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Any good movies on Beowulf or Anglo-Saxon England?


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Sorry I'm cross-posting . . . I'm desperate! If that's against the rules (I can't remember :blushing: ), just delete this one.

 

I need a movie on Beowulf or Anglo-Saxon England . . . I thought I had one lined up on Netflix (Life in the Age of Beowulf), but it says "short wait" and I need it (previewed) by Wednesday.

 

(Hmmm, just had an idea - maybe a local movie store would have that???? I'm so dumb.)

 

Anyway . . . if you've seen something good, I'd really appreciate the advice!

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We had this from Netflix recently, and it wasn't worth the time it took to watch it. It is a just a narrator wandering around a living history museum that depicts an Anglo-Saxon village in the time of Beowulf, except that there are no actors in the living history museum--it's just the buildings and the narrator saying, "If there were actors here, they would be doing X." There is very little tie-in to Beowulf. I think the one connection is the depiction of a great hall, when he says "this is a great hall like the one B. entered." I have a high tolerance for dry documentaries, but this one was a real snooze.

 

Terri

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I don't know if this will work for your purposes, but you can see on YouTube some of Benjamin Bagby's performance of Beowulf in the original (with modern English subtitles;)).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y13cES7MMd8 is the opening. Look for "Benjamin Bagby Beowulf" to find others.

 

We have this dvd and it is fabulous. It's the way it was intended to be experienced, similar to seeing Shakespeare performed rather than reading it.

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never heard of (and can't find by googling) David Starkey?

 

 

I'm not sure what's wrong with Google on your end! I got 264,000 hits! He's a British historian who's presented a few documentary series. Simon Schama is another. I can't remember if he has done a doco on that early part of English history though.

 

Rosie

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13th Warrior - Antonio Banderas --good flick!

 

I enjoyed most of 13th Warrior, but it is rated R. The Grendel's mother at the end is rather gruesome (a good Anglo-Saxon word) and I would hesitate before showing it in its entirety to a group of students that I didn't know very well. (I also wasn't fond of the ending, which I thought needed some editing to make it hold together better.)

 

On the other hand you might be able to show a portion of the movie, like one of the feasting scenes or a section with a bard.

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