As a child, a Viking prince sees his father murdered and his mother kidnapped. He grows up as a berserker warrior driven by one oath of vengeance. Then the quest brings him home and complicates the myth he has been living inside. Robert Eggers' film is Hamlet told as a Norse epic with the sentiment stripped out.
The Northman is a 2022 action, drama and history film directed by Robert Eggers. This breakdown covers 4 techniques (2 narrative and 2 cinematography), each with the scene where you can see it. If you like how it is made, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring uses several of the same techniques.
Structuring the story on the classic hero's journey, with its call to adventure, trials, ordeal and return home. The pattern feels familiar because myths in many cultures share it.
How this film uses it
Eggers uses the monomyth, the classic hero's journey pattern, as a trap. Amleth's entire life follows that pattern. The film argues that the myth is a cage as much as a destiny.
Where to see it
Amleth's childhood oath: 'I will avenge you, Father. I will save you, Mother. I will kill you, Fjolnir'. A child's promise holds the whole shape of the hero's journey.
Staging a battle in driving rain and deep mud, with fighters slipping and struggling through it. The violence looks unglamorous, exhausting and physically real.
How this film uses it
Eggers shoots the raid with a single camera in long takes stitched together. The violence is unglamorous and physical: bodies doing damage to other bodies. There is no slow motion, only the sounds and the percussion of the work.
Where to see it
The village raid sequence. It is shot as a long take stitched from 4 takes, and the camera follows the violence through the firelight. You can't tell the berserkers from their victims.
Using the full width of a very wide 2.35:1 frame to set small human figures against huge, empty landscapes. All that empty space makes the characters look isolated and insignificant.
How this film uses it
Jarin Blaschke shoots on 35 mm film with spherical lenses and crops the frame to a wide 2:1 shape. The Irish and Icelandic landscapes take on the scale of myth, with people small against hills, cliffs and glaciers. The wide frame keeps the figures and the land in the same picture.
Where to see it
Amleth's final fight with Fjolnir at the crater of Hekla, the Gates of Hel. The landscape around them looks like the end of the world. The wide frame holds the man and his doom together.
Opening the film with a long stretch that has no dialogue. Images, sound and performance alone set up the characters, their world and what is at stake.
How this film uses it
The Viking ritual sequences cover the hall ceremony, the male initiation rites and the bond between father and son. You get most of it through action, sound and image with very little explanation.
Where to see it
The hall ceremony between King Aurvandil and young Amleth: grunting, crawling, fire. The boy is initiated into Viking manhood entirely through physical ritual.
Questions
The Northman: quick answers
What filmmaking techniques does The Northman use?
CineCode breaks down 4 techniques in The Northman (2022): Monomyth Blueprint, Rain-Mud Battle Naturalism, Anamorphic Scope Composition and Dialogue-Free Opening Act.
Who directed The Northman?
Robert Eggers directed The Northman, released in 2022. CineCode also covers The Witch (2015), The Lighthouse (2019), Nosferatu (2024).
What films are similar to The Northman?
Films that share techniques with The Northman include The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001), The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (1966), The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers (2002), Star Wars: A New Hope (1977).
