The Northman

Robert Eggers’s 2022 film is not an adaptation of Hamlet but a return to Hamlet’s source, the Amleth legend in Saxo Grammaticus’s History of the Danes. The Folger Shakespeare Library marks the difference: Shakespeare’s prince puts an antic disposition on, while Eggers’s Amleth genuinely spends years as a berserker. So there is no hesitation: the decision comes at the outset and the rest is its cost. Eggers wrote with Icelandic poet Sjón and used three consultants: archaeologist Neil Price, folklorist Terry Gunnell of the University of Iceland, and historian Jóhanna Katrín Friðriksdóttir. Eggers corrects the long take himself. The village raid is two shots in the finished film, not one, and the first, where berserkers tear off their skins, took 28 takes. On a single camera they were “always using the last or second to last take”, and he says the theatrical cut is his, with no longer one coming. Set in tenth century Iceland, it was almost entirely shot in Northern Ireland: Torr Head, Knockdhu, Clandeboye. The volcano finale was built in a quarry, fifteen tons of black sand laid down, lava added later. A good fit if the raid carrying across two unbroken shots is the display you came for. Not for anyone after Hamlet’s doubt and irony; this is the story before that doubt was added.