Beowulf

Beowulf
by Stellan Olsson

Beowulf
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DVD Cover Information

Actor: Benjamin Bagby
Director: Stellan Olsson
Brand: Koch International
Cinematographer: Mats Harryson
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Classical, Color, Dolby, DVD-Video, NTSC, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.78:1
Running Time: 98 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2007-02-13
Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Studio: Koch Vision

Movie Reviews of Beowulf

Movie Review: The best way to "get" Beowulf
Summary: 5 Stars

Benjamin Bagby's performance on stage of the first third of Beowulf is magnificent! It goes through Beowulf's killing of Grendal, but does not include Grendal's mother or the dragon. We don't know how Beowulf was sung but Bagby does a very careful job of imagining and recreating how the early bards, or scops, would have performed it, even recreating an Anglo-Saxon harp from archeological remains. He captures the excitement of the tale. Sometimes he sings, sometimes he speaks and sometimes it is something in between - all very expressively. He sings in Old English with modern English subtitles. Others have tried to do this and ended up sounding like 1950's American folk singers. Bagby is as close as we will get to the real thing. It is the only DVD, when I first watched it, that I have ever immediately played again. I just couldn't get enough. I think we all should ask Bagby to do another DVD in which he finishes the story, although I should add that it is very satisfying as it is.

Summary of Beowulf

Finally, the long awaited recording is made! Since 1990, Benjamin Bagby has been performing the great epic Beowulf at major festivals and venues around the world. Now we have his remarkable performance on DVD, beautifully filmed by the award-winning Swedish director Stellan Olsson.

While Beowulf has come down to us as literature, as a written poem, the epic's pre-literate medieval audience would have known it through the performance of a scop, a bardic storyteller, as Bagby presents himself here. In this one-man tour de force Bagby accompanies himself on an Anglo-Saxon harp. Using the entire range of his voice, he delivers this gripping tale in Old English, as it could have been experienced more than one thousand years ago.

This is a performance which speaks to the lovers of Beowulf and oral epic, early music enthusiasts, Tolkien fans, medievalists, and anyone searching for virtuoso storytelling or a glimpse into the fascinating beginnings of the English language.

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