Interesting take on the new film of Beowulf

I’m trying to pull together some thoughts on Robert Zemeckis’s “Beowulf,” though at this point I’ve only seen the film once and don’t have much more than a gut reaction to offer. It strikes me as Zemeckis’s darkest and most misanthropic film to date — to the extent that he’s even banished a human presence from the final product, completing a process that began with the violently distorted bodies of “Death Becomes Her” and the desperate flight from human society in “Who Framed Roger Rabbit” and “Forrest Gump.” In tone, I think it’s closest to “Contact,” extending that film’s satire on New Age-y spiritual transcendence (the Jodie Foster character thinks she’s in touch with a cosmic intelligence, though in fact she never escapes her own traumatized feelings toward her father) into a full scale assault on Christian beliefs (a subject broached in “Beowulf” by a warrior relieving himself against a wall).

With a face and figure drawn from early Christian iconography, Beowulf turns out to be a savior who not only fails to save anyone but succumbs to temptation himself, engendering more chaos in the process and touching off a cycle that will be endlessly repeated. The performance capture process allows Zemeckis to take the unsettling blend of the real and the cartoonish that has shaped his films since “I Wanna Hold Your Hand” to new levels, though at this point he seems less interested in manipulating human figures than he is in exploring complex spaces (made more complex by the 3-D element) and fantastically elaborate camera movements, unfettered by the physical presence of an actual camera. As an exercise in pure mise-en-scene, there’s literally nothing else like it, and I can’t wait to see it again.

My brother suggested we go see this movie...I would not have suggested it myself, even though I am someone who watches the state of animation with interest. The theme wasn't something that interested me. While I usually suggest the more serious movies, he suggests the sillier or more off-beat selections. I choose movies like "Flight 93" and "Blackhawk Down", while he would choose "Beavis and Butthead Do America" and "Beowulf".

We used to go to the movies about once a week through the nineties (or so it seemed) then everything just kind of dried up coming out of Hollywood. Now, we go probably once every couple of months, usually to a small theater in my small town, where it costs $5.50 to go to the movie, and a large soda costs $2.25.

Anyway...my brother didn't really like Beowulf, and said he couldn't recommend the movie to anyone. I thought it had entertainment value, and I had to admit, as much as I dislike Angelina Jolie's puffy lips and politics, the rendered version of her body was...er...quite nice, to put it mildly. My wife, who listened with amusement to my analysis after the fact, told me that it was indeed an accurate rendering of her body (as she heard on television, which I do not watch). Ouch, was all I could say. It was pretty impressive.

I think that boiled down to why my brother did not like it. He is striving to be a better Christian, and I think it offended his sensibilities to be attracted to an animated rendering of a beautiful female body.

My brother and I had a discussion on the way over to the theater, where I discussed a rather unnerving online experience I had just before I left my house to pick him up. I had just finished reading a thread on Free Republic about Heather Mills, who I embarrassingly had no idea of why someone would find her important or newsworthy. When I googled her, saw she was the one-legged ex-spouse of Paul McCartney. When I told my wife this, she told me I need to get out from under my rock occasionally. I replied I kind of like it better under the rock. Anyway, Heather Mills had suggested that we all drink rat's milk to decrease the burden on the planet. I found this hilarious, so I immediately set out to Photoshop a rat with a milking machine attached to it as a quick and funny joke to post on FR. (I try to emulate Freepers like dead and Martin Fierro, but I am an amateur in comparison) It was a quick and sloppy Photoshop job (shown here), but I like to do that sometimes just to keep my Photoshop skills intact. I usually do this by googling for images of things, cutting them out and compositing them together.

Anyway, when I googled for "milking machine", I had NO idea it would bring up what it did. I was dumbfounded by the images it returned. You just wouldn't believe them if you saw them. I am no prude, but...that was the seamy underbelly of the Internet I saw.

The point is, my brother said that being attracted to a rendered image of Angelina Jolie's rather impressive body is not very far away from the depravity of the images I described to him in my search for pictures of a milking machine. Now, I disagree with him, because I find a woman's body pretty nice to look at, even if it is a drawing, a sculpture, or yes, an animated rendering. In this, she simply looked like a good looking woman wearing a skintight body suit. I see his point, but I can't find it in myself to categorize the portrayal as perverted. He didn't actually say it was perverted, but I assume he was referring to the slippery slope.

As for the rendering quality, I usually focus not on the physical action, but on the realism of the human face, hair and clothes. When I first saw the rendered feature "Final Fantasy" a while back, I thought it was good animation at the time, even if the story was simply stupid. They nearly had the faces looking good in a few scenes. Then, a few years ago, there was a film called "The Animatrix" which was a compilation of a bunch of different animated short features. It was interesting, but they did what I thought was a stunningly good animation of a very attractive man and woman doing a blindfolded sword sparring match in a dojo. I thought the state of animation was getting much closer.

In Beowulf, it was even better. Very lifelike facial features.

The story? Sorry to say, I have never read Beowulf. I guess that makes me a Philistine, but I have never even read the Cliff Notes for it. So I have no idea how close or far to the original the animated feature falls.

I see no problem with someone taking a story, fable or theme (particularly a very old one) and reinterpreting it...it is done all the time with stories and music. On the other hand, I understand if someone takes exception to it.

I only take exception to reinterpretation (with artistic license) of recent historical events such as battles from the US Revolutionary War onwards...that is kind of my cut-off point. I really didn't take exception with the the movie 300 or anything like that, but I do take exception with movies like "Platoon".

Beowulf did have entertainment value, but it is not for everyone. In my opinion, Angelina Jolie played Satan...no doubt about it. A good looking one, like Elizabeth Hurley in "Bedazzled", but Satan nonetheless. If I were Beowulf, I would have admired her appearance but no way I would have slept with her. I've seen the movie "Species" and know better...:)

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