert Sanchez: Exclusive Photo Gallery: World Premiere of Beowulf! From: IESB.net, November 5, 2007; accessed November 22, 2007.
  7. ↑ European cutting and stabbing weapons . Military Publishing House of the GDR, 1981, p. 26
  8. ↑ Brand piracy in the Middle Ages. In: Spiegel Online . January 16, 2009. Retrieved January 16, 2009 .
  9. ↑ "Beowulf is more vocally than visually commanding." So Justin Chang : Beowulf ( Memento November 11, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) . In: Variety , November 9, 2007, accessed on November 22, 2007. For further criticism, see Beowulf (2007 film) in the English language Wikipedia.
  10. ↑ cinema.de
  11. ↑ Filmspiegel.de ( Memento from December 1, 2008 in the Internet Archive )
  12. ↑ br-online ( Memento from November 18, 2007 in the Internet Archive )
  13. ^ Magazine film-dienst ; Horst Peter Koll, Hans Messias (Red.): Lexicon of International Films - Film Year 2007 . Catholic Film Commission for Germany, Schüren Verlag, Marburg 2008, ISBN 978-3-89472-624-9