Warning, Today's episode contains spoilers for The Northman and all previous Eggers films, so be aware. Hello.
My name is Joel Week and I'm Carmen Lalan and.
Welcome to Xtray Vision Extras, an x Ray Vision series where we dive even more of your favorite shows, movies, comics, and pop culture. Every superhero team needs a side quest, and our rotating panel of producers and guests hosts will be suited up to help Jason and Rosy cover all of the amazing nerd content out there.
And today we're back with our final Robert Eggers Extras episode in preparation for the highly anticipated Christmas release of No Seratu next week. And today we're going to be recapping his twenty twenty two film The Northmen. Oh yeah, we're still dog themes.
Yes, we never we never leave dog themes with Egress. He's very much and we'll get into it a little bit above. The animal inside of man, I think is a strong theme we see throughout his work. But yeah, let's let's dive into the airlock.
Okay, so just to kind of start out with some you know, I love I love, I love movie stats, you know I love Yeah, I'm watching a movie. I love to google, like how much did this movie cost? How much did it make? All of that kind of stuff, So this is interesting to me. I think the thing that stuck out to me watching this movie is realizing that this was the biggest and probably the most ambitious movie that he's made so far. It's his third movie, it's very, very big, and of course because of that,
it costs a lot of money. It costs somewhere between seventy to ninety million dollars to make, and it's the first time in his movie making career so far that it didn't make that money back. It only made a sixty nine point six million at the box office, which is disappointing because it wasn't a bad movie, but it certainly wasn't my favorite of the Robert Eggars movies.
Yeah, this movie comes out at a very interesting time. So it's released like November twenty twenty two, I think nationally like you'll get you get a premiere of eighteen, you get some uh or was it in April? This is it April release?
Yeah, April twenty release.
I was gonna say, okay, okay.
Yeah, it does feel like it could be a Thanksgiving movie, I.
Think, as my parents came to visit me, and I always thought it was a holiday But now, if I'm recalling right, this is our first foray back into theaters. It's early twenty twenty two. Yeah, so this is post Maverick that's come out. People loved it. That did like bonkers at the box office, but it was a feel good, uptick kind of movie where if you look at the Northman, you know, here's a heavy, kind of very dramatic, almost
Shakespearean experience. And so it's a little bit different, and I think it maybe was challenging to get people back in for you know, Scars Guard is a star, Kimmen's obviously a star, but it's yeah, it's just it's not it doesn't have the top gun rush of joy that I think people were really vibing for at the time.
And it definitely is Eggar's largest film, not just in cast sides, which is like quadrupled from his like what five person original film The Witch to just maybe four total actors I think in The Lighthouse and now this one, we're talking huge sets, tons of extra people. He built all of those sets. Yeah, and so it's ambitious in multiple ways, So the sets are historically accurate. As we've come to know Eggars loves he kind of steps out side of his dollhouse premise, the thing we've talked about
a lot over our last two shows. Here you get some elements of it, and we'll dive more into those a little bit later. But yeah, I do think across the board a lot of people were kind of like, eh on it. I really loved this film. What was your initial reaction to the movie.
Well, you know, I think it's important to say too. Like I was telling you about this earlier, but I completely missed this movie when it was in theaters, and in all of that, I had no idea that this movie existed until we started talking about it for the Robert Eggers series. So I watched it just last week while I was on a on a cruise ship, which felt very you know, I guess, kind of Viking e in a way.
Sure take it over the seas I see it.
Yeah, And I have to say it was the one Robert Eggers movie that I could get my boyfriend to watch and he actually loved it. He enjoyed it this movie. Yeah, they sure do. There's obviously not in the same way as The Lighthouse, where the Lighthouse focuses on themes of toxic masculinity, this just focuses on themes of masculinity in general, I think, which is kind of a theme in Norse mythology and Norse culture and stuff like that. And you know, I have to say, out of all of the Eggers movies,
it's not my favorite Eggers movie. It's probably my least favorite. But that doesn't mean I think it's a bad movie. I think it's a fun movie to watch. I enjoyed it for the battle scenes, and I enjoyed it for the storyline, which I was learning about for the first time.
But I also really enjoyed it for the kind of Eggers for the first time in his movies, I feel like he does these kind of I don't know if there's cgi sequences, but there are like these dreamlike sequences that he's doing showing kind of like the what is it the Norse the tree, the tree of life type of Yes, yes, yes, I'm gonna sound kind of ignorant to Norse culture there, but I thought that was really interesting and I thought he did a good job with those things. So I enjoyed it.
Yeah, listen. I showed up for Alexander Scar's Guard. I was like, uh. I was like, okay, what I And then they were like, oh, Arianna, Ariana, I'm having a day.
You're on Wicked.
I'm I'm trapped between Wicked and Kendrick and now weirdly Tyler the Creator. And also I've been reading anyway, I digress, I digress or okay. So I showed up for Alexander Scar's Guard. I was like a hunky guy, my vampire fave, like out here becoming a wolf and fighting in nature. Like I said, my parents had come to town. So I was like, this is a perfect dad movie. He had never been to a a mc Adobe experience. They don't have those where he lived, and so I was like,
you should call and see Adobe projected film. And he was like, yes, let's do that. And I was very much in my dad bag. So I was like, yeah's the blood and the fighting, like yeah, and then yes, yes, and they're so oh my god. And we were speaking a little bit earlier. This is a film that has much less atmosphere than is typical of an Edgar's film that we've come to know so far. But the moments
that do give atmosphere. The initial fight sequence when he gets in the boat and he's traveling up river after he's left his like you know, he's run away from home because he saw his dad got gone and they were like, damn, he's coming for me. He gets in the boat and he ends up with another tribe. They're like pillaging and raiding. That whole sequence of in the boat,
out of the boat, into the village. It's just it's such a long and again, what Edgars really understands about Atmosphere is like, well, there's not a lot of a narrative happening. There is a lot of story happening. And I guess by that, I mean you're understanding what it is to be part of this group. You understand what it is a part to be uh, just a regular villager who at any time could have vikings just descend upon you and terror your understanding sort of there are
no rules here. I mean, they lock up a bunch of women and children and burn them alive, burn, and then everybody else gets enslaved. It is a crazy sequence of events, and yet you're learning so much and experiencing so much, Like I really appreciate film that has the ability to do that, to just one hundred percent submerge you into a story anything. Yeah, that part, so that works really well for me. Other elements that work really well.
All of our women are at Conic Conic. Nicole Kidman as a bitchy mom, I pledge my life, please ruin me, Like, let's go.
Yes, yes, yes.
You have Byork being Buorick in the Yorkiest way. I just oh man, wait, I needed more. We have to pause and talk about Buyork. Okay, so you're a big fan you yes, you love the Buorg talk to me because we were talking about the film and you were like, wait, she's in this house and you were like, break down the door. No one told me, where was everyone on this? Talk to me about this? This magnificent moment with Yorg.
Oh yeah, that was probably my favorite scene of the movie where she's kind of she's kind of like, uh, prophesizing his life to him and kind of what what his future holds and all of this, And I thought I thought the costume design was epic because it didn't feel it didn't feel like your typical kind of fantasy movie where it was obviously taking liberties on the type of costume that the person she looked like she was actually wearing, like an what I would imagine a witch
of that time period would.
Be historical accuracy. He's not gonna note.
His and I really really and I really appreciate that about his movies, and it just felt like I, for me, I needed more Nicole Kidman, I needed more Bure and I needed more will and Dafoe too. You know, when I when I saw this movie.
Willem Dafoe, I think is an actor who understands how to elevate atmosphere. It's something we'll talk about more in his role in No Saratu when we get there. But I think particularly in the Lighthouse and here you can constantly see his ability to like just vibe with the crazy and he's like electric, like he kind of just want to keep looking at him and he feels and I how do I say this without sounding like a bitch? His face lends him the ability to disappear to me, Okay,
so like listen, I guess he does. He has a face. I think that there are faces built for screen. Some of them are beautiful, some of them are just dynamic, right, And I think there's nothing wrong with either. I say, this is a non beautiful person, like I really just enjoy a dynamic face. I think dynamic faces help tell stories.
But we love looking at beautiful people. But there's something about seeing somebody who feels like they are authentically of the world and not pedestaled or you know whatever that sort of helps you and beauty to the story. And Dafoe has that in spades, and he does such a great job here at time or the fool from drinking the pistol, like saying their prayer to just a fire to like really again using this sort of typical history, like the fool in court history. I'm not as familiar
with Nordick history. We'll circle back to that in a second. But if you look at like French, British, Spanish cultures and the fool, like this is a storyteller. This is someone who takes your mind off things. This is also somebody who can occasionally be a snappy, comeback sidekick to the rulers. And when we have people and they're presenting, you know, they can say things the king cannot and
yet let that sort of be within the space. And so for him to be both an advisor to the king but also sort of this guardian for this kid for a short time. Like I really think he imbues a lot into this movie, and I think Edgar would be why need to work with Willon Dafoe because he
brings a lot to his films. And then just to finish our conversation around the women, like Anya Taylor Joy does some ape plus acting in this, like she is phenomenal, Like yeah, she's beautiful, but it's fine because that's sort of the character is, like, here's this gorgeous woman who longs to be free, he's not about to let herself
be captured. Who's got these freaking I love her power set in this like she's kind of a clairvoyant, kind of a dream walker sort of vibe is so like ethereal and feels very like nature based, which which.
I'm ground with, which it yeah, it feels.
Yeah, she's not shooting sparks out of her fingers or she she does eventually like at one point, like it seems to change the set of a storm, but you know, she there is an element of her where you're like, oh, this shit could survive the craziness of this world world, And I think that's really cool to see in an Anya. I think that Eggers tends to like really wayfish looking women who survive situations they couldn't. There's an element of that that is, well so where it's that's you know,
let me put it this way. In comic books, for a while, there was one body type for women. It was zero waste and all boobs. And while we loved Storm and Gene and all of them, they did not fully represent the everyone array of women that are, you know, on this planet. And so I think there's a little bit of elements with that. Yeah, I think there's elements
of that in Egger's work. It's something I hope to see him move beyond, because for the films we've seen of him so far, women are there aren't as many and they're all sort of the same hype arch type. Yeah, so I'll put that there. Uh, Which, But with that said, I do like Anya in this role. I do like this role, like Listen, Warrior would be princess come on, like, I'm totally here for it, Slash, which she's great.
I was going to say to that point, he originally wanted somebody who was kind of as he described homely to play Anya Taylor Joy's character in The Witch, Thomas said, but then the casting director kind of pushed him towards an Anya Taylor Joy casting and I kind of respect I guess. I guess I respect his ability to take other people's advice and other people's you know, thoughts into mind. Yeah, yeah, sorry, continue.
Yeah, no, I think I think making that choice. Really again, there is something to be said about how we treat gorgeous women or women who are perceived as being more beautiful within the world, and the unfair things that are often heaped on those types of women, like the all of the things like she if you live in a periit in society and you are actually as beautiful as Annie Taylor Joy and you're an intelligent person, like, that's
a hell for you. Like Puritan society is not going to be a good Your very existis is considered an evil temptation to people. Like that's difficult, I think here in a world of conquerors and conquests to be alone, uh, you know, not physically imposing woman who is again considered beautiful, Like, that's a dangerous and difficult position to navigate. These people take what they want and kill everything else, like it's
not a great space. And so that exactly so that in and of itself imbues interest to the character's story. And again I think it's very valid narrative. I just again, as far as all of these worlds you're setting up, Well, if we're gonna go on this check, let's talk about the guys we've seen so far, right, which I think we've got a religious Zelo in the Witch who moves his whole family to the wilderness, lies to his wife,
her family. Okay. Then we have two men in the light House, one a young guy who is hiding from a life of crime and an older man who's been sort of shut up in this one place for years and is maybe insane. Yeah, and then here you get scars guards character Amleth. This is actually based off the Nordic story Amleth, which is the inspiration for Shakespeare's Hamlett and Amleth and Hamlet princes who idolized their daddies.
Mm hmm. Ethan Hawk, which I mean I would too.
Ethan Hawk plays such a good king here, put more crowns on his head. He's so hot. And then you know you have Fiorier played by classiest bang who is incredible. I love classes in this. He's very good, you know, jealous brother who is out for power, so you're really dealing with, like again, power struggles. But again I think that showcases that Egars has a wide variety of men. I just think you could do better on women. That's
where I'm at in the third film. But now that we're talking about masculinity, you had brought up earlier this idea of exploring different types of masculinity between the Lighthouse and the Northmen, and I really wanted you to expand upon that because it was very interested in that.
So yeah, I had a lot of thoughts about it, because you know, we talked about how The Witch was received not necessarily set out to be a story about basically a feminist story, a good for her kind of feminist story, and then the Lighthouse is a story that was received as a story about two men that were both very kind of toxic in their masculinity and also
struggling power dynamics. And that's the Lighthouse. And then with this story, and you know, I think it, you know, it's interesting to consider here that this is not necessarily what Robert Eggers is setting out to do with his movies. But this is I think, how the public is perceiving the movies. So our host Jason pointed out that when this movie came out, which again totally lost on me, because I actually think I wasn't the target. I was
not the target audience for this movie, you know. And he pointed out that when this movie came out, it resonated with a lot of men in the kind of alt right kind of scene. Because Nordic, Nordic religion and culture is is like, is I guess kind of what's the word I'm looking for here? It's it's used to mean something totally different by people.
With Nordic symbolism is often co opted by white supremacist spaces as being like are pure white spaces that are above and beyond the rest of society, and they use you know, the tattoos, the figures, this sort of Viking ideology in modern day which is disturbing. We can say that.
And it seems like the stories that come out of out of Norse mythology are also very focused on like masculinity being like the like a be all end all
of society. If you're not a mighty man, then You're nothing, and so I kind of found that interesting to kind of look back on, especially within twenty twenty two, not that things are much different in twenty twenty four, but just to see kind of remember and reflect on where we were at at that moment in time, and just it's interesting how these movies get received by the public.
And I think the target audience, whether intentional or not, for this movie were definitely those types of guys who were white supremacist kind of like you know, very into that Norse mythology stuff, and of course more people than that saw it.
Yeah, I definitely think they gravitated toward the film, but like they would do for anything, it doesn't matter, like if you say Viking the Ears immediately perk op I, do you think for the Like what's really interesting about this picture and the ways it's tackling masculine is all about sort of inheritance, like what is your right as a princeling basically, but then also like as a man, like what is what path are you forging for yourself?
It's much less contained like Lighthouse gives you talking masculinity of two men trapped in a room trying to figure out who's going to be at the top this. They give the whole world to Amlith, Like you could travel to the New World, you could go to Iceland, you could stay here and start a family, you could die, like really, like any possible future outcome is your worse to select. And so if that's the case, then what you're getting at is what's the most honorable thing this
character feels like he can do. And I think the film sort of leads it up to the audience interpret whether this is positive or negative. But like, to him, the only thing that matters is avenging his father right, not a future, not even his own name, but just this in writing this Deep Injustice. It's a film that I think doesn't need to worry too much about its messaging because it's evolving from hundreds of thousands of years
old narrative. I don't know how old Amleth is, but it I don't think Eggars is that concerned with like what you walk away with from this film, which is interesting because it's his most narrative forward film, but because he's so hyper focused on the history and the adaptation, which you're really sort of left with, Like, man, that Viking fight was cool, Like they fought on a volcano.
Oh my god, that's effing sick. Or you know, you get the moment with the sacrifice where he kills one of the slave watchers in the hut and leaves the
body for the people diver. Oh my god, that was really cool and graphic and wow, or you get, you know, sort of this coupling with olga Anya's character in the woods, which is really sort of serene and beautiful and a lovely respite in the middle of all of this, like Gore, and you really are moving from tonally being more about the nature like he tonality before was really these woods are spooky. Look at this thick fog. The ocean is roaring,
and it's giving you a lot of poetic artistic imagery. Okay, cool, where this is really giving you the tonality of Shakespeare. I'm having a hard time articulating exactly what I mean, but I think it's just that the tone is more. These motifs are really cool, and they have been applied to a story that I'm familiar enough with I don't have to really ask that many questions. The actors should click in and know immediately like what the narrative is about.
And so we can move from through this well known narrative. We just really heightened visual vibes. The Viking town was really cool. This volcano setting is nope Iceland sparse, and as they're building up this small community, it looks really.
Cool, which it really was filmed in Iceland too.
Yeah, given as much as we have talked about how much we like atmosphere and how it's played, how do you feel the absence of it affected your viewing of this movie.
So I know a lot of people complain about, you know, about the use of too much atmosphere because it does make the story I guess feel like it drags personally, that I think is what hooks me. Just because I'm such a vibes person, I guess like I enjoy I enjoy taking in all the vibes. I was definitely had fun with the battle scenes that I wanted more of the atmosphere. The scenes that I think felt most atmospheric to me were, of course, like you said, the volcano
scene and the ocean and stuff like that. But also I really enjoyed like the smaller scenes where it was just a few actors, like the Shaman scene with William Dafoe's character where they're doing like this kind of dinner animal. Yeah, and then of course I really enjoyed the scene with Buorick. Those are the scenes that stuck out the most to me because I think that they were the most like atmosphere heavy, the most vibes heavy to me. So I
kind of missed it in this movie. I kind of I wanted more of it because I don't, you know, I don't love you know, I'm not somebody who like craves on screen violence so much.
I do. I love a bloody human, I think, especially if I studied fight choreography in high school and college, and I just always have such appreciation for people who can do it and make it look real and like when they're taking it to the blows from these swords, oh god, it's the fight coordination is phenomenal in this film.
But to your point, when I think back about like what scenes resonate the most to me, the most impactful scene, it's probably him sneaking into his mom's room as an adult to like confront her for the first time and realizing, oh, this woman not only didn't love me, was absolutely in cahoots to get my father killed. Like the devastation of that sequence, the reality of it, the and again the fact that it's to me Eggers's best in his bad and nobody's doing any talking, you know what I mean.
Like, yeah, that is not the same thing. She seduces him too, or tries to seduce him.
Yeah. Yeah, But that's what I'm saying, Like, there's these moments that for Edgars, it's it's the quieter, more intonated space where you the viewwork can fill in gaps and be appalled or struck by just a simple image, you know, a treasured item on a desk we thought was lost forever, or a look between mother and summer. We're like, what is about to have? Why? Why this? It's man? I do?
I do wish we had more of that here. But I also think a lot of people were pushing for more commercially accessible work from Edgars coming off, because The Lighthouse did have its fair share of folks who were like, this is too weird, it's too much. But I like
about Northman is that we don't fully lose that. Though we were talking before we started about that the level of flatulence jokes still present in this film, and I had mentioned that I thought that because Edgers is such a history buff that perhaps this crude humor is a reflection of the types of true humor we see and like, there's a good Shakespeare line.
But yeah, I believe that Edgar's studied at a Shakespeare like a big Shakespeare college.
Yeah. Yeah, he's a Shakespearean uh like scholar.
Yes, and the way I was looking for, Yeah.
Yeah, he's a Shakespearean scholar. Plus, you know, he reads a lot of these things. And if you're reading old plays or uh like, novellas and stuff like, especially things though considering, okay, like for plays are for the masses, right, so anybody poor rich can go see a play back in the day. And then books tended to be you know, you have to have a little education in order to be able to read them. But anything that was made for your common person typically had a ton of fart jokes.
Here's something from the Comedy of Errors from Shakespeare. If you break anything, I'll break your foolish head. A man may break a word with you, sir, and words are but wind I and break it in your face, so he break it not behind. I could break a word with you, sir, and words are only wind.
I just love that fart jokes are a continual source of comedy throughout the course of human history. I guess we've always just found them funny.
We love crudeness. We really can't help ourselves. Okay, there is a moment and another one Shakespeare's Pays where the dog is going to be win for farting, but the servant takes credit for the fart and so he gets whipped instead. There's a line from King Lear where it says, blow winds and crack your cheeks, rage and blow I see you Shakespeare. Yeah, Lawrence talks about getting whipped in two gentlemen from Verona. So yeah, the fire jokes are resplendent.
And I think there's an element of sort of old school storytelling applied to all of Eggar's films that sort of makes me think these films are going to be accessible for the long run. Right, If you're constantly relaying your stories based off history, there's a feeling that people will want to be able to return to these because these stories are eternal. I do wonder if in adapting these stories, like if Eggars is bothering or even needs to speak to a modern audience again us to something else.
Talk much more about Nosaratu, because I have lots of thoughts on it, But with this one, I think I sort of let it slide because I was very into the Oh, it's Hamlet set in Viking times. It's based off the play that inspired Hamlet, like all of that was really working, and from an editation perspective, going back to the original source text is vastly interesting. It sort of gives much more life because so Ophelia destroys me a little bit because she's like, I'm just very like
Ophilia has reasons to be sad. But in the play, if you're not getting the backstory, that happens very fast, you're really like, Wow, this girl is whiny and then she just runs off and dies. It's so sad. I love the idea of the Ophilia type character being like a witch who has helped entrap slavers that escaped and has a hot, hunky husband. Good for you, girl, you get it. And now twins, what a look she made it.
I love that he loves to put twins in his movies too.
It.
We'll talk more about ones when we get back. Really a quick break and we'll be right back, okay, And we're back. Twins. Yeah, we know Robert Egger has twin siblings. I love that they're always just popping up. It seems like such a lovely nod to them. Twins in different pieces of old fiction are either they're like weird to older what's up with these twins? They're so rare, like are they connected? Are they a bad omen? A good omen And I sort of love the way he uses
them throughout in The Witch. They are creepy and unnerving and you kind of never know what they're gonna do here. They seem like a positive, like auspicious omen for the future of this land. That by getting this revenge and taking out this evil man and this like not great kingdom, you sort of give positive life and space to the surrounding communities. And they have a new leader and they have a good mother, and so we won't deal with the same kind of trauma we had before. And maybe
maybe that's what Egress was going for. He was like, you know what we could really be doing here is solving our family trauma by killing it. Just just kill your family's trauma.
No, I agree, I could definitely see that.
I think maybe we can count the twins as atmosphere. You know, another thing I wanted to talk to you a little bit about was we've talked about the dollhouse element throughout his films. In Here, you know, we get these larger lande I think the Viking Village, the first one that we sort of explore is it's definitely part of the dollhouse. It has the same hovering, sort of floaty camera that we get in the opening shots of the lighthouse to sort of explore what's happening in this community.
And I find it interesting that if the dollhouse is meant to be a confining structure that leads to a building of ten, is that lost when we have so many dollhouses. The Icelandic Village, the original sort of Germanic Viking village, and maybe the Witch's Hut are sort of the most distinct dollhouses I can't think of in here. Maybe the opening the castle at the top. You get a little bit of it there, but again you're there
for such a short time. I wonder if this also is part of the loss of atmosphere, Is that by opening up his world so much, what do we lose from him?
I think what I concluded after watching this movie is that Robert Eggers is at his best when he does things very small and no hate to you know, all of the cool, the cool scenes that we go to, all of the cool sets that we go to, and all of the battle scenes and all of that. I just think, as he has said in his own words, it's after the Lighthouse came out, before the Northmen came out. He said that his stories are about telling simple stories.
And I really think that that is his strong suit, is telling these small, simple stories that are kind of contained within a single dollhouse or two dollhouses or whatever. I think Once he starts to expand the dollhouses and has multiple of them, we lose the atmosphere, we lose kind of the simpleness of what I think makes his
work so good. And for me, that's just what I remember thinking to myself as like, Wow, this guy really does his best stuff with a small budget, with a few actors in like a couple of locations, versus I agree the big stuff.
Yeah, I think The Northman it's like a good It's first, it's like a ninety percent on Rotten Tomatoes. It's is a good movie. I don't want anyone to walk up. I didn't like it. I enjoy this movie. I just think for the things that Eggers brings to the table that excites me as a director. I just feel like anybody could have directed the Northman.
Yes, that's a very good way.
I know. It doesn't feel like oh Eggers here, he is present in his bag. I just feel like any Hollywood director with you know, a fair amount of knowledge on filmmaking could come up with a decent version of this story.
And absolutely, I.
Okay, I understand that he was passionate about it. But I think what really makes both The Lighthouse and The Witch work for me is like these are films with like immediate narratives, right, They're really like the Witch narrative is yes, old and inspired by history, but continuously things we're seeing today. And I think specifically, I feel like like Instagram culture around the time that movie comes out,
like there's a lot of prevalent messaging. I think The Lighthouse a ton of prevalent messaging about toxic masculinity, about how men interact with one another. Here. Again, it's a fine story, it's what we've seen a lot, But I just don't feel the kind of urgency in the storytelling, and while that maybe isn't effective for all people, it certainly diminishes a bit for me the watching experience.
Yeah, agreed, No, I agree completely. I think I think, like, just like you said, any director could have made this movie, because there's there's not a whole lot about it that feels like it has that Eggor's stamp on it. You know, there's a few themes that I think kind of carry over from the other movies. But I do feel like this could have easily been any other big Hollywood director, you know.
A grade. Yeah, so the Northman, you know, I think I encourage people to watch it. I think it's fun. Let's talk about where you rate it amongst the film thus far to close out. Okay, yeah, so you were saying this is your least favorite of the Eggs direct.
Yes, but again I don't hate it. I think it was no watch.
Yeah, yeah, I think it would just be at the bottom, right.
And if I wrote a list it honestly, it goes in chronological order. From me, My favorite is The Witch, than the Lighthouse, and then The Northmen and then I haven't seen No Saratu yet, but I'm excited for it.
I'm gonna hold my no Saratu reading until we get to know Su. But I think my most favorite is definitely The Witch. Then I do think The Northman is second favorite. And here's why. I don't think it's a better film than the Lighthouse, but for me, it's an easier watch. I don't love people fighting again. I love blood and sling a sword, sure, but like direct, intense, emotional, your face fighting gives me anxiety. Yeah, And well, I think the it's a much more am vicious and probably
overall successful film the Lighthouse is. And by ambitious I mean putting two actors in a room and trying to get a plus performances out of both of them and bring an audience to theaters to watch that. And it's in black and white and a weird aspect ratio, Like all of that stuff is dangerous and risky, and it's definitely something that investors and studios would pause before, you know,
launching into. Whereas The Northman vikings big sets, historic epic that's a little bit easier to sell because audiences are much more familiar with it. So even though the production wise that was more ambitious, I think on a creativity level less so but it's fun to watch. I can whip it out with my dad, you kind of. It's one of those movies I love having on in the background when I'm working because every time you look up, the screen is just so beautiful. I really really appreciate
the use of natural colors. It's a weird thing to say all films are colorized, but there's something that feels so like the night sky, and this movie feels like a jewel, like it's so beautiful. And I think when they use natural elements like fire and is like everything just feels like you can feel the heat. It's like
alive and present. Like cinematography is gorgeous. And even though there are fart jokes and somebody drinks pea, it happens intermittently and it is not the whole effing film like Lighthouse, White House. We're masturbating, we're shitting. Oh, there's shit blowing in the wind. I can't with the light. The Lighthouse grosses me out, even though I do think it's so good.
It's gross.
Yeah, it's disgusting. So I put it on for a second, but only because the disgusting factor of the Lighthouse. It's it's a tad too far for me to watching on the regular, But yeah, you know, I think this is a good showing by Eggers. I think by pushing himself and showing he's capable of handling a lot of these things, that gives him a lot of leverage for future career moves, which is good. And I think it's something he needed
to get off of his plate. I think a lot of especially historically inclined theater inclined people, at some point are always like, what am I tackling Shakespeare? How am I gonna do it? What was that gonna look right? Am I gonna do it? And what? He found a unique way to bring that to audiences that was fun and again challenged him, and so I think all of that worked. I'm excited to see knows for raw Tu and what he has to sort of say about it.
I'm excited to hear Jason and Rosie's thoughts on it. So, yeah, let us know your thoughts on the North men, would love to hear from you. Let us know how you guys are. Oh that part too, Yes, let us know your rankings and let us know your feelings overall on just this retrospective we've had a really good time, Carmen, I love doing this with you.
Yeah, it was a lot of fun. I enjoy being two cinema cinema nerds together, so.
Well. Join us back here tomorrow for our review of Lord of the Rings The Ward or hear them Wednesday, the extras are back together for a wrapup of the best video games of twenty twenty four, and later in the week we will be continuing our coverage of Scaleton Crew be Advised, Ghiltin Recrue releases on two holidays back to back, so scheduling's gonna get a little lunky, but listen, we love Star Wars. We're gonna be covering every episode, so stay tuned for all of those. That's the episode.
Thanks for listening.
Bye.
B X ray Vision is hosted by Jason Kitsumsion and Rosie Knight and is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our executive producers are Joelle Smith and Aaron Kaufman. Our supervising producer is a Boo Zafar. Our producers are Carmen Laurent and Mia Taylor. Our theme song is by Brian Basquez.
Special thanks to Soul Rubin and Chris Lord. Kenny Goodman and Heidi on discoord Moderata