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Beowulf and Grendel (2005)

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Beowulf and Grendel (2005) Masarykova univerzita Filozofická fakulta Katedra anglistiky a amerikanistiky Bakalářská diplomová práce 2020 Nikola Krčová Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Nikola Krčová The Depiction of Beowulf in Film and Television Series Adaptations Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: prof. Mgr., Milada Franková, CSc., M.A. 2020 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature I would like to thank my family for supporting me and sharing their opinions with me. I would also like to thank my supervisor prof. Mgr. Milada Franková, CSc., M.A., for her guidance. Table of Contents Introduction........................................................................................................................... 1 The Original Story of Beowulf............................................................................................. 4 Beowulf and Grendel (2005)............................................................................................... 13 Beowulf (2007).................................................................................................................... 19 Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands (2016)......................................................................... 25 Conclusion........................................................................................................................... 31 Bibliography........................................................................................................................ 33 Summary............................................................................................................................. 35 Resumé................................................................................................................................ 36 Introduction In the past, one of the most popular past-time activities was reading, however, now when new technologies became available, reading moved more towards watching television. Watching films and television is a very important form of entertainment that allows the audience to experience and feel things through the characters. As the Pulitzer Prize-winning film critic Roger Ebert puts it, “We live in a box of space and time. Movies are windows in its walls. They allow us to enter other minds, not simply in the sense of identifying with the characters, although that is an important part of it, but by seeing the world as another person sees it.” As a result, people search for films with situations that they might not necessarily find themselves in, with the intention to experience what it would feel like to be in somebody else’s shoes. A perfect example of this situation that a person would not experience otherwise is the role of a hero whose job is to slay monsters and protect the mankind from them. Beowulf is a heroic epic poem about a hero whose quest is to save the king and his subjects from an evil monster. At the end of the story, Beowulf fights against a dragon, which is a very popular character in fantasy books and films. People are attracted to this type of plot-driven adventurous heroic story and that is why several filmmakers decided it would be a good idea to adapt the story and make a film or television series out of it. However, the story itself is not sufficient enough to make a popular and successful movie. Some aspects and motifs have to be added by the filmmakers in order for the audience to want to see the adaptation. One of the most popular themes of a film that people can relate to is love. The original story does not contain this theme but in almost all the adaptations, 1 Beowulf has a love interest and the story contains a love storyline. Another added aspect is the development of backgrounds of some characters. People like to empathize with the characters they see on their screens and for this reason, in several film adaptations, some character traits are emphasized and some characters’ backgrounds are explored in order to get to know the characters better. The liberties that film producers have taken in the adaptations of the story of Beowulf and their cultural significance is the subject of this thesis. An important source for the acquisition of valuable information about some of the later mentioned adaptations is Hans Sauer’s 205 Years of Beowulf Translations and Adaptations (1805-2010): A Bibliography. In his work Sauer lists all the adaptations made between the years 1805 and 2010. This list provides information about the variety of the adaptations and some possible film options for the analysis. He also mentions some other adaptations of Beowulf, not only film adaptations, but game, music, play and other depictions as well. Seamus Heaney’s award-winning translation of Beowulf is valuable to the thesis mainly because of his Introduction, in which he writes in depth about crucial scenes and themes in the story. Both Kathleen Forni’s book Beowulf‘s Popular Afterlife in Literature, Comic Books, and Film and her article in Studies in Popular Culture are very valuable to the thesis since they contain some interesting ideas and comments about the adaptations and the popularity of Beowulf as a whole. Her ideas support some of my own and that is why her input is very useful. In the first chapter, there is an explanation of why is Beowulf such an important piece of work and why was it chosen for this thesis. It also contains a list of all the themes, symbols and motifs that are important and represent the core of the story. The next part of the thesis contains analysis of two films: Beowulf and Grendel from 2005 in the second chapter, and Beowulf from 2007 in the third chapter. Beowulf and Grendel was chosen because it is very similar to the original poem in terms of the setting, the genre and the overall atmosphere. However, it has a few differences that may yield insights into the adaptation strategies of its 2 makers. Beowulf is the most well-known and popular adaptation of the poem since it contains violence and epic fight scenes. The film is similar in terms of the battles with the monsters and the heroic atmosphere, but the filmmakers made some big changes in the story, and the film contains a lot of differences in the plot. However, the extent of the adaptors’ deviation from the original story testifies to the variety of adaptation strategies of the modern media. The next and final chapter of the thesis analyzes a television series made in 2016 with Beowulf as a main protagonist that is called Beowulf: Return to the Shieldlands. This adaptation is relevant because it shows the newest adaptation of Beowulf and what popular film aspects were added in contrast to the adaptations from the 2000s. The analysis aims to discover whether some crucial scenes from the poem are preserved or omitted in the new versions, and what popular film aspects were added in order for the film to be appealing to the audience. The goal of the thesis is to analyze the selected adaptations and, by looking at the differences and similarities between them and the original story, to explore the new strategies in adapting old literature in the current film industry. 3 The Original Story of Beowulf In his translation of Beowulf, Seamus Heaney begins with a historical background of the poem which is very informative in its content and contributive to this thesis. Heaney reports that Beowulf is a heroic poem written in the Old English (or Anglo-Saxon) language and it is considered to be one of the foundations of English poetry. It was created between the seventh and the tenth century and the poem consists of more than three thousand lines. This masterpiece is nowadays read primarily in translation because of the changes that language underwent, and it is mostly read in schools and universities (Heaney ix). Because of its continuous use in school courses, it has become a classic, and it is hard to find a person that has not at least heard about the story of Beowulf. According to Heaney, “We know about the poem more or less by chance, because it exists in one manuscript only. This unique copy (now in the British Library) barely survived a fire in the eighteenth century and was then transcribed and titled, re-transcribed and edited, translated and adapted, interpreted and taught, until it has become an acknowledged classic” (Heaney x). Not every story survives so many alterations and adaptations but because Beowulf survived and the poem was still read after all the modifications, it became a true literary classic and a suitable piece of work for this thesis. Even though it was written in England, the story’s setting is in Scandinavia in the sixth century. Beowulf, a powerful warrior of the Geats, arrives with his men to the land of the Danes to help them defeat a monster called Grendel that has been terrorizing the King Hrothgar’s hall Heorot and killing his warriors for some time. Beowulf defeats the monster in a battle without using any weapon and tears his arm from his body, which then serves as a trophy. However, he then has to defend the hall from Grendel’s mother who comes seeking revenge for her son. She kills one of Hrothgar’s warriors and escapes, but Beowulf follows her to the lake where she lives and he defeats her there with a powerful sword that he finds in her cave. He severs Grendel’s head and brings it as another trophy to the hall. After his victories, he returns to his 4 home country and rules there as king for fifty years. However, when a thief steals a golden cup from a dragon, the dragon attacks Beowulf’s kingdom and Beowulf in his old age has to defeat one more monster. Even though Beowulf kills it with the help of his friend Wiglaf, he dies in the battle as well, and the poem ends with Beowulf’s funeral and the Geats mourning the death of their beloved lord. It is important to name some themes, motifs, symbols and scenes that are significant in the poem in order to compare which elements were omitted and which were kept in the film adaptations and why. Firstly, one of the most important themes in the story is vengeance. It is the thing that motivates all the monsters to attack.
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