The Northman
Like THE KING (2019), this has been put through the deshakespearising machine (but if you turn the handle the other way it actually puts the Shakespeare back in), but in this case the dialogue, performances and images all have more than a touch of kitsch (far more unnecessarily so than in films that seem to have influenced this one, such as THE FOUNTAIN, 2006, ANTICHRIST, 2009, and THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT, 2018). At times, it is really quite surprisingly artless.
Eggers clearly fancies himself as a kind of anthropologist of old stories, but he also likes to jazz them up with a bit of psychoanalytic melodrama (if not hysteria). Regarding the protagonist: it’s true that Carl Schmitt claimed that there are “only two routes” open to a figure of this kind: “the son kills the murderer as well as his own mother” (the Greek route) or “the son allies himself with his mother, and together they kill the murderer” (the Nordic route) (Schmitt, 2009, p. 12). Schmitt’s point was that in Shakespeare, both of these are declined in favour of perpetual ambiguity about the mother’s role and constant prevarication about when to act – and that the explanation for this difference is historical (related to Mary Stuart and Lord Darnley), not literary or psychological. Well, Eggers makes his choice, and it seems like a backwards step based on Oedipal clichés (which are also Nicole Kidman clichés, given how frequently she seems to be dragged into scenes of this kind, and perhaps that may have influenced the decision to cast her here). Nevertheless, we ought not forget that there was once a time when it was really quite fashionable to interpret Hamlet in Freudian terms: one can’t help but wonder whether the filmmaker has considered why it is that the heyday for such interpretations has long passed.
Eggers clearly fancies himself as a kind of anthropologist of old stories, but he also likes to jazz them up with a bit of psychoanalytic melodrama (if not hysteria). Regarding the protagonist: it’s true that Carl Schmitt claimed that there are “only two routes” open to a figure of this kind: “the son kills the murderer as well as his own mother” (the Greek route) or “the son allies himself with his mother, and together they kill the murderer” (the Nordic route) (Schmitt, 2009, p. 12). Schmitt’s point was that in Shakespeare, both of these are declined in favour of perpetual ambiguity about the mother’s role and constant prevarication about when to act – and that the explanation for this difference is historical (related to Mary Stuart and Lord Darnley), not literary or psychological. Well, Eggers makes his choice, and it seems like a backwards step based on Oedipal clichés (which are also Nicole Kidman clichés, given how frequently she seems to be dragged into scenes of this kind, and perhaps that may have influenced the decision to cast her here). Nevertheless, we ought not forget that there was once a time when it was really quite fashionable to interpret Hamlet in Freudian terms: one can’t help but wonder whether the filmmaker has considered why it is that the heyday for such interpretations has long passed.
Mini Review: Like THE KING, this has been put through the deshakespearising machine (but if you turn the handle the other way it actually puts the Shakespeare back in), but in this case the dialogue, performances and images all have more than a touch of kitsch (far more unnecessarily so than in films that seem to have influenced this one: THE FOUNTAIN; ANTICHRIST; THE HOUSE THAT JACK BUILT). Eggers likes to dress up old stories with Freudian twists, but there's a lot less new about it than he seems to think.
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