I’ve found that films tend to be a better experience when the director actually gets to make the movie they want to make, as opposed to a mess of a feature hastily glued together with reshoots and studio interference. Hollywood politics are tricky, but I think it’s safe to say we would be getting a lot more originality if every director’s innovation was maintained to their preference.
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| Image courtesy of Focus Features |
One director who’s had more success than not with preserving his artistic vision — with the three features he’s produced thus far — is Robert Eggers, writer/director of 2015’s The Witch, 2019’s The Lighthouse, and now The Northman, a Viking-centric story emblematic of Hamlet which allows Eggers to dive into the endlessly deep well of Norse mythology. Alexander Skarsgård stars as Amleth (the name being one of the more obvious parallels with its Shakespearean influence), a Viking prince whose young life is uprooted when his uncle Fjölnir (Dracula’s Claes Bang) kills his father Aurvandill War-Raven (Dead Poets Society’s Ethan Hawke) and takes the throne, kidnapping Amleth’s mother (Being the Ricardos' Nicole Kidman) in the process. Amleth manages to escape, armed only with a mantra anyone who saw a trailer for this movie in theaters can likely quote verbatim: “I will avenge you, father! I will save you, mother! I will kill you, Fjölnir!”
Two decades later, as Amleth has grown into the much beefier Skarsgård, he finally begins to make progress on his promise. The traditional hero’s journey is punctuated with vivid Green Knight-esque side quests and increasingly violent distractions. Woe befalls anyone who crosses his path, whether they be undead warriors or egotistic cousins, and the adventure only gets better as it nears its end.
