The Northman

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ThePlaylist wrote:Björk & Kate Dickie Join Robert Eggers’ ‘The Northman’ Viking Revenge Movie

There’s almost nothing more exciting than a young auteur filmmaker who uses the cool cache of their first few successes to parlay bigger actors to play in their bizarre sandbox. Take filmmaker Robert Eggers who parlayed the success of “The Witch” into another weird, strange, artistic effort in “The Lighthouse,” but securing heavyweight actors like Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe to star. He’s doing it again with his next film, “The Northman,” an ambitious Viking revenge film that has a spectacular cast of Nicole Kidman, Alexander Skarsgård, his ‘Witch’ star Anya Taylor-Joy, his ‘Lighthouse’ star Willem Dafoe and Claes Bang. But there’s more, today, revealed in a social media casting notice (see below)—an overseas trainer/actor boasting about working on the film, it seems—it was revealed that Icelandic singer Björk has joined the cast. She is playing the Slav Witch, but that doesn’t mean much since there aren’t many details out about the film. The casting reveal also shows that Kate Dickie is part of the cast, known for roles in Andrea Arnold‘s “Red Road,” “Prometheus” (2012), “Filth” (2013), and, of course, “The Witch” (2015).

What is known is that “The Northman” is a Viking revenge saga set in Iceland at the turn of the 10th century. I guess getting a famous Icelandic singer/actor doesn’t hurt. Icelandic poet and novelist, Sjón co-wrote the script with Eggers.

Björk is obviously acclaimed for her extremely eclectic music career, but she’s no stranger to film either. She starred in Danish filmmaker Lars Von Trier’s dark musical, “Dancer In The Dark” in 2000. The film received the Palme d’Or at the 53rd Cannes Film Festival, and Björk received the Best Actress Award for her daring and brave role in the movie. Björk hasn’t acted much since and it’s possible because of the experience she had with Von Trier—a terrible one that she’s subsequently gone on to talk about and the filmmaker’s abusive and harassing behavior on set.

She actually began her acting career very early on starring in “The Juniper Tree” (1990) when she was only 24 years old. She also starred in Matthew Barney’s experimental film “Drawing Restraint 9” (2005), during their time as romantic and creative collaborators.

No release date on “The Northman” and considering the film is just starting to reshoot again after a COVID-19 delay in March, it’s unlikely we’ll see it any time until deep into 2021, either the fall or winter. Presumably, it’ll turn up at a major fall film festival if such a thing exists next year.
eggers & bjork news? yes please.

Re: The Northman

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Some audience member wrote, "You need to have a master’s degree in Viking history to understand, like, anything in this movie,"
These dipshits are why all we get are comic book movies now.
Just cut them up like regular chickens

Re: The Northman

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This film was fucking unreal. So, so good. As usual with Eggers’ films, I definitely didn’t understand some percentage of dialog and am looking forward to watching with subtitles, but it didn’t really matter. I got the gist of what was happening. For the first 3/4 of it, it really seemed like Eggers was just remaking Conan. Of course I realize this only indicates how much Conan borrowed from Norse lore. I left the theater simply wanting to go back in and see it again immediately. The look, the cinematography, the sound design and score, everything was on point. Fucking outstanding film. Go see it immediately.

Re: The Northman

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Strange film, both awesome and silly. Hints of Aronovsky's Noah and The Fountain. Loved parts of it - the ceremonies, the boats, the battles and the sacrifices, all in long takes on vast sets, recalling Andrei Rublev. But then it delves into fantasy pap, like the battle with the demon inside the cairn, and also somehow the characters never become three dimensional - ATJ's awkward and unconvincing foil in particular. By the end it feels uncomfortably like a superhero movie (it'll be no surprise if Eggers ends up at Marvel or DC after this). It doesn't help that he soft pedals the sex and nudity to conform to Hollywood's present puritanical drift (that swirling CGI smoke around the penises in the final scene makes Warner's R-rated cut of Eyes Wide Shut look like a stroke of genius). Ultimately, sure, it was never boring, and I do feel like I want to see it again. There's not much else if anything like this out there right now. But it feels like a missed opportunity - as if Eggers wasn't quite mature enough to make this movie on this budget. Either that, or he just let commercial considerations get in the way of the filmmaking, as on The Witch. Compared to, say, The New World (which had 1/3rd of the budget of The Northman) it's hard to take this as evidence against the argument that Hollywood is getting dumber with every year that goes by. As for Eggers, the Lighthouse remains by far his best film.