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When you’ve only directed three films it’s hard to talk about an oeuvre. For those who don’t have their heads entirely up their own asses “oeuvre” is one of those annoying French words that has entirely too many vowels for its own good. It’s a bombastic way of saying “body of work.” Beethoven’s oeuvre, for instance, includes hundreds if not thousands of pieces, Picasso’s dozens of works, Stephen King’s contains who knows how many works.
I’m not talking about those guys this week. Pouring through their massive oeuvres is a project for a different blog. Instead, I’m talking about Robert Eggers. One of the hot new directors, Eggers has gotten a lot of heat for his first films. So far, he’s directed three movies: The VVitch, The Lighthouse, and The Northman. None of them have been massive hits, but all of them have received much critical praise and developed cult-favorite status among various groups. I’ve seen all three of his works and have loved all three in equal measure. While none of them are perfect, most of them are pretty close to it.
Eggers’s works so far has mined similar themes – horror, the otherworldly, and examining what happens when you want to create a new life for yourself. All three films also experiment with film technique and lighting. The theme I want to talk about most however is his idea that the past is a foreign place. This I think is the strongest part of his work.
When I lead history classes, especially classes that take place prior to say 1900, I try to emphasize this point with my students. People in the past do not think as we do. They had different cosmologies, different ways of thinking, and different ways of living their lives. Their worlds looked completely strange to ours.
When we read things about the Greek pantheon of gods or about 12th Century religious practices it can often ring as funny to our ears. Let me provide an example. There’s a famous historical work about Martin Guerre and his imposter. In essence, a 16th Century French woman allowed an imposter to pretend to be her husband, living and spending many years with him, until her real husband returned home. The subsequent trial around who was the real Martin Guerre, became huge news across Europe, and the imposter was eventually executed.
The farther you go back in history the stranger things can become. At least to our eyes. The belief systems of Ancient Egyptians, Mayans, Chinese, or Greeks may seem foolish to us, but were highly advanced and represented the pinnacle of thinking for the time. For many people, magic, or at least the power of the gods was very real and very much affected day-to-day affairs. Too often people take that as silly, or view it with ironic detachment, but for these people of the past, they were very real, very important things. When studying history, it’s important to recognize this. The ways people lived their lives were very important to them, and anything that tried to change or get rid of those ways of lives was often confronted with hostility or violence.
To me, the best part of Eggers’s work is that he gets this. All his movies so far have been set in the past. In the Viking era, the early American colonial period, and 19th century New England. Each of his movies is highly researched, and often uses as much period correct set dressing and design as possible. More importantly, in my mind at least, is the seriousness with which he addresses the character’s understanding of their lives and the world around them. The characters in The VVitch actually believe in the Devil, not in some sort of abstract way as a metaphor for sin, but as an actual physical force for evil in the world. In The Lighthouse, mermaids are real and a danger to avoid. In The Northman, being a berserker isn’t just about getting into the mind of a bear or something, but about actually thinking you’re physically transforming into a bear. While I don’t think a movie can ever truly get into the actual mindset of an 18th-century person, I think these films do a much better job of it, than say Dances With Wolves or Braveheart.
I don’t say this just because I’m some sort of history nerd even though I am. I think this way of working with historical films makes them better. When you don’t know what to expect, and when the main characters are treated as living breathing human beings, rather than just pieces to move around a plot board it really can make a piece sing.
The past, and especially the culture of the past, truly is a foreign place. Respecting that not only allows for a deeper appreciation of our current time and place, but for a more encompassing understanding of our cultural roots and where we came from. The past may be far away, but it still affects our lives on a daily basis. Eggers’ films, even in a small way, helps us understand that past just a little more.
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