The Northman (Robert Eggers, 2022)

[Never Cursed]

That's impressive (though I was also thinking of a couple other instances of faked one-shot in the film), but what astonishes me more than that in that article was that the film was evidently shot on 35mm. I could not have possibly told you that based on my screening (and I deliberately went to a Dolby Cinema showing because I knew that the AMC would probably screw up the projecting otherwise); that's how unbelievably murky this is (and not for me in a pleasing, high-grain-and-contrast way, either)

[therewillbeblus]

Unfortunately, I thought this was another major step down for Eggers, whose narrative features, just like his shorts, seem to be getting worse with each outing. The film is not without merit- it's impressive on a technical level (of course) and Eggers gets to engage in no-holds-barred brutality within a conventional framework of Amleth's oft-replicated revenge drama (reports of a "mainstream" Valhalla Rising aren't entirely misguided, even if that is a bit of a tersely packaged summary). Eggers' obsessive approach to delineating modules of folklore is more expansively projected but holds less weight than his previous two works, as the formerly well-researched, scripted dialects have (necessarily) been mostly diluted down to English, and the epic-scale of this madness washes many of his careful idiosyncrasies out whilst retaining a familiarity in structure that's only intermittently engaging.

This is an unfair charge perhaps (we're talking about the basis for Hamlet here, nobody should be expecting novelty in narrative propulsion), but it's worth noting in comparison to his previous two films, which at least kept you guessing from scene to scene and obfuscated predictability; and in removing this attribute, Eggers as an insulated artist is revealed to be less eclectically impressive than he is with the support of unique narrative devices. The louder detailing is welcome to boost the bare involvement on a narrative level, but eccentricity in atmosphere doesn't compensate for a lack of eccentricity in character, story, or audio-visual experimental inserts (there are some fantastical sequences, but they feel out of place rather than part of the fabric of the film's world). Revenge can be motivating, so part of its failure can be sourced to Skarsgård coming off as an empty vessel, which makes the revenge a shrugging investment, and the peripheral superficial features the real spectacle worth attending to... Though it's the vacuous script and how distracted Eggers becomes with the exteriors that I suspect detract from a core of substance, a root cause of priorities in construction. The textures are expressed well but inundated by unearned, bombastic quests for catharsis. Any critiques of this society are lost on me- Eggers is so clearly in love with the worlds he returns to via art, and while I doubt he wants to literally go back to live as a viking, I find his compulsive interests to overshadow a potential to assess these cultures by a metric of basic complexity, when he struggles to gain distance from the material he adores.

Only Kidman really worked for me here, in her third act reveal that evades the trap of an otherwise head-slapping contrivance with a seething, showstopping performance that sells this as internally-earned drama, regardless of how many times we've seen an incarnation of this scene before. I just wish the whole film operated even remotely close to this wavelength. Instead it's mostly repetition dressed up in impressive garbs by a filmmaker who admitted during a Q&A I attended for The Lighthouse that he's far more interested in folklore than filmmaking, stated in a manner that almost completely disregarded cinema as a stones-throw secondary passion. Unfortunately, here, it shows, and not for the benefit of the film.

[Never Cursed]

... I think it’s a little funny how obvious the seams in the fake single-shot fight sequences have become these days. Just incorporate a couple edits into the blocking; the scene will probably look better!

That sequence is supposedly a legit single take, for what it's worth

I think this BTS footage that unambiguously shows a take starting and ending in the middle of the fight proves otherwise (or at least they shot the individual segments in addition to single takes of the sequences, which would also make sense). Again worth noting both the 35mm camera and how the village looks several times better/less murky without the hideous color correction slapped onto it

Spoilers abound in that link BTW

[rwiggum]

... I think it’s a little funny how obvious the seams in the fake single-shot fight sequences have become these days. Just incorporate a couple edits into the blocking; the scene will probably look better!

That sequence is supposedly a legit single take, for what it's worth

I think this BTS footage that unambiguously shows a take starting and ending in the middle of the fight proves otherwise (or at least they shot the individual segments in addition to single takes of the sequences, which would also make sense). Again worth noting both the 35mm camera and how the village looks several times better/less murky without the hideous color correction slapped onto it

Spoilers abound in that link BTW

I don't know either way, BUT, as someone who works on sets, the fact that the still photographer is working on that shot tells me this was likely a rehearsal. They may have broken the sequence up into pieces to block out how everyone would be moving (there are SO many moving parts to a sequence like this beyond even actors) and then stitched everything together, run that rehearsal a few times, and then rolled onto an actual take. Still photographers rarely shoot on actual takes, they usually work during rehearsals as not to interfere with the actors. Also, I doubt they would be taking photos during such a complicated setup and risk blowing a take.

[Never Cursed]

Oh it wouldn't surprise me at all if that filmed bit was a rehearsal, but I still think that the sequence was broken up into the individual segments based on the way it looked in the theater - you could easily tell where the seams were (and those places correspond to where that take/rehearsal started and ended). Plus in that video the camera is clearly mounted on an arm that doesn't appear to be capable of movement past where it has been placed, so the continuous left-right motion of the final shot would require multiple setups anyway (and why would you do a rehearsal for a set-up involving a huge piece of equipment that you wouldn't actually use?).

[Noiretirc]

To keep this on-topic, I am looking forward to this film. I liked The Witch and The Lighthouse even more so, and I'm interested to see how Eggers handles a non-horror movie.

But didn't someone rip out a throat with their teeth?

I like to think that I am "up" on releases of Directors whom I admire. How did I miss this? (I ask because the film has clearly failed commercially, and I wonder if the so called marketing was abysmal.)

[Black Hat]

Eggers got the New Yorker profile kiss of death.

[MichaelB]

I wouldn't call a worldwide gross of nearly $70m a commercial failure, especially when income from secondary markets has yet to be factored in. It's clearly not any kind of blockbuster, but I don't think anyone involved seriously expected it to be.

[knives]

They clearly expected at least $100M though given the budget. $70M is definitely a commercial failure.