![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() Mel Gibson once told me he consulted “Chimes” in choreographing and shot-blocking his take on the Battle of Stirling in “Braveheart,” which rivals Welles in its murderous, murky, writhing bodies struggling to the death detail.īut director Edward Bazalgette gives them both a run for their blood money with his reenactment of of the Battle of Brunanburh, the climax of “The Last Kingdom: Seven Kings Must Die.” The sweep of the sea of soldiers of many “uniforms” and their wooden shields, steel swords and lines of men pushing and stabbing and dying trampled under foot is a wonder to behold, filmed from many angles, “shield wall” to “swine wedge” driving into it.Īnd amidst the carnage, as is the way of motion picture storytelling, a young King Aethelstan will meet his nemesis, and the Northumbrian pagan Uhtred, whose story we followed through the reigns of King Alfred the Great and King Edward over five seasons of TV’s “The Last Kingdom,” will reach a human lifespan-of-the-day defying climax.īased on the historical novels Bernard Cornwell conjured out of the historical “Anglo Saxon Chronicle,” this saga has his real-life hero - albeit from a hundredsl years later - present at the Battle of Edington at the end of the first season of the show, and a key figure at Brunanburh, 59 years later. Orson Welles’ depiction of the confusing, intimate, bloody muddy mire of the Battle of Shrewsbury in “Chimes at Midnight” is the gold standard for Medieval combat recreated on film. ![]()
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