1066

1066: THE BATTLE FOR MIDDLE EARTH is a two-part Channel 4 miniseries that unwisely likens the situation of that year to Tolkien's LORD OF THE RINGS, undoubtedly in a bid to draw in more viewers. My question is: why? There are, I suppose, superficial similarities between the stories, in that rural shires are invaded by enemies, but the effect in whole is to lessen the experience. Why does the film bang on about elves in the wood and orcs when it should really be getting on with telling the story of the three battles of that year?

There are some good aspects to be found here. The costumes are authentic and the locales are good too, even if it does look like the whole miniseries was shot in the same forest. The (brief) glimpses we get of Saxon life are intriguing and the recreation of a Saxon village at the opening is promising. Sadly, the film then descends into a load of blokes larking around in the woods, complete with dodgy shaky-cam choreography that really DOESN'T work and a script aimed at the level of soap fans rather than a historical epic.

The main problem is the lack of budget, which makes any attempt at depicting the battles of Stamford Bridge or Hastings hopeless; there's no way they can get across the scale and violence of these battles when they're reduced to a few chaps fighting on the edge of a field. Take a classic scene in point: the sole Viking holding the bridge and slaughtering any enemy who approaches him. This is the stuff of legends, yet it's reduced to a fat bloke standing on some wooden planks getting speared by a bad actor. Not good! The frequent quotes and captions that are used to authenticate the story are good, as is Ian Holm's narration. But when they start using maps at the climax to show how the battle at Hastings fared, you wonder whether they'd have been better off making a documentary with staged inserts instead. Certainly the acting is poor, and the use of TV actors explains this. There's no characterisation and no real depth or feeling to what's going on.

The tone seems to go all over the place. The Vikings attack, rape and pillage loads of people in the North and are defeated, then one leading Saxon warrior has a crisis of conscience and almost cries when an enemy he's fighting gets impaled. Would he really have acted like this, or would he have hacked his enemy's head off in revenge for the barbarity he's inflicted? I know which one would have really happened. The same goes for the surviving Viking unexplainably joining the Saxons to fight at Hastings.

Attempts at humour are lamentable and the efforts to show the battle from all sides only serve to lessen the experience. Sure, the idea of showing epic stuff like this from the 'soldier's eye' view is a good one, but almost everything is done wrongly. The worst bit, for me, is when one group of soldiers form into a 'wedge' to attack the other's shield wall – before the shield wall has even been created! This so-called 'attack' then consists of a group of blokes charging into the others, who instantly break their defensive wall to fight individually. It all turns into a messy scrum, and you wonder if anyone involved had any idea of what they were trying to depict. For a truly authentic account of Saxon warfare, try reading Bernard Cornwell's excellent Saxon stories, beginning with The Last Kingdom. They're set a couple of hundred years before this, but the depiction of Saxon vs. Viking combat far exceeds anything on display here.

For me, this film was a success because it captured that horrified sense of loss not only of a battle, or of lives, but of a whole culture and the 650-year history that had produced it. The decision to focus only on the ordinary foot-soldiers (to the extent that none of the three leaders had a single line to speak, and William did not even appear on screen) was a good one, since it allowed the story to represent the fate of peoples instead of just the fate of kings. The narration, in a good imitation of the style of Anglo-Saxon epic poetry, was mournful and measured, and the revelation of the narrator's identity at the end nicely rounded out one thread of the story. Despite the constant bloodletting, the characters were attractive: Leofric the happy-go-lucky coward who does the right thing in the end; Hrothgar the weary general always trying to rally his weary men for one more fight; and Snorri the captured Viking who becomes a mainstay of the English at Hastings. The final stages at Hastings reminded me of the poem commemorating another English defeat, 75 years before:

"Thought shall be harder, heart shall be keener / Spirit shall be greater, as our might lessens." (The Battle of Maldon, 991)

Anyone else a bit shocked to see this: "In doing this, King Edward disregards his earlier promises to give the throne of England to one of his legitimate successors from among his Flemish, Viking or Norman relatives.As a result of this unwise decision, a contest for the English crown begins. "

Uhm, succession to Anglo Saxon ingship was NOT inherited not conveyed by the prior monarch. It was decided by a Witenagemot ("Witen"), and Harold was chosen by the witan. Harold was the "legitimate successor" to Edward.

Now to be sure we need to put the context of invaders into its historic frame, The Celts invaded and dominated the prior populations, the Aglo Saxons invaded and dominated prior populations, and so to did the Normans. So one can say that no one is truly legislate or illegitimate because no population is truly "autochthonous" and every single place on earth is dominated by invading populations who simply invaded prior invading populations and that no population on earth is actually "native."

BUT the Normans were different than what had happened in the British isles beforehand. The pre Celtic populations were settlers, the Celtic populations were settlers, the Anglo Saxons were settlers, all bringing in 25% or more added population in a "demic" movement, ie a mass immigration of men women and children. The Norman invasion by William was not demic nor did it include settlers. it was soley a foreign military war-lord class.

As far as the the pair of films that comprise 1066, given it appears to be low budget, is ok. the battle scenes are cheap but in many ways better than high budget but historically completely bogus ones you would see on "Vikings."

This is a very interesting and very well made reenactment of the famous Battle of Hastings and the events around it. It takes its time to bring the whole medieval period closer to the viewer, introduces various characters that may or may not have necessarily existed but are here very useful in conducing the sentiment and the point of view of a common man of the ages.

Acting and cinematography are very good. Directing not so good. Obviously great effort was undertaken to conceal the low budget, which is a good thing, but it also gives a pretty claustrophobic viewing experience (for instance, there are too many close-ups) and at times unconvincing and static battle scenes.

What is really annoying, however, is the bias the story of William's conquest is told with. It paints pictures of poor "true Englishmen", Saxon Englishmen, suffering horrors of defeat at hands of merciless, almost inhumane, Norman invaders who came uninvited to harass peaceful sedentary civilization. As if Saxons themselves, a couple of centuries prior, didn't do exactly the same thing to Romano-Celtic population on the Island. Should we pity them? I'm not quite sure.

But the series wants us to do just that - to identify with one side. And while it makes for some really poignant scenes worth watching, it also makes for a poor history show. The dialog is also sometimes abhorrently naive or inane, completely devoid of humor at that. It would have been so much better show if they didn't turn it into a litany of a loser.

This is the story of the battle of the Norman Conquest of England as told through the eyes of villagers and farmers that took place in the epic war. For those of you unaware of this war, it was an Invasion and occupation of England by armies of Normans, Bretons & the French led by Duke Williams II during the eleventh century. 1066 sports impressive acting, production value and fighting. This is where I would give the DVD a positive review, that is until the producers or whoever is involved in marketing this decided to pull the wool over the viewers eyes by trying to pass this off as something involved in The Lord Of The Rings universe. Lets start with the whole, "Middle Earth" thing. Upon watching this DVD, the title of the movie was just called 1066, it's clear that after this was made, they threw "Battle For Middle Earth" on the DVD cover. Then there's the cover itself, it looks Exactly like the poster for LOTR. Last but not least, the narrator on this film is no other than Mr. Bilbo Baggins himself, Ian Holm. Sad that they didn't think this film could hold it's own with the subject matter given.