Reflections of a Beowulf Screenwriter(but not one whose movie will be released tomorrow)
Just over two years ago, I imagined that tomorrow, the day of the release of Robert Zemeckis‘s Beowulf, would be the most difficult day for me since I moved to Los Angeles to pursue a career as a screenwriter. You see, several years previously, I had completed my own adaptation of that great English poem about a celebrated Geatish monster-slayer and king. It is, I believe, one of my two best scripts and the mose marketable of all my screenplays.
I have loved Beowulf since I first read it in Tenth Grade, discovering there one of the sources of my then-favorite writer‘s* own epic. So much did I love the poem that I learned Old English as an undergraduate so that I could read the poem in the original as an undergraduate.
When about ten years ago, I found myself writing screenplays, I knew I would one day attempt to adapt Beowulf for the silver screen. But, the question arose how to translate a story writtent to be told for warriors in the mead-halls of Anglo-Saxon England in the last centuries of the first millennium (of the Common Era) to a film to be shown to modern men and women in movie theaters around the world in the first years of a new millennium.
The original Beowulf story has few of the things which make a movie work today. The hero doesn’t change. The Beowulf we see at the end of the poem is virtually the same person (though much older) as the one who volunteered to assemble a troop and travel to Denmark to fight the monster ravaging Hrothgar’s hall in Demark. Unlike most heroes of the silver screen, Beowulf is not initially reluctant to face his foe(s). When Beowulf hears of that Danish King’s woes, he sets out willingingly, without reservation, because that besieged monarch was “in need of men.”
We are so used to seeing a hero, hesitating before undertaking the task that will come to define him. But, Beowulf does not hesitate.
Moreover, those movies which move us, which draw us in, have at their core, a relationship, whether it’s that of father-son (Don Corleone & Michael in the Godfather) or mentor-student (Obiwan and Luke in Star Wars) or of two lovers (Rick and Ilsa in Casablanca). The best movies, like those listed, all have a number of relationships which shift as the flicks unfold.
But, in Beowulf, there are no such relationships. Yes, he acknowledges he owes Hrothgar a debt. There is a brief spark between him and Hrothgar’s wife Wealtheow and Wiglaf, alone among the warriors who follow Beowulf to the dragon’s lair, joins his King in battling that dread beast when the hero cannot face him on his own. (The others flee.) But, each relationship belongs to a specific part of the story. None sustains the whole poem.
How, I wondered could you have a movie without a relationship helping define the story?
And then it dawned on me, create the relationship between Beowulf and the at-that-time-undiscovered Beowulf-poet. Hearing the poem as a boy, he would identify with the hero, using his example to guide his life, then, at the end of the flick, he would complete the tale he had first heard when living at home. And it would help him, finally find his place in the world.
Thus, we would have both transformation and relationship, two ingredients, essential to a good flick.
The story, as I wrote it, did not come to me right away. At first the boy was just a child who loved stories while his parents wanted him to be practical and learn to work the land as did most of his peers. The moment of inspiration came when I was considering the work of great writer of the past. When I discovered Wolfram von Eschenbach‘s Parzival (ironically at the same time I was completing my first translation of Beowulf), I saw in that Germano-Celtic hero’s life’s the pattern of a journey which resonated across the generations.
Born isolated from the society of his day, Parzival errs before he finds his way in the world, learning along the way from a number of mentors (of both genders), achieving his greatest success in the same Castle where he had had his worst failure. Wolfram’s story had both relationship and transformation.
So, I found a way to integrate the Beowulf story into the poet’s life and a means for his life to inform the poem. So, I began my background research and started my second translation of the poem. As I worked, I even found a solution for an aspect of the poem which has troubled scholars familiar with Germanic legend–Wiglaf’s decision not to flee when the dragon attacks Beowulf. The typical Germanic hero would have faced the monster alone and like Beowuf, died vanquishing that beastly foe.
In my version, before the poet was even born, his father Wiglaf died defending his King Offa of Mercia (a real historical figure) in that nation’s civil war of 757. (Mercia was then the largest kingdom in the land now known as England.) Offa would later be the first man to be called “rex Anglorum,” King of the English. That good king wishes to honor Wiglaf’s widow and her offspring for her husband’s sacrifice. But, distraught at the loss of her husband, she chooses to isolate herself from society, preventing her son from learning about his father and his deeds.
But, he being a normal boy, wants to know of his father. When he first hears the tale of Beowulf, he relates to that hero as a boy in similar circumstances who would look elsewhere for a man to emulate.
When I had completed my script, I was proud of my work. I was flattered and honored that others who have read it (including at least one successful screenwriter) agree with my initial assessment. A few offered suggestions, some of which I incorporated into subsequent drafts.
When I finished, despite the sense of accomplishment I felt, I had another unexpected and quite unusual feeling, that while I would like to sell the script, I didn’t need to do so. The writing itself was the satisfaction. At the same time, I feared someone else would adapt it, having the chance to translate the story I had so loved for so long to the silver screen.
About three years later, I learned that Zemeckis, a director whose work I had admired since the year I first translated Beowulf, the year his Back to the Future was released, would be directing someone else’s adaptation. Due to the quality of that Oscar-winner’s movies, I was less distraught than I had imagined I would be. Sad, to be sure, but given what Zemeckis had done, I was confident he would make a good movie of my beloved story.
Only when I saw the first three-panel display promoting the flick in movie theaters did I began to question that assessment. One panel read, “Pride is the Curse” (the movie’s Tagline according to Imdb.) In the original story, there’s no pride. Beowulf only boasts of his achievements to reassure Hrothgar (and later his own people) that he can defeat the monsters which threaten them. If anything, the literary Beowulf is the opposite of proud, offering his treasures to his king and pooh-poohing his own accomplishments. In one celebrated case, he refuses to take credit for killing a sea-monster, saying instead that the “battle storm” took the beast.
And then there’s the panel featuring Angelina Jolie playing a seductive Grendel’s Mother and some language about lust. There’s no lust in the poem. Beowulf refuses Wealtheow’s advancements (while obviously attracted to the young queen). And Grendel’s Mother never speaks, being an object of disgust rather than desire.
Yes, I recognize that one must change a “verbal story” (i.e., poem or novel) to make it more visual and so fit the silver screen. One should at least strive to be thematically consistent. When Peter Jackson adapted The Lord of the Rings, he did not make Saruman into a sexy and buff villain.
When I saw the first preview, I couldn’t even recognize the story I loved in the imagery shown, even as the names were the same. Indeed, I couldn’t even find any story in that preview. The billboards around town are even less compelling.
All that said, even friends of mine who agree with my assessment about the theater display, the preview and the billboards, have told me they have heard good things about the film, that it does look good. Several, aware of my fondness for the tale, have observed that the movie will be nothing like the poem.
And that is perhaps why I’m not as upset as I might be with just hours to go before the film’s release. It will be as was The Thirteenth Warrior, a film inspired by that great poem. Had I known in advance that that film was based on Michael Crichton’s retelling of the poem, I might not have enjoyed it as much as I did. Had I known, I would have been constantly been measuring it up to the greatness of the original poem.
Perhaps, my film will never make the silver screen. It will thus not make grown men cry as it reminds them of one of the most fundamental relationships in their lives, that with their father. I believed my Beowulf would have a effect on viewers similar to Field of Dreams.
In the parts of my film depicting the poem, I was as faithful as I could be to the tale of the Eighth Century poet, whom I discovered as I wrote my script. The film released tomorrow may not be as faithful to his great story as I strove to be, but it could still be good.
For that reason, despite my previous misgivings, I may well decide to see the flick while it’s still in theaters. And I can still hope that there’s still a chance to one day bring a more authentic Beowulf to the silver screen.
- B. Daniel Blatt (GayPatriotWest@aol.com)
*He now shares the title with George Eliot and Albert Camus.
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Sorry to hear you missed your chance with Beowulf (at least for the next decade or two, anyway). It sounds like you loved the poem enough to have done it justice.
Perhaps you could do Parzival? (Do you know of a good poetic translation of that poem?)
If you have not heard of him, there is a contemporary epic poet by the name of Frederick Turner. You should read both his epics: “The New World” and “Genesis.”
Comment by Dr. Troy Camplin — November 15, 2007 @ 8:24 pm - November 15, 2007
[...] You can read the rest of this blog post by going to the original source, here [...]
Pingback by Seduction and Relationships » Blog Archive » Reflections of a Beowulf Screenwriter(but not one whose movie will … — November 15, 2007 @ 8:30 pm - November 15, 2007
I remember having to memorize the beginning of The Canterbury Tales in the Old English back in 7th grade. PITA.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — November 15, 2007 @ 10:10 pm - November 15, 2007
The Canterbury Tales are in Middle English, not Old English.
Comment by doyne dawson — November 16, 2007 @ 1:05 am - November 16, 2007
#4
Whatever it was, it wasn’t easy to memorize and recite. I still don’t know what that accomplished other than an A.
Comment by ThatGayConservative — November 16, 2007 @ 2:12 am - November 16, 2007
By using Angelina Jolie and the 3-D effects, it looks like they are trying to get into the video game market. Thus they will hack up the story and try to make it appeal to 12-25 aged males.
Look for Beowolf “the Game” to be marketed very soon.
Its too bad.
But hopefully it might spur some to read the original tale and inspire those who might have never heard of Beowolf.
When I was in high school I wrote a play retelling the “Epic of Gilgamesh”
It was a Stinker!
Comment by gil — November 16, 2007 @ 11:07 am - November 16, 2007
I don’t know why it wouldn’t work. Look how well Lord of the Rings did!
I don’t think the Tristan movie fared as well in theaters but I enjoyed it. I think people are looking for heroic epics now. I find them more often in Chinese films than Americans ones (Hero was one of the best movies I have seen in recent years.) lately which is a shame.
I love these old epics. They are about something. Not just car chases and pyrotechnics and gore. And we are finally to a point where we have the technology to do justice to these stories.
Comment by Houndentenor — November 16, 2007 @ 11:42 am - November 16, 2007
We synt gum-cynnes Geata leode
ond Higalaces heord-geneatas;
wæs min fæder folcum gecyþed
æþele ord-fruma Ecgþeow haten.
It’s always fun to encounter somebody else who reads Anglo-Saxon!
Comment by rightwingprof — November 16, 2007 @ 1:25 pm - November 16, 2007
and there’s this, introduction of the first monster in English literature:
wæs se grimma gæst Grendel haten
mære mearcstapa, se þe moras heold,
fen ond fæsten; fifelcynnes eard
wonsæli wer weardode hwile,
siþþan him Scyppend forscrifen hæafde
in Caines cynne—- þone cwealm gewræc
ece Drihten, þæs þe he Abel slog;
Comment by GayPatriotWest — November 16, 2007 @ 1:40 pm - November 16, 2007
I learned the prolog to Canterbury Tales too. I still remember some of it but won’t embarrass myself here because I’m sure I don’t remember how to spell any of it.
Literature is a wonderful thing. Later in your life you find yourself in a situation in which the lessons from Shakespeare or Chaucer or Cervantes are relevant. Smack anyone who dismisses them as “dead, white Eureopan males”. Those guys knew what the world and humans were all about.
Comment by Houndentenor — November 16, 2007 @ 3:12 pm - November 16, 2007
Don’t worry about it, man. This is the 4th Beowulf movie being released over the last 10 years. Unless your version of Beowulf is full of wizbang SF/X, titanic CG requirements and sexy (and very expensive) actresses, your script probably isn’t in the same ballpark or even genre. If they started filming your script today, by the time it’s released you’d have passed the same average interval those other films did. If your script is a 100+ million dollar budget blockbuster, then yeah maybe you’d have to wait a decade. But, I’m betting it isn’t, you’re probably looking at the 20-30 million range. ALIEN, a singular hero vs. a creature movie, was made for 11 million…that’s maybe ~20-30 million in today’s dollars and that probably had way more special effects requirements than yours. Movies made that cheaply tend to pay for themselves. I wouldn’t count yourself out of the market yet.
Comment by Ettanin — November 16, 2007 @ 3:54 pm - November 16, 2007
Just wanted to drop a line and let you know how much I enjoyed this post. This poem was probably my favorite assignment in english class evah.
I hope your screenplay is put to film one day. It would be refreshing to see a hero who is absolute in his convictions at a time when so many of our leaders are not.
Comment by Big_R72 — November 16, 2007 @ 4:23 pm - November 16, 2007
“When that Aprille with his shoures soote
The droght of March hath perced to the roote …”
And that’s all I remember off the top of my head. I’m a linguist, not a literature person. Middle English was of historical and literary, but not linguistic, interest. I was more an Anglo-Saxon, Old Norse, and Gothic kinda guy. Dan, you should read some of Snorri’s Eddas. I think there are English translations, but if you know Anglo-Saxon, slogging through Old Norse with a dictionary isn’t really very difficult. Great stuff, if you like heroic lit (there’s the Niebelungenlied, but I never did Old or Middle High German, so the closest I got was four complete Wagner Ring Cycles. Ditto for Parzifal.)
Frisian (as in King Finn, mentioned in Beowulf) is English’s closest living relative, by the way.
We’re going to see it tomorrow. I’m sure it will be awful and I’ll hate it, but it’s one of those things you have to see. They have to show the dismembered arm, of course, and I’m sure that will be as gory and grotesque as they can make it, and I’m very skeptical about this 3-D nonsense, not to mention Angelina Jolie as modor Grendles.
Comment by rightwingprof — November 16, 2007 @ 5:25 pm - November 16, 2007
Since I’m not a big fan of 3-D movies – I’ll probably skip Beowulf and wait for the Disney ride – or maybe “Beowulf – The Musical!”
As for your un-produced screenplay, consider yourself lucky on this one:
Who wants a Harvard Business school graduate (class of 2003) showing up with ‘notes’ and ‘product placement suggestions’ for your creative vision?
Personally, I’m waiting to see ‘I am Legend’ – a remake of ‘the Omega Man’ – where Will Smith is the last human inhabitant of Manhattan.
I’ve often had that same daydream….
GPW – btw: As a screenwriter – are you on strike?
Cheers, darlings…..
Comment by Vera Charles — November 16, 2007 @ 9:28 pm - November 16, 2007
BTW, did you see the Baiowulf clip on The Soup this weekend?
Comment by ThatGayConservative — November 17, 2007 @ 4:31 am - November 17, 2007
Vera, I’m not on strike, because I’m not WGA, but do support the strikers in principle, esp. on getting royalties from DVD and Internet.
Comment by GayPatriotWest — November 17, 2007 @ 1:56 pm - November 17, 2007
#16 GPW~
Oh, good. Vera is also supportive of writers in getting their fair share of the pie.
BTW: Should you finish your screen-play, and happen to have a role for a ‘mature, experienced, classically trained actress’ – think Ethel Barrymore without the scowl – Vera would be only too happy to perform a reading for you.
Cheers!
Comment by Vera Charles — November 17, 2007 @ 3:02 pm - November 17, 2007
Just wanted to toss my two c-bills in,
1) There is a Beowulf movie board game already out. I’ve seen it at my FLGS, I assume the video game will be right behind.
2) I can’t blame the strikers on this. It’s like the Dragon Magazine CD issue about 7 years ago. They didn’t know how to handle electronic rights for a magazine published in 76.
Comment by The_Livewire — November 17, 2007 @ 3:29 pm - November 17, 2007
Well, my wife and I just saw the movie today. They tried to tie the last part, where he fights the dragon, in with the first two parts. How? He doesn’t kill the mother, but has sex with her instead, and the dragon is his offspring. My wife said she was disappointed because he turned into a wimp. Certainly he’s no wimp by today’s standards (I’ve see college classes full of them), but he doesn’t live up to who shows up at the beginning of the movie. There’s also a love interest that really goes nowhere. And there’s an anti-Christian element to it — when the poem itself was Christian. Go figure.
Someone did raise an interesting point, though. There does seem to be a surge in heroic epics — particularly using the ancient myths. I think this is good overall, even if many of the outcomes weren’t quite up to par (300 was incredible, though).
Comment by Dr. Troy Camplin — November 17, 2007 @ 9:34 pm - November 17, 2007
Ohh ohh ohh
What about Gilgamesh. Gayest. Epic. EVER.
I’m glad that you are supporting WGA in this. This is about people demanding to be paid their fare share for their work. Work without which there would be no product at all.
Comment by Houndentenor — November 18, 2007 @ 9:59 am - November 18, 2007
I really, really, really despised it. See my blog. They didn’t change it. They shat on it.
Comment by rightwingprof — November 18, 2007 @ 10:27 am - November 18, 2007
Thirty years ago I was forced to read Beowulf and write a paper on it. It was called “Beowulf and the Glory Horde.” The premise: Beowulf was generous with treasure but not so much when it came to sharing the billing in his epic poem. So his soldiers split since they were unlikely to get noticed for staying around. I believe they talked about “rings” which indicated courage (and courage gave status), and that as King he wasn’t quite as generous with those. The older Beowulf needed to be less of a physical Hero. It was all guess work on my part, but it got me through the course.
I never before shared these insights with anyone, except one unlucky professor who had to read the thing.
Comment by hdgreene — November 19, 2007 @ 2:59 am - November 19, 2007
I saw it also. The story is pretty anti-hero. Basically, great heroes don’t exist and those who believe in them are just stupid people believing in lies, and Heroes have a fundamental guilt in creating the very evil they take credit fighting. But, it definitely had the best dragon I’ve ever seen in a movie. Also, I highly recommend seeing it in 3-D. You’re missing half the point of the movie if you see it in normal 2-D.
Comment by Ettanin — November 19, 2007 @ 3:31 am - November 19, 2007
Indeed? How, so? Granted it’s been a few years since I read it, but when I did I found it to be an interesting tale with striking similarities in some parts to the Bibilical Genesis story.
As for this latest Beowulf movie, I’m thinking I’ll catch it on DVD whenever the mood strikes.
Comment by John — November 19, 2007 @ 9:43 am - November 19, 2007
I have a few things to say about the strike.
Comment by rightwingprof — November 20, 2007 @ 6:27 pm - November 20, 2007