Beowulf: A Tarnished Epic

Writing a screenplay for a book is very difficult.  The director must attempt to satisfy the imagination of the readers and make a captivating film.  This is a challenging task, and it is rare to see both things accomplished.  Robert Zemeckis clearly aims solely to make an entertaining movie in his interpretation of Beowulf.  He creates his own plotlines and adds Hollywood glamour to the story all while tainting the reputation of an epic hero.  The beautiful language is an important part of Beowulf, but it plays little to no part in Zemeckis’ work.  Zemeckis’ Beowulf is an entertaining film, but only at the expense of a Historic Epic poem’s dignity.

Zemeckis’ main problem is his own attempt to “sex up” the epic poem and make it more appealing to readers.  The added conflicts in the movie distract from the themes of the epic and completely change the meaning of the work.  In the film,  Grendel is revealed to be the son of Hrothgar and Grendel’s mother.  For this reason, he wreaks havoc on the mead hall, but refuses to kill Hrothgar, his father.  This already greatly changes the appearance of Hrothgar and his people in general.  Rather than a noble people attacked by a god forsaken beast, they are a weak and easily tempted people getting what they deserve.  Though this creates only a slight twist, the development of this theme completely changes the story.  Hrothgar later kills himself over guilt for his own sins, being the father of Grendel.  In an hour, my view of the Danes went downhill.  They are not noble or honorable; their own king killed himself.

Beowulf too is subject to this temptation.  When he sees Grendel’s mother, played by Angelina Jolie, nude dripping in gold, he is unable to resist this same temptation.  This act and others bring Beowulf down to an almost human character.  He is weak and subject to manipulation, just like other humans.  This is clearly a Hollywood adaptation to make a more complex and struggling hero, but completely takes away from one of the main principles of the book, which is Beowulf’s inexplicable near-perfection.  The poem’s Beowulf would have resisted his desires for his own people and never made such a decision.  Not to mention that the movie transforms Grendel’s mother from a horrific beast to a wicked temptress.

Beowulf’s strength in combat is also brought into question in the adaptation of the epic. It seems that in an attempt to make each feat more realistic, Beowulf’s “battle-strength” is made more believable. These choices, however, continues to diminish  Beowulf’s glory and almost godlike characteristics.  Each monster he faces, he shows some sort of weakness or departs from the poems glorious descriptions.  First, against grendel,  instead of dropping his weapons and ripping off the beast’s arm, he drops his pants as the camera comically avoids nudity and has to smash the door against Grendel’s arm until it falls off.  Not only does the film mock the hero with the nudity, but it also serves to make Beowulf’s power more human rather than unbelivable.  Although typical Hollywood heroes are neither perfect, nor invincible,  Beowulf is not your basic Hollywood hero.  Beowulf is an epic hero and his strength and achievements should be almost unbelievable.  The scene with Grendel’s mother is even more compromising for Beowulf.  Not only does it show mental weakness in sleeping with the fowl woman, but he also lies to his people, something the epic hero would never do.

Despite these blasphemous deviations from the epic poem,  the movie proves to be entertaining in its own right.  The scenes that show Beowulf defeating monsters, on se or on land, are the definition of the word epic.  His fights still don’t live up to the original poem’s descriptions, but on the big screen they look stunning even in the video game-like animation.  I’m sure in 3-D Beowulf’s slaying of the dragon, his son, would have been even more beautiful.

The movie also adds a touch of humor and satire that does not appear in the epic.  Earlier, I mentioned the partial nudity of Beowulf during his action does take away from his attacks on Grendel, but it adds a laugh contrasting with Beowulf’s fighting.  The Geat men are also depicted as brutish and mannerless when they enter the mead hall.  They are shown drooling over a woman’s breasts as she washes a table, and later one of them uses the sure fire pickup line “you’ll hear me when i come.”  The sexual innuendo brings humor when the movie starts to drag and is probably a realistic picture of those barbarous men.

Overall,  Beowulf is by no means a bad movie.  The graphics brought “oohs” and “ahhs” during battle scenes, and I got a few laughs.  The movies weakest point is the epic poem itself.  In a vacuum this movie demonstrates the struggle of a more complex hero that has weaknesses and can even be selfish.  Having read Beowulf, however, I am unable to enjoy this movie fully.  It destroys my view of Beowulf as a hero, and completely taints the message of the original epic.  While the epic depicts a larger than life hero, that always does what is honorable and serves his people loyally and fully, the movie shows weakness and humanity that should not exist in an epic hero.