Is The Northman based on real mythology?

He has only three films on his account, and already from the first, Robert Eggers staged an independent, stylized and very unique pike in Hollywood. Just look at the terrifying cold hardness Witch (2015), Unclassifiable Nightmare Lighthouse (2019) and, now, the brutal precision he displays in northern man (2022), a true Viking story with its own mythology to bring to life.

Because of its dramatic coarseness, solemnity Shakespeare spirit in their conversations, monologues and oaths and their vengeful tragedy in everything Hamlet (1603) or, wow, The Lion King (1994), Rampant Animalism in Lifestyle represented society and its afterlife faith and, finally, a measured, baroque audio-visual composition with a cheerful series of shots of North America.

Main foundation northern manApart from Scandinavian mythsThis the legend of the amlet the one played by Alexander Skarsgård; contained in the third and fourth books Gesta Danorum, a work that has been lost except for four fragments, and which is attributed to a letter by the historian of the Saxon grammarian in the twelfth century. And out of it came, by the way, the restless Prince of Denmark.

Alexander Skarsgård, promoter of Severyanin

“I didn’t take any liberties with myself except for things we don’t know because that was a thousand years ago. I did my best to make everything as historically accurate as possible. I did a huge amount of research,” explained Robert Eggers in an interview for IndieWire. Because of this strong desire, he co-wrote the libretto with the award-winning Icelandic writer and poet Sigurjon Birgir Sigurdsson or Sjon.

And he insists: “The best historians and archaeologists of the Vikings worked with me. I had people in the living history and experimental archeology community. Many Viking experts worked on the film. Everything is overrated.” However, the push for northern man came out its lead actor, Swedish Alexander Skarsgard.

“I cherished this dream of making a film about the Vikings for many years.”, the son of veteran translator Stellan Skarsgård told the same publication. “Actually, I didn’t want to be an actor when I was a kid; but I have very good memories of our country house in Öland, an island in the Baltic Sea. There are almost 200 massive runestones on the island and it was a very deep experience as a child.”

And he continues with these words: “When I saw these rune stones with inscriptions, erected by a Viking a thousand years ago, I was simply amazed. “Who are the Vikings? Where did they go and what happened? So, about ten years ago, he had an idea because “I have never seen a true and historically accurate depiction of the Viking Age on the big screen.“.

He wanted it to be able to combine “the scope, the feel of a great epic adventure film” yet “remain faithful to the old Icelandic sagas and tone and language, its rudeness”, “this tough world” and its “tough people”, often involved in “a family feud, a story of revenge”. Then she met Robert Eggers, and as a result northern man.

Violent Dark Fantasy: Ancient Viking Beliefs

If you watch a new film by an American director born in Canada, you can recognize the same intention to offer us rest detailed description of spiritual ideology as already suggested in Witch with satanic witchcraft according to Christian Puritan fanatics, in another work dark fantasy but according to the old beliefs of the German-Scandinavian peoples about this.

Here are their sorcerers, Odin and Valkyries; but it’s better to forget about the friendly characters of the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the person of Anthony Hopkins and Tessa Thompson. Because the idea that there are people in whom animal spirits live, aggressiveness as a virtue and the desire to die fighting to go to Valhalla they do not create a friendly portrait at all.

“I’m trying to make a movie that takes place in a big adventure setting,” Robert Eggers admitted. ScreenRant. “The series it’s based on sometimes reads like ’80s action movies, and it’s a culture that glorifies violence, so there are times when it should be interesting. But (…) I don’t want to glorify violence.” Great Paradox northern man.