In his first film, The witchcosting four million dollars, Robert Eggers had sketched a battle between Puritanism and the occult in seventeenth-century New England, written entirely in Tudor-era English. That film followed The lighthouse, a surrealist nightmare of survival, steeped in sea salt and marine jargon. It is on this kind of direction that cult auteur films are built. But usually these are not the works that push Hollywood studios to invest in a director.
And instead The northmanEggers’ ambitious and insane third film, a tale of Viking, brutal revenge, which has its roots in the Scandinavian legend of Amleth, even if it cost much more than The witch And The lighthouse put together, it did not overcharge Eggers’ artistic sensibility.
Led by a towering Alexander Skarsgård as an exiled Icelandic prince who wants to avenge his father’s murder and take back his kingdom, the film has all the blood and muscle that goes with this genre, plus a lavish cast that includes Nicole. Kidman as Amleth’s mother, Ethan Hawke as his father, Anya Taylor-Joy (who made her debut in The witch), Claes Bang and Willem Dafoe. There is also a cameo from Björk. Yet the film’s rich historical idiom, rampant spirituality and ambiguous heroism make Eggers’ hand feel more than the blockbuster budget (seventy million dollars, the director says) can suggest.
Moving away from independent film meant not only managing bigger sets, a larger cast and more practical challenges, but also handing over control to the studio on the final cut of the film. A recent New Yorker article on Eggers recounted what appears to have been a complicated post-production process, with some resistance from funders and the test screening audience. Today Eggers admits to being “frustrated” by the narrative that emerged from that article; in fact, he says, there was an exchange of views which was quite constructive.
Overall, the production indulged Eggers’ idiosyncrasies, allowing him to work with his regular collaborators, such as cinematographer Jarin Blaschke. Eggers and Blaschke’s tendency to take long, carefully planned takes, avoiding second units, results in an elaborate aesthetic and an immersive and engaging visual approach rarely seen in today’s action movies.
(Chris Young, THE CANADIAN PRESS / Alamy)
“Market tests were done for my first films, but I didn’t have to change anything after the previews. So the production pressures were new. And while they are not something you may like, I still learned something. In any case, this is the film I wanted to make. It’s mine director’s cut. And without the comparison with the production I would not have been able to do it ”.
Previous films, despite their dark eccentricities, were quite straightforward, compelling, and often very entertaining. Entertainment doesn’t seem like an artistic stretch, in his case. But Eggers is a director who cares as much about the way his stories are told – and the singular and often archaic language in which they are written – as much as about the story itself. The northman is different from most mainstream films about the hero’s journey: his moral compass keeps spinning, while the value and meaning of Prince Amleth’s mission of revenge are constantly called into question. It is the same myth ofHamlet by William Shakespeare, an equally conflicted figure: Eggers, the son of a literature professor, was more attracted to this psychological complexity than to the warrior iconography of history.
Though Conan the barbarian it was one of his childhood favorite films, not the kind of film Eggers would have imagined making. “I am shocked to have made such a film machoHe says, before admitting that his interest in history and the past had not, until recently, been pushed to the Vikings. “Stereotypes about Viking culture, coupled with right-wing embezzlement, made me a little allergic to that world, which I never wanted to explore.”
(Focus Features)
This attitude changed during a holiday in Iceland: “The landscapes are inspiring, epic and ancestral. They were the ones who pushed me to deal with Icelandic sagas ”. While there, a mutual friend arranged a meeting with Björk. She in turn introduced him to the Icelandic poet and writer Sjón (“A giant of literature,” says Eggers), who recently wrote the folk-horror film Lamb together with director Valdimar Jóhannsson.
That trip gave birth to the idea of a Viking movie. Years later, at lunch with Skarsgård, he learned of his ambition to make a Viking epic with producer Lars Knudsen. The dots joined. And as the project began to take shape, Eggers decided he needed an Icelandic co-writer. Sjón was his first choice. “Even the Icelandic who is most allergic to Vikings knows who the characters in the saga are, he has a direct affinity with them, and many Icelanders still believe in earth spirits and fairies.”
In all Eggers’ films, the physical and spiritual worlds appear to be closely and materially connected, close to the point of a disorienting overlap; the intense vision of Valhalla calls Amleth to itself for everything The northman, like an afterlife that is neither questioned nor idealized. Eggers still seems a little surprised that he managed to persuade a studio to invest in his metaphysical (albeit very violent) idea of a Viking epic.
The New Regency production company had worked with Eggers on The lighthouse and she was ready to invest in him. “Sjón and I already had a good version of the script and there seemed to be an interest in Viking stories. And so the project didn’t seem so irresponsible ”.
It is not yet known if The northman it will be a success, but it feels like a film built to last. And he gave Eggers a taste for big canvases on which to paint his greatest ideas, even though he’d rather continue to do independent projects: “I want to do something smaller, and not just because of the pressure and fatigue,” he says. “But why turning The northman, a gigantic piece by my standards, I learned a lot. And finally I seem to know how to make a film ”. ◆ ff