Sunday, November 18, 2007
Beowulf
Zemeckis is first and foremost a groundbreaking director. "Back to the Future", "Forrest Gump" and "Cast Away" all did something unexpected, storywise and visually. In "Beowulf" he does it again, but this time I question why he would do it the way he did. First off he chooses to retell one of the oldest stories, one that is important but not very interesting. Most of what fills in the details of the film seem contemporary, as if the writers were trying to make the story applicable to today. Maybe my perspective is just limited, but I've always seen Beowulf to be a pure and simple story of heros vs. monsters. It's not really even good against evil, or anything deeper than that. So I didn't like that the retelling got preachy and forced. The second aspect of Zemeckis' attempt to break new ground cinematically, is his use of the visual style. He used a similar animation technique in "The Polar Express" which I found to be creepy. Tom Hanks animated just didn't work for me. Here Zemeckis does take it up a notch, which was fun to watch. Angelina Jolie, a dragon, camera swoops and water effects were all great. But why couldn't we have a real Angelina Jolie, a real dragon, camera swoops and real water? A film like this is one step closer to an animated film that you can't tell apart from a live action film. But I don't want any more films that a in that blurry zone, I want to be convinced that what I'm seeing is real, not wowed by technical ability. In closing I will say one good thing and one bad. First the bad; Anthony Hopkins should never be portrayed as inebriated in an animated film ever again. The good; as in "Back to the Future" Crispin Glover proves that he is one of the most interesting actors of our time.
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3 comments:
I'm reading Beowulf to William and Jesse (at their request, although I wanted to be familiar with the story, not just a summary, if I see the movie). Like Tolkien, it's much better when read aloud. In fact, I think both were intended to be so. So far, Beowulf has only boasted of his ability to defeat Grendel; but, he is preparing to spend the night in the meadhall, without weapons, waiting for Gendel to appear. The language and imagery are much more "Christian" than I expected. There are many references to the Maker, clearly the Christian God. Grendel is portrayed as a descendent of Cain. So, I do think it is more than simply a story of hero vs. monster. There seems to an underlying story of the struggle between good and evil. Perhaps I'll change my mind as the adventure progresses.
Peter, there is an interesting article over on Wired's site about CG being the future of studio film making. Sounds crazy but when you think of cost effectivness and the ability to port to video games, we might be seeing more of this in the future.
Mom, I will admit that my impressions of Beowulf are based on experience in a public high school English class, so I'm interested to know if there is more depth in the actual story.
Ben, After seeing a film like "Casino Royale" where the stunts that are real have so much more of an impact than any CGI, it's a shame to see that so many filmmakers are opting for CGI just because it's easier and cheaper. All I have to do is think about "Star Wars" and I start getting a little angry. At the same time, Gollum is an exampe of technology being used to creates something that probably couln't have been done any other way. I guess it's always been true though, that once something is discovered we must beat it to death until something new comes out...
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