Beowulf

[MacGuffin]

FIRST LOOK: 'Beowulf' comes to the screen
Robert Zemeckis employs motion capture technology again for the medieval epic.
Source: Los Angeles Times

Angelina Jolie's lips look even fuller than usual. She's emerging naked from a pool of dank cave water, rivulets of gold streaming gently down her body.

"Giiiif meee sonnnn," she coos, in an Old English accent.

Her flaxen hair is braided down her back in a long tail that slowly undulates and slaps the dark pool around her. She continues to purr enticements about making babies as a virtual camera circles 360 degrees panning around her long limbs and waist. Gold dribbles down her inner thighs past her feet, revealing sharp stilettos merged with bestial hooves.

Welcome to the world of Paramount Pictures' "Beowulf," as imagined by Robert Zemeckis, the same filmmaker who last bore zombie-like children in stiff pajamas riding a speeding train into the North Pole. Except this time Zemeckis is using his increasingly sophisticated bag of tricks to serve up adult fantasy (or a minimum of PG-13).

Adapted from the oldest story in the English language, "Beowulf" is a hyper violent and highly sexualized tale of the warrior Beowulf (Ray Winstone) who must slay the monster Grendel (Crispin Glover). Later, Grendel's mother (Jolie) seduces Beowulf so that she can produce a replacement heir that will allow her to reestablish her dominion over the kingdom. (Hence, Giiiif meee sonnn.)

The first public viewing of "Beowulf" will be served up in digital 3-D projection at Comic-Con in San Diego tonight before screening again in standard digital projection for thousands of genre fans on Thursday afternoon in the convention center's Hall H. It's impossible to say how this taste-making crowd will respond, even if some involved in the project have taken to describing it as " 'Lord of the Rings' meets '300.' "

But Zemeckis producing partner Steve Starkey is betting that "Beowulf's" horror-fantasy elements coupled with digital 3-D -- not to mention a digitally enhanced Jolie matched with a heroic Beowulf -- will be embraced by a genre crowd hungry for a big story with big themes that also delivers heaping amounts of cinematic spectacle.

"I think this will be right up Comic-Con's alley," Starkey said on Monday.

After poring over dozens of translations of the historic Anglo-Saxon epic poem, best known as required reading by high school and college English students across the country, screenwriters Neil Gaiman and Roger Avary started translating the 3,183 lines of heroic poetry into cinematic language in May 1997.

What they delivered is a story of a brave and heroic young hero (Winstone) who makes small personal compromises that don't seem hugely important along the path to his dreams but ultimately catch up to him.

Winstone is actually 50 years old, but thanks to wizardry of motion capture technology, he and other main characters age onscreen from teenagers to 70-year-olds as the film progresses. "It's been a long time since I've looked 17 or 18 years old," Winstone said, on a call from the set of "Indiana Jones IV," in which he plays a character called "Mac." "But I looked back at pictures of myself then and it's weird how I look the same in the film as I did back then when I was a boxer."

His knack for a good scrap is on show in one of the film's pivotal fight scenes when Beowulf battles Grendel in the nude, mano a beast-o. ("Bob asked if he had to be nude, but we said, 'It's in the poem,' " Gaiman explained.) So in a crafty bit of staging to allow a PG-13 rating, Beowulf's naughty bits are obfuscated by random objects in the foreground. It's more subtle and subdued, but shadows, swords, mead flagons and shoulders block all in a sequence not unlike the prankish cloaking device used in "Austin Powers" films.

"We just thought we should maintain the integrity of the book and perform the fight the way it should be performed but at the same time cover up appropriately," Sharkey said. To circumvent certain MPAA ratings issues, the producer and director purged the script of foul language, used an array of blood colors ranging from crimson to green and dreamed up gravity-defying nude scenes.

In fact, given the original script's wealth of blood, violence and nudity, there has been some talk about eventually producing an unrated version of "Beowulf" down the line.

"Things are tolerated in a different way in a mythological environment," Starkey said. "People are willing to play more in fantasy worlds because it is so stylized."

The hyper-real look of "Beowulf" is a testament to Zemeckis' unique brand of fantastical experimentation.

Gaiman and Avary infused the script with allusions to gold, mead (medieval honey wine), "a proper fire-breathing dragon" and glory. Zemeckis then translated those words into a dark-washed denim world, speckled with fluorescences and phosphorescent water, luminous glints of golden bracelets, goblets and the reptilian villain known as Grendel.

Some may recognize Grendel for his uncanny resemblance to the new line of Devi Kroell faux metallic snakeskin handbags at Target. But it's actually Crispin Glover beneath that skin: "Beowulf" is Glover's first reunion with Zemeckis since his herky-jerky turn as George McFly in 1985's "Back to the Future."

"Early on we were sitting around, just [fantasy] casting," Gaiman recalled, sitting in the lobby of the Chateau Marmont recently. "Then we got on the subject of Crispin. Bob said he would never work with him again because he never hit his mark and didn't understand how scenes cut together. But as he went on, you could see Bob realizing that was completely irrelevant if Crispin was in a motion-capture suit covered in dots, every move recorded."

Glover was pulled into "Beowulf's" motion-capture fold, along with the film's royal family -- Anthony Hopkins (King Hrothgar) and Robin Wright Penn (Queen Wealhtheow), and John Malkovich (Unferth) -- who performed 30 days of "principal mocapography" at Culver Studios on a 30-by-30-foot stage wearing standard-issue bodysuits covered head-to-toe in tiny sensors recorded by dozens of digital cameras back in December 2005.

"It was like watching the cast of 'Tron' performing bad Shakespeare in the round," Gaiman said.

The writer admits he personally had his doubts about Zemeckis' ability to pull off "Beowulf" given the "horrid little rotoscope-y ghost people" in "Polar Express." Gaiman saw his first clips of the film last week and said he was convinced that Zemeckis, with his mocap filmmaking style and digital 3-D world, has made quantum advances in his unique filmic grammar since then.

"I have no idea if this thing is going to work because it isn't done yet," Gaiman said. "But because it's so hyper-real and immersive, once you are two to three minutes in, I think it will own you for the full 90 minutes."

Gaiman is also a vocal proponent of an unrated version of "Beowulf" down the line.

Even more than nudity, Gaiman said, "I just really miss all the swearing."

[MacGuffin]

Trailer here.

Release Date: November 16, 2007 (wide)

Starring: Brendan Gleeson, Anthony Hopkins, Ray Winstone, Robin Wright-Penn, John Malkovich 

Directed by: Robert Zemeckis

Premise: In the sixth century, Beowulf the warrior, does battle with a monster named Grendel.

[Kal]

Angelina Jolie is the new Tom Cruise... well maybe not but I'm sick of her and her stupid forced accents in every movie...

I read this book in elementary school and I liked it... so I guess I want to see the movie... or maybe not. Zemeckis is cool.

[Ghostboy]

The book is amazing. This movie looks godawful. I'll still probably see it (in 3D), but I think this mocap stuff just looks like a videogame, unless it's heavy stylized a la Monster House.

[pete]

the tarzan they pick for this film looks even dumber than the other tarzans.
dolph would be so proud.

[grand theft sparrow]

I think this mocap stuff just looks like a videogame

Yeah, this movie seems to answer the question that nobody's asked, "What would Angelina Jolie look like as a Final Fantasy character?"  Is the idea behind doing this film motion capture instead of doing it live-action in front of greenscreen just so Zemeckis can get the actors he wants without forcing them to commit to months of shooting, just weeks of voice work and weeks of walking around with balls on their faces and joints? 

I'm interested to see this (for the Neil Gaiman factor above all else) but really bothered by the fact that the CGI characters look exactly like the actors that voice them.  I know that's going to ensure that most people will see it but it seems like a missed opportunity to get really creative.

[MacGuffin]

[davidchili]

you built the cg character almost exactly like the actor, givin him that same actor's action, facial expression and voice.... what's the point there?mabey only by this mean can Angelina Jolie feel free to go naked? 

The generation grew up on video games would find this movie visually attractive.

[MacGuffin]

Red Band Trailer

[Ravi]

Why is Zemeckis so obsessed with mocap?  The characters in this trailer look like the actors they're based on, but with dead, soulless eyes. 

One of the pleasures of watching real animation is the exaggerated movements and physical attributes of the characters.  In animation that the more realistic you try to make human characters look the more alienating it is for the audience, because something is always off.  Caricatured humans (The Simpsons, The Incredibles, etc.) work better.

[Pubrick]

Why is Zemeckis so obsessed with mocap?

wants to be jamcam.

[pete]

Why is Zemeckis so obsessed with mocap?  The characters in this trailer look like the actors they're based on, but with dead, soulless eyes. 

One of the pleasures of watching real animation is the exaggerated movements and physical attributes of the characters.  In animation that the more realistic you try to make human characters look the more alienating it is for the audience, because something is always off.  Caricatured humans (The Simpsons, The Incredibles, etc.) work better.

right, what's the point of animation if all they're doing is showing how gorgeous the real actors are?  what is there to animate?

[picolas]

Why is Zemeckis so obsessed with mocap?  The characters in this trailer look like the actors they're based on, but with dead, soulless eyes. 

One of the pleasures of watching real animation is the exaggerated movements and physical attributes of the characters.  In animation that the more realistic you try to make human characters look the more alienating it is for the audience, because something is always off.  Caricatured humans (The Simpsons, The Incredibles, etc.) work better.

right, what's the point of animation if all they're doing is showing how gorgeous the real actors are?  what is there to animate?

massive or impossible sets/locations/props/fireballs. i agree the uncanny valley can be alienating, though.

[matt35mm]

Uh, it also allows them to make Ray Winstone not look like how Ray Winstone looks, duh.

But yeah, this movie won't do well.  I feel the more pressing question is why not go for all the blood and nudity?  I think that's even more fatal of a flaw.  Any sense of being taken seriously as an adaptation of Beowulf was crushed with that decision, and so after that, who cares if they physically cover real penises and breasts or digitally cover fake penises and breasts?  The Austin Powers approach they're gonna take (according to the article in the first post) is just going to be distracting.

It's a PG-13 Beowulf that no one wants to see or should want to see.  The fact that it's played out by soul-less video game characters is only a secondary matter of repulsion.

[MacGuffin]

International Trailer here.