![]() ![]() ![]() “Some people in the Viking Age, the actual raiders and so on, were every bit as terrifying as all the clichés would have them.” “Most of our written sources on the Vikings come from people who encountered them, often at the pointy end of their swords,” says Neil Price, a Viking expert and the chair of archaeology at Sweden’s Uppsala University, who served as historical adviser for The Northman. We know because the people on the historical receiving end told us. To be fair, Viking warriors and raids were incredibly violent. *Cue prolonged death scene and flaming-ship burial. Violence is the theme that unites virtually all Viking movies, which run the gamut from swashbucklers to all-out gorefests. Their closest pop-cultural (if certainly not historical) cousins are probably the Spartans, who also skew overwhelmingly masculine, physical, pagan, sexually deviant, and brutish on film. Hollywood’s pre- Northman Northmen are a rough bunch. Eggers is far from the first filmmaker inspired to look northward, revenge plot in hand. They’re back again with the forthcoming release of Robert Eggers’ revenge epic The Northman. Onscreen, Scandinavia’s medieval seafarers can’t match the sheer numbers of, say, the cinematic Romans or Greeks, but they’ve remained a consistent presence. Of all the cultures around prior to the Norman Conquest that now enjoy an afterlife in pop culture, the Vikings are among the most enduring, if not the most common. Photo-Illustration: Vulture Photos by Paramount Pictures, Netflix and United Artists ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |