Beowulf vs. Gawain & the Green Knight

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0442933/

Added bonus: CRISPIN GLOVER as Grendel.

Dudes...

Search: Laxdaela Saga, Njal's Saga.
Destroy: King Harald's Saga, which is a bit rub.

I'm off to Iceland later this year, I am a little concerned that I might get my skull cleft in two for insulting somebody's cow at the wrong time.

* Kennings v. fucktons of nutso alliteration: alliteration pwns. "The dainty damsel did the doughty duke" or somesuch has enriched my life way much more than "whale-road" et al. Gawain sounds like it could have been written by L. Frank Baum on a particularly prolific day, totally imaginative and full of light.

wtf are you on about, beowulf's full of alliteration

...in the original anglo-saxon!!!!

still, dope poem

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/mar/19/jrr-tolkien-beowulf-translation-published

Unsurprisingly loving the news of this.

The Seamus Heaney translation of Beowulf would be hard to beat.

Green Knight vs The Pearl = Pearl wins

Beowulf is a lot more 'real' than the Green Knight, which doesn't have to mean 'better'

that is v exciting news!

Interested to see what Tolkien made of it. Hope there's a schleppy paperback version & that I don't have to buy a leatherbound box etc

Green Knight vs The Pearl = Pearl wins

oh hell, no. I just remember Pearl being the worst and dullest slog.

We saw the Green Knight last night and I can't believe this movie is a wide summer release (to the extent that there is such a thing this year). It is pretty amazing and sticks surprisingly very very close to the poem. There were a fair number of walk outs. I thought it was astonishing.

Can't wait!

yeah crazy that this very good movie was the first I saw in a theater since the pandemic

watching this tonight! but rented, projected on a wall. i know the rough contours of the legend (which is factual, i believe) and that's about it

Yeah I've got the Roku channel set up on my TV, very curious here.

I know it was only a few weeks ago, but I still think about this film all the time.

Definitely an interesting watch. It's not the poem, that's for sure, but it holds to a lot of key beats. Very much in its own plane and I appreciated the ending (which, again, not the poem).

i was wondering how "faithful" it was to the original!

i was kind of embarrassed by how often my mind drifted to monty python

i appreciated the whole thing with the green sash though

Oh absolutely a lot of Python bits came to mind

Anyway a couple of good costume threads from friends, the second also being one of my podcast cohosts.

1 - Hey folks! It's a surprise #threadtalk on the medieval theme of the moment: #TheGreenKnight! I just had to come out of hibernation to talk about what I saw in the theater.

Velvet! Crêpe! CROWNS! Pentagrams! I've got you covered. Well, at least *partially*. 📗🪓 pic.twitter.com/oawUJhmqWd

— Natania Barron (@NataniaBarron) August 3, 2021

GREEN KNIGHT COSTUME APPRECIATION THREAD

— Jared Pechacek (@vandroidhelsing) August 19, 2021

this was well-served by seeing it in a theater with the elaborate sound design.

some of the A24-era stylistic tics are starting to wear on me a bit, and all the brooding and frowning and meaningful staring had me drifting a little in the 2nd half. but the costumes & design were indeed A+++++ though, and this had some truly unforgettable moments and sequences, incl the 360 pan to the skeleton and the winifred episode. wiki says there was a post-credits beat that i missed, apparently.

this was well-served by seeing it in a theater with the elaborate sound design.

I mostly watched on headphones, definitely helped.

The post-credits beat in the film itself is just a young girl putting on the crown in the throne room. It almost seems like a casual shot though I'm sure it wasn't. As for the actual A24 Screening Room post-credits bit, that had Ralph Ineson reading directly from a section of the original poem as translated by Tolkien, which I admit I was all for.

Gonna try my best to finally see this this afternoon, the only show today, the last before it leaves the local theatre.

Might as well! It's up for online rental now in general but yeah, strikes me as a good big screen watch.

Anyway, interview with the costume designer:

https://www.vogue.com/article/the-green-knight-malgosia-turzanska-interview/amp

i took middle english lit in college but it’s been a while since i last read Gawain

reading the Armitage translation today (my tolkien edition is buried on my shelf somewhere) forgot how much i love this text, looking forward to the movie, plan to check it out soon maybe this weekend

I thought this was exactly what I expected it to be and more or less what I wanted it to be, though at times it took itself so seriously that it almost felt a bit too much. (Obv. I thought a lot of Python as well.) Oh, and if there was a post-credits scene ... well, fuck that. It's bad enough that that's become a thing, but the last thing I want to do in a theatre during a pandemic is linger longer than needed. Sorry, gifted team of set decorators, costume designers and ominously discordant musicians!

ominously discordant musician: YONNGGGGHHHHHHHHWRRRRRRRPPPPPPPPMMMMM

I just kind of assumed all that stuff was a Kubrick homage.

This movie drags. And it has the fake CGI of many LOTR imitators.

Definitely drags, by design/pretension, with hit or miss results. Didn't mind any of the FX, though.

i did not much like this movie, not sure lowery has the juice for ... ideas.

agree w/ above about the a24 set becoming a samey to the point that it can be a chore. i said on letterboxd that this movie is if ari aster took english 202 way seriously and i stand by it.

I thought this handled some themes I’d very much not expect out of a hollywood epic in interesting ways, but ultimately I couldn’t connect with much of it. the CGI was whatever I guess. it seems like the sort of movie that might reward repeat viewing but I can’t really see myself signing up for another 130 minutes of that kind of pace

agree w/ above about the a24 set becoming a samey to the point that it can be a chore. i said on letterboxd that this movie is if ari aster took english 202 way seriously and i stand by it.

― Clay, Tuesday, August 31, 2021 8:02 PM (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is an extremely specific criticism and i love it

but the last thing I want to do in a theatre during a pandemic is linger longer than needed.

― Josh in Chicago, Thursday, August 19, 2021 10:26 PM (one month ago)

Yeah I thought of staying to end of credits but I didn't want people squirming past me.

Generally didn't like the cgi but I rarely do (kind of ruined Saint Maud for me). I don't get why directors are so keen on finding lots of scenes to use it.
I did think the giants looked quite good, I like that kind of merging effect sometimes.

I did like it though and I've been thinking about it.

My first cinema going since the start of 2020 (The Lighthouse). Hoping Titane will be next.

Actually far more humor than I expected.

Jst saw this as a d/ld I thought it had been circulating and screened for months. Think every podcast I heard with a reference or review of it was a month or so ago. I was surprised to see the Guardian had a review of it yesterday. Though maybe that has more to do with the pandemic than other things, how films are being shown and so on and maybe it's just been put into cinemas when it was being circulated otherwise before . Or did it get a foreign release before the UK.

I saw it was shot in Ardmore and Wicklow so assume it would be viewed asa British film.

Ironically I noticed that the King in this was played by somebody who had played Ian Curtis and the next film I watched after it was Stroszeck the last film Curtis watched. & it had been sitting on my memory stick for a while waiting for me to watch for a while.
Tried to watch Kaspar Hauser later in teh week but can't get subtitles in sync.;

Only released in the UK yesterday. For a while there wasn't going to be a UK cinema release and maybe they changed their minds after the good buzz about the film

there isn't that i can find a thread for green knight which im watching again at home this evening and so ill say it here- i think it the best film ever made

― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Sunday, 17 December 2023 18:50 (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

ok everyone

i will fight you in this thread instead

Nice film with a cool sensibility

But it's still Arthurian saga made a for a YA audience, imo. Bresson and Rohmer did far better, and their versions are for adults too.

I admit I don't understand what the film is going for, because it's a wide departure from the poem, and I don't think captures its spirit in the slightest. Where the poems presents us with analogies of courtly eroticism and the hunt, the film has Gawain spunk on his clothes.. The ritual repetition and entanglement of the hunting and courting scenes are the heart of the poem, in the film this is exchanged for cgi novelties. It's Gawain for Harry Potter fans.

The early scenes of Gawain at home with his mam are also execrable.

Hope that's good enough for a fite!

Green knight was cool though

Arthurian saga made a for a YA audience

weird, I would not describe that film in that manner

I've read Gawain two or three times, but somehow never had to read Beowulf and stll haven't. I have the Heaney version, I should do that

glumdalclitch that is superb ill take a serious fuckin run at you tomorrow on the back of it, brace yourself

i finally saw this and i think i stand w darragh so i am stocking up on popcorn for tomorrow

It’s not the best movie ever made but it’s a very good one and bears repeat watching. The final line is such a great rug pull.

sorry the line isnt blurry and you're either this side of it or agin us

so

YA idg, at all.

its a tale of adolescence into manhood, sure, but it's deeply wyrd blood sex magik death in tone and theme and the (oft criticised) decisions to pace it for silence and space instead of action and thrills underminenthisntake somewhat for me.

it's also- while imo having strong and readable through lines of theme and message- ambiguous about many of the events, characters, happenings, causes and intent while still being releasable today.

im sure you could find Arthurian or gawain adaptations that aimed for strict adherence to a specific tome or version from one or another medieval source but other than marking them higher on that score and that score alone i think the criticism is very narrow in scope across the entire effort.

the cgi is dreamy rather than mindblowing but its existence to me isn't in itself a criticism i can get on board with, neither giants nor fox take up very much time nor in fact space in plot at all

if, as im reading, the time spent on getting an immature gawain to the knights house is held to be an offence vs the time spent on the ins and outs of the knights game of silly cuckers, well and good but i feel myself that this version is not trying to hold *that part* central to the telling - and in that i refer you to my "strict adherence" above in terms of how id score it down on that (not at all really but certainly not twice).

its not as if- as far as i know- any one poem wasnt a stitching and spinning of one or several previous legends and liberally salted and stirred to boot. this telling of the green knight is in some ways more to the spirit of the telling anew than a simple reproduction.

in any case, to the above, i dont love this for what it isnt and what it is is beautiful, ambitious visually and pyschotropically, fabulously and kindly played (in particular the supporting parts - by which i mean in terms of place and relationship, our king and queen, our mother, our green knight and our red) around our wouldbe knight work so tenderly for him and are played with such a skillful mix of solemnity and reassurance care- that it gives the entire effort a heart and beauty that a mere tapestry transcription would miss out on to great detriment imo.

none of it would work without a central performance that made us love our selfish coward and if patel didnt deliver a gawain you wanted then thats gonna impact your feelings for the entire effort further. he works perfectly for me.

i might post later about what it *does* put in instead of the simple clockwork of the hunt and kiss, if i get a moment and im not banned for this brave and foolish effort

echo what vg says above, it supports repeat viewings

this time around, the pacing is settled and not an issue. it goes quite quickly tbh.

i found myself asking a lot more about our king- lamenting how his nephew has never sat to his right or upon his knee, now wants to repair that.

our ageing and childless king, his brown nephew, i caught a touch of his face early on with a line that could easily be read as a reference to wjat the boy might need to face up to as a knight let alone a king to be

our king, our ageing king, presiding over a hall of silent legends who do not rise for him nor in his place when a challenge issues forth - who do not offer a sword to the youth who accepts when they would not (ofc our lad jumping in when none would is also evidence perhaps of his hasty youth also).

the influence of the knight legends on what our hero wishes to emulate but cannot find a way to is stark contrast with how our king belatedly but compassionately takes an interest in how to shape him, is stark contrast to our red knight's warm and generous welcome and companionship and stark contrast to our inevitable but not distant nor arguably unkind green knight

i think narratively first time around its clear as crystal Gawain's mother instigates the challenge- I'm not sure how clear it is that the consequences are or aren't real even after second viewing. what i am more clear on is the extent to which king/queen seem to also be instigators at which point the character of "the game" and the quest really does change imo, even if our protagonist himself feels like an unwilling victim/participant throughout.

why do i have visions of glumdalclitch not showing up until one year hence

In keeping with the spirit.

Very glad I got the fancy edition of the film from A24, honestly.

awesome breakdown darragh

i read a great meta-analysis on tumblr* that suggested also that having gawain lose, regain then altogether remove the green girdle also puts the onus entirely on him for his fate, that his fate can’t just be put down to the meddlings of a witch as it is in the poem - puts the agency in his hands as it were and he actually chooses what happens

*trying to find a link for the tumblr post, will post it here when i do find it - it’s very thorough & nerdy <3

ah found it (super long breakdown but well worth a read imo)

https://qqueenofhades.tumblr.com/post/659980701135962112/the-green-knight-and-medieval-metatextuality-an

oh excellent will read ty

this is interesting too, re lowery’s process of writing the adaptation

https://lithub.com/david-lowery-on-the-strange-arduous-journey-of-adapting-the-green-knight-for-film/

why do i have visions of glumdalclitch not showing up until one year hence

― close encounters of the third knid (darraghmac), Monday, 18 December 2023 19:57 (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink