Eggers takes us through the landscapes and texts that built his Viking action epic.
When you sit down down to see a Robert Eggers movie , you know you ’re in for a history lesson . Far from a dry , dusty university lecture , what eggar ' films have instead is a perfectly fine-tune vitality : observe one feels like you ’re seeing something film a hundred , four hundred , a thousand years ago . The entire cast of his feature debut , 2015’sThe Witch , talk the heavily cadenced English favour by the Puritans of other New England . His follow - up , the grungy , table salt - sprayedThe Lighthouse , dumped Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe into a blackened - and - bloodless German Expressionist nightmare .
His new film , The Northman , star Alexander Skarsgård as Amleth , the son of a Scandinavian king ( Ethan Hawke ) murdered by his blood brother ( Claes Bang ) , who get off his bloodthirsty uncle , becomes a yammer berserk warrior , and then travels to Iceland in hunt of revenge . The film is a bloody , sweaty masterwork from a director who cuts no corners when it comes to diachronic accuracy , steeping his movies in hundreds of days of traditional knowledge and superstitious notion . His characters recite retentive monologues about the luck - seeing Norn , the Tree of Kings , and the valkyrie cuticle - maidens who carry braw soldier across the sky to heavenly Valhöll .
out front of his new picture ’s release on April 22 , eggar sit down with Thrillist to discourse his multitude of influence , from the sagas of various Icelandic families to the scenes of his favorite films and one especially powerful pulp - cartridge character .
Photos: Universal Pictures, Amanda Edwards/Getty Images, Focus Features, Sven-Erik Arndt/Arterra/Universal Images Group via Getty Images; Illustration: Maitane Romagosa
Iceland’s landscape
To gaze out at the aspect of Iceland is to expect directly at prehistory , seemingly traveling through time when the line between human race and animal was thin , and the barrier between our world and a realm beyond was even thinner . prove direct out of the ocean jillion of year ago and sit directly atop a architectonic flaw demarcation , Iceland ’s singular geologic structure combine keen , craggy mountain ranges with rolling Hill and valleys of deep green , constellate with sulphuric hot springs and tearing volcanoes . It ’s no wonder that much of the stirring forThe Northmancame from the land itself .
I was not ever concerned in Vikings , really , as a kid , nor as an adult , and the butch stereotype and theright - fender misappropriationof Viking culture really put me off of it . My wife , who , like myself , is into early - modern and medieval lit , suggest that I would like the sagas , but I just did n’t . You should always listen to your wife . But then , when we went to Iceland , no surprise that the landscapes rap me out completely . Aside from just the raw power of the landscape painting themselves , I thought the fact that people navigate here in the Dark Ages and did n’t just go bad is crazy .
Alexander Skarsgård
Alexander Skarsgård , tall and Swedish , would give Chris Hemsworth ’s Thor a rill for his money on a good mean solar day . It ’s no surprisal that the impulse for eggar to direct a Viking story came from Skarsgård himself , who had long been interested in star in a diachronic Viking play .
I had tiffin with Alexander Skarsgård , who said that he ’d been hear for five or 10 years to make a Viking pic , and he was saying it ’s what he was wanting to do since he was a kid . I call up we were just having a general meeting . And then he brought up this Viking movie . He had been thinking aboutThe Witchand hooey . So it all kind of came together organically in that meeting .
Icelandic sagas
When you think of " Norse literature , " you credibly opine of something cry a saga , a written - down historical schoolbook describing a family genealogy , a difference between clans , a story of a sealed radical of masses , or an account of a particularly famous individual or fantastical issue . The saga are invaluable historical texts , even though , eggar notes , they were mostly copy down in modern writing centuries after the eld of the Vikings had terminate , lead to some ethnical biases in the translation ( disinterest in female deity , for good example ) .
The main source material was actually a Scandinavian folk tale about the account of Amleth . The most widespread version of that was written by Danish historiographer Saxo Grammaticus . So , Saxo ’s work : the Poetic Edda , the Prose Edda . A few sagas that I particularly was mold by areEgil ’s saga[a work chronicle the kin of Egill Skallagrímsson , an Icelandic granger , Viking , and poet ] , theSaga of Grettir the Strong[detailing the life-time of Grettir Ásmundarson , an poorly - moderate Icelandic outlaw],Eyrbyggja saga[a saga that follows the feud between th chieftain of two Norse clans that settled in Iceland ] . Another legendary saga that was also quite helpful was the saga of Hrolfr Kraki [ a semi - legendary Danish king ] , which has another tale in it very alike to the Hamlet floor , and it also has a berserker protagonist .
All the history record and the sagas were usable to the actors and more . Garrett Bird , my assistant , scanned , like , thousands and thousands of page of all these books , from this to this . So there was a tremendous amount of stuff available to the actors . I do n’t know how much of it anyone actually scan , and I do n’t know how much you really really necessitate to understand . But I love thatThe Children of Ash and Elm[historian Neil Price ’s history of the Vikings ] was something that Alex was particularly doting of . That rule book is sort of the one - stop shop of everything we have it off about Vikings , in a really precise but also digestible way .
Conan the Barbarian
WhileThe Northmanhas all the trappings of a prestige historical drama , it also has its roots in pulpy 20th - century storytelling — notably in the role Conan the Barbarian , a muscly brand - and - necromancy hero who appear in numerous pulp magazines and was notably portrayed in unrecorded action by Arnold Schwarzenegger in his 1982 cinematic breakthrough .
There ’s several deliberate nod to Conan , and also many accidental ones just because I watched it so much when I was a tyke . And it was a openhanded movie for [ Northmanco - writer ] Sjón as an teenager . [ Creator Robert E. ] Howard was inspired by the sagas . Conan puzzle his brand from a inhumation chamber , and that is in virtually all the best saga .
Sjón’s books
Eggers work closely with Sigurjón Birgir Sigurðsson , bed as Sjón , a famous Icelandic poet , novelist , and songwriter , when publish the hand forThe Northman . Sjón is a aborigine of Reykjavík , and his piece of work has been translated into 30 spoken language around the universe . He ’s performed with alt - rock music band The Sugarcubes and ofttimes collaborates with Björk ( which makes her bearing in the movie no surprisal ) .
TheBlue FoxandFrom the Mouth of the Whaleare the two books of his that get me ab initio fabulously excited about his committal to writing . The prologue ofFrom the Mouth of the WhaleI charge to Alexander Skarsgård and [ co - producer ] Lars Knudsen to say , " This is the guy who needs to write this moving-picture show with me . "
Famous cinematic long takes
The plot of ground ofThe Northmanis drop anchor in lengthy single - take action scenes filmed all in one go — Amleth is give chase through his village by traitor after he see his Church Father ’s slaying , and when we gather up with him again year later he ’s bring in wearing a wolf fur and raid a Slavonic village with a gang of berserkers . These shots ask large sets , many extras , fortune of equipment , and weeks of preparation and rehearsal to get everything correct , and they ’re remarkably telling when put to death well . egger closely studied a routine of classic film with renowned long takes from all over the world , from Russia to Hungary to Japan .
The prospicient , measured , unbroken payoff of [ Miklós ] Jancsó’sThe Round - Up[a Hungarian film about the activities within a 19th - century prison house camp ] , were inspiring . plainly it ’s clear that Jarin Blaschke , my DP , and I revisit the Tartar maraud fromAndrei Rublev[Andrei Tarkovsky ’s historical epic about the 15th - century icon painter ] . Although he uses a multiple - tv camera approach , I was cautiously canvass Kurosawa ’s stuff and nonsense . Ranseems the airless analogue , but I view like every Kurosawa samurai movie , for certain . [ Ardak ] Amirkulov’sThe Fall of Otrar[another historical heroic poem that follows the politics within the central Asiatic tribal Kipchaks before they were taken over by Genghis Khan ] is a coolheaded movie from Kazakhstan that has some great medieval battle scenes and fantastic universe - building . That was also compose by Aleksei German , who didHard to be a God , which is another cinema that I love .
Lava flows from a volcanic eruption on the Reykjanes Peninsula on 3 March 2025.|Halldor Kolbeins/AFP via Getty Iages
Alexander Skarsgård in ‘The Northman.'|Focus Features
Ineta Sliuzaite in ‘The Northman.'|Focus Features
Arnold Schwarzenegger in ‘Conan the Barbarian.'|Universal Pictures
A scene from the 1966 epic ‘Andrei Rublev.'|Mosfilm
