Beowulf. Are You Going To Go See It?

[Elok]

Originally posted by Rufus T. Firefly
Seems like there's been a movement lately to retranslate epic poems to make them less 'literary' and more immediate, recapturing the sense that these would have been works designed to be heard, not read -- and heard, moreover, by uneducated people. The Fagels translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey, the Pinsky translation of Dante's Inferno, and Heaney's translation of Beowulf all work this way.

I was curious and looked at it at the bookstore. It actually didn't seem significantly better than my own version, so I bought The Brothers Karamazov instead.

[Gatekeeper]

The nine-plex theater in town is showing the 3D version of Beowulf. Movie-goers will get to wear glasses seemingly right out the 1980s (although I'm told the glasses are of 2007 vintage) and literally watch the movie jump out of the screen.

Gatekeeper

[PLATO]

I remember my first semester at college. I was seventeen...had just graduated high school like 4 days before starting. I took an English Lit class that summer and the course was taught by a Linguistics Professor that had wanted to pick up a couple of classes to teach that summer for some reason.

When we studied Beowulf she read it to us in Old English so that we could understand the context of how it sounded when it was written. That was amazing.

Yes, I'll see this one...just because of that memory.

[Wycoff]

Originally posted by Riesstiu IV Hollywood has an amazing ability to take almost any era of history or literature and turn into something almost unrecognizable mess and lose it's original meaning. 300 was just an awful movie and the portrayal of Persians was despicable. It honestly reminded me of Nazi portrayal of Jews in their propaganda films and seemed to glorify a totalitarian Spartan society while omitting the rampant pederasty they practiced.

I thought that 300 was intended to be tounge-in-cheek. It was too blatantly obvious to be propaganda, IMO (not to mention that Hollywood isn't likely to support the current administration).

If it was intended to be taken at face value, though, then it was this century's version of Triumph of the Will or Alexander Nevsky in terms of pure propaganda.

I enjoyed 300. I would consider going to see Beowulf, but I don't want to spend $9+ for a ticket. Besides, it looks like it has the chance of being another King Arthur.
(Does anyone here remember that movie? It attempted to put a more "historically accurate" spin on King Arthur, and it featured him and his knights as Sarmatian horsement. It came out a few years ago and starred Kiera Knightly. It was godawful.)

[LordShiva]

Originally posted by Wycoff
(Does anyone here remember that movie? It attempted to put a more "historically accurate" spin on King Arthur, and it featured him and his knights as Sarmatian horsement. It came out a few years ago and starred Kiera Knightly. It was godawful.)

But that scene where they get teh Saxons to fall through teh thin ice was

[Krill]

Godawful movies

Godawful movies with babes

[b etor]

my online english class wants to organize field trips to see this movie. lol LOL. we read beowulf in late september. i want to see it, but not with people in my class.

[Krill]

What, do you think you're too good for your classmates?

[b etor]

no, i just really don't like most of them. and i don't want to travel 2 hours to meet any of them.

[Krill]

Fair enough I suppose.

[b etor]

[Provost Harrison]

It's two hours to the nearest cinema?

[b etor]

nahh, from my house- 3 minutes to the nearest dollar theater. 5 minutes to the nearest regular one.

but kids i "go to school with" live all over PA. so the western PA kids meet in pittsburgh for stuff. like the school dance that i'm not going to on friday.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Originally posted by Koyaanisqatsi
Neil, he's very good at capturing the essence of his source material while still changing it into something unique and interesting. [...] Take it for what it is; a transformation, not a translation.

Went to see it today, and it was pretty much what I expected. The changes that were introduced worked well with the story but also added a more modern subtext. There were a few annoyances...my biggest was that the fight with Grendel was turned into a laugher as they constantly put random objects in front of Beowulf to hide his nudity. Wonder if they're going to do an uncensored DVD without that, or maybe without the mud all over Jolie's body... Anyway, I thought it was decent.

[Wezil]

How was the 3D?