Robert Zemeckis’s New Agey Beowulf

By John David Ebert 

Beowulf was a great patriarchal classic. Robert Zemeckis’s celluloid version of Beowulf, however, is a great matriarchal entertainment. Though Zemeckis’s film appears to follow the contours of the Anglo Saxon epic, the point that it makes is exactly the opposite, for the point of Beowulf had been the celebration of the manly deeds of a single mysterious warrior who appeared out of the bogs and fens of Denmark, defeated three monsters and then disappeared back into the mists of song and legend. Beowulf’s deeds, moreover, were accomplished almost entirely by himself, on his own – with a little help in the dragon battle from Wiglaf – and he essentially put himself on the throne only after his king Hygelac and Hygelac’s son had died. There are almost no women in the epic, and on those few occasions when they do appear, it is only as barmaids to serve the ale that keeps the men happy and ready for their next adventures. This was one of the reasons why Tolkien undoubtedly loved the epic so much, for he claimed that the Norman invasion of England – bringing its admixture of French Celtic ways – spoiled Anglo Saxon mythology. Beowulf is one of the few surviving examples of a pure and undiluted, pre-Celtic Anglo Saxon myth world. Tolkien did not like Celtic myth. And it is safe to say that he most likely would have found little to appreciate in Zemeckis’s film. Read the rest of this entry »