Although it has been difficult for him to start, ‘El hombre del norte’ remains at the top of the billboard with the fantastic Viking story that it offers Robert Eggers.
The director and his co-writer Sjon they wanted to make their film as close as possible to the great Nordic sagas, and although they have left us a film that is incredibly faithful to these stories, in the end some concessions had to be made in favor of the public.
Last minute changes with hell in the recording room
The first public screenings did not go too well because the film’s historical fidelity was too dense for some viewers. In particular, this type of story does not pay much attention to the interior of the characters, and Amleth’s motivations had to be much clearer during the film for the story to engage the audience. The problem arose because the filming of ‘The Northman’ had already finished and there was not much that could be changed in the editing room.
So Eggers and Sjón decided to edit the script at the last minute and edit the dialogue in the recording booth., with the actors recording the new lines. These new dialogues would further develop Amleth’s personality and make her motivations and her beliefs about Valhalla clearer, thus resolving the narrative issues. That yes, they were very careful so that her new dialogues did the game well with the mouths of the actors in the scenes already shot.
In an interview with Vulture, Sjon referred to the entire process as “the hardest crossword puzzle you can imagine,” until he finally figured out how to fit together some words that had similar vowels and sounds.
“It’s kind of like… Okay, we have 18 syllables. The fifth syllable has to be a T because it pronounces the T very well,” Eggers explained. “So maybe you can fit it with a D. But then this syllable has to be an S.”
But as difficult as the project became, and not just when shooting the film, this complexity was necessary for the screenwriter: “Why would you make a medieval tale that is historically accurate and takes place in three countries, with battles, family feuds, and magical creatures…and not expect it to be harsh?”
Despite having to streamline much of the script and add new dialogue, Eggers and Sjón didn’t want to lose too much historical fidelity and managed to balance the point needed to entertain the audience with their vision for the film.
“We were able to leave Old Norse in songs and in ritual settings,” Eggers explained. “We worked with an Icelandic linguist, Haukur Þorgeirsson, who would often bring us poems written in medieval Icelandic and give them a spin and translate them with his own interpretation.
Although finally the final cut of ‘The Northman’ is not from Eggers himself, he is aware that the commitments with the study were also necessary: “I promised the most entertaining Robert Eggers movie I could make. I’m not saying it’s a perfect movie, but the least I can say is that I stand by my choices, because I’ve considered all of them extremely carefully.”