{"id":2073,"date":"2010-12-03T10:12:01","date_gmt":"2010-12-03T17:12:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2073"},"modified":"2010-12-03T15:51:14","modified_gmt":"2010-12-03T22:51:14","slug":"severed-ways-headbangers-of-1007-ce","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=2073","title":{"rendered":"‘Severed Ways’: Headbangers of 1007 CE"},"content":{"rendered":"

\""Severed<\/a>A movie made by a company called Heathen Films is likely to have a certain ideological component. <\/a>Severed Ways<\/a>, <\/em>a 2007 indie<\/a> production, however, has not become a cult favorite like The Wicker Man.<\/em><\/p>\n

The plot comes right from the Vinland Sagas<\/em><\/a>, but adds a bit about two scouts abandoned and believed dead when Norse settlers abandon one settlement after conflicts with the natives<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The dialog is in Swedish with colloquial English subtitles, like “We’re toast if the Skraelings find us.”<\/p>\n

But in accordance with a Scandinavian tradition of filmmaking, there are long silent periods where the camera merely follow the men on their journey seeking their comrades.<\/p>\n

One Internet Movie Database comment calls it “Aguirre, the Wrath of God<\/em><\/a> for Black Metal fans.” That is not necessarily a compliment, but director Tony Stone would disagree:<\/a><\/p>\n

Heavy metal and vikings have always had this sort of connection\u2014the warrior spirit, the harshness, the visuals of battle, the pagan side. The music is hard and rough and trying at times, but that\u2019s what the physical world is; that\u2019s how we used to live. Metal describes something of another time. It\u2019s a very emotional music that\u2019s more like classical music in the way it recalls history. It\u2019s also just music we were listening to while making the movie.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

As an expression of “Dionysian pessimism” (Nietzsche’s term), it works.<\/p>\n

It was filmed in Maine, Vermont, Labrador, and at the reconstructed Norse camp of L’Anse aux Meadows<\/a>, Newfoundland.<\/p>\n

M.’s short review: “Beautiful landscapes interrupted by bashing.”<\/p>\n

Bryan White at Cinema Suicide<\/em> says much the same thing at greater length.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A movie made by a company called Heathen Films is likely to have a certain ideological component. Severed Ways, a 2007 indie production, however, has not become a cult favorite like The Wicker Man. The plot comes right from the Vinland Sagas, but adds a bit about two scouts abandoned and believed dead when Norse […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[94,134],"class_list":["post-2073","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-canada","tag-norse"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-xr","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1791,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1791","url_meta":{"origin":2073,"position":0},"title":"Hot Baths and Battle Wounds among the Norse","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 27, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"A summary of ancient Norse practices on personal hygiene, bathing, treatment of disease, and battle wounds. Both the saga literature and forensic studies of skeletal remains suggest that battle injuries could be horrific .... The femur (leg bone) shown to the right is from another man who died of battle\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8334,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=8334","url_meta":{"origin":2073,"position":1},"title":"Jared Diamond Was Wrong\u2014The Greenland Norse Adapted","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 11, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"A new article in the journal Science refutes Jared Diamond's claim that the 400-year-old Norse colony in Greenland failed because its habitants failed to adapt to the land. Diamond's thesis in his book\u00a0Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed was that the Norse made bad ecological decisions. As one\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Greenland\"","block_context":{"text":"Greenland","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=greenland"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.sciencemag.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/inline__699w__no_aspect\/public\/viking_goods.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4766,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=4766","url_meta":{"origin":2073,"position":2},"title":"The Norse on Baffin Island","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"December 1, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Swedish archaeologist Martin Rundkvist discusses evidence of a Norse presence on Baffin Island in the Canadian Arctic and whether the people who were there were seasonal trappers or trying to establish a year-round settlement.\u00a0 Remains of Old World rats are indicative. So what we have here is High Medieval Christian\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":7884,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=7884","url_meta":{"origin":2073,"position":3},"title":"New Norse Site in Newfoundland","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 1, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"The discovery of Norse ruins at L'Anse aux Meadows, Newfoundland, in 1960 proved once and for all that the sagas were right: settlers from Iceland and\/or Greenland came to North America. Now a new discovery on the other side of the island suggests even more of a Norse presence. After\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/content\/dam\/news\/2016\/03\/31\/vikingsnf\/04-vikingnf.adapt.768.1.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/content\/dam\/news\/2016\/03\/31\/vikingsnf\/04-vikingnf.adapt.768.1.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/news.nationalgeographic.com\/content\/dam\/news\/2016\/03\/31\/vikingsnf\/04-vikingnf.adapt.768.1.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":5295,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=5295","url_meta":{"origin":2073,"position":4},"title":"Archaeologists Find Secret to Norse Sunstone?","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"March 5, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"This might be one of those \"But we already knew that!\" deals, but French archaeologists think that they have an actual example in hand of a \"sunstone,\" said to be used by the Norse to navigate in cloudy weather. This one, however, comes from a Tudor-era shipwreck. Same principle though.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"archaeology\"","block_context":{"text":"archaeology","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=archaeology"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11332,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11332","url_meta":{"origin":2073,"position":5},"title":"From Viking Re-enactor to Practitioner","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"February 25, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"At the BBC, a short video with a man who started doing re-enactments and ended up adopting Norse religion. Fighting with the Wuffa Viking and Saxon Re-enactment Society, he did not expect that his hobby of more than three years would help him find his own belief through Norse mythology.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Asatru\"","block_context":{"text":"Asatru","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=asatru"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/wuffa.png?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/wuffa.png?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/wuffa.png?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2073"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2075,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2073\/revisions\/2075"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2073"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2073"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}