Conan the Barbarian (film)
Encyclopedia : C : CO : CON : Conan the Barbarian (film)
Conan The Barbarian is a 1982 film by director John Milius and is recognized as the breakthrough of actor Arnold Schwarzenegger. It is loosely based on the Conan the Barbarian stories by Robert E. Howard and was written by the unlikely pairing of Oliver Stone and John Milius. It was followed in 1984 by a lighter, more child-friendly, but less successful sequel, Conan the Destroyer. While its sequel is a much more traditional sword and sorcery tale that includes magic, monsters, and fantastical events, Conan the Barbarian is set in a relatively realistic bronze and iron age setting with only a few supernatural elements.
Plot
The film begins with a young Cimmerian boy, Conan, witnessing the destruction of his village and the death of his parents at the hand of warlord Thulsa Doom. The narration tells, "Who knows what they came for, weapons of steel or murder? It was never known for the leader went to the south." The battle standard carried by the invaders, a snake with two heads, is burned into the memory of young Conan.Conan is sold into slavery with the rest of the children from his village and forced to perform intense manual labor. While the other children die, Conan grows strong, and is eventually sold and forced to fight as a gladiator. One night, however, his new owner spontaneously sets him free. From that point, Conan dedicates his life to exacting revenge on Thulsa Doom.
He travels the world looking for the warlord's symbol, the two-headed snake. Along the way he meets two companions, Subotai and Valeria, both thieves. They soon learn that a doomsday cult has arisen that makes extensive use of snake symbolism. While breaking into one of the cult's towers and stealing several artifacts, Conan confirms the cult's connection to Thulsa Doom after encountering the same two-headed snake symbol. After the heist, the three thieves are then offered a tremendous fortune by King Osric to retrieve his daughter who has joined the snake cult. Conan, however, not content with the pursuit of wealth, abandons his companions to pursue Thulsa Doom.
Conan eventually locates the center of the cult, a place of pilgrimage called the Mountain of Power, with the help of a hermitic wizard. Disguised as a priest, Conan sneaks into a ceremony at the mountain, but is quickly discovered as an impostor, captured, beaten, and taken before Thulsa Doom. Though many years have passed, Doom has not aged since the attack on Conan's village.
His philosophy, however, has changed dramatically since his years as a warlord. He explains to Conan that the destruction of his village was part of his pursuit of "steel", which he once thought to be the key to power; only later did he realize that "flesh" is the stronger substance. Since the revelation, he has gained much greater power by controlling people through his cult.
After explaining himself, Doom orders that Conan be crucified. Hung from a tree in the desert, Conan is rescued by Valeria and Subotai just before his death, and brought back to health with the help of the wizard. Here death tries to claim Conan but doesn't succeed.
The three then return to mountain of power and rescue King Osric's daughter. There they find a gruesome scene of butchered human corpses, presumably enemies or cult members being cooked into human soup. There are also half-naked women who serve to entertain the members of the Snake Cult.
The three go to fight Conan's enemies in the Snake Cult where they rampage. Conan, enraged by the brutality of the cult, pours away the hot, human soup to the ground. Thulsa Doom reveals his power to become a snake as the "living image" of the Serpent God Set and escapes when he senses danger.
While the heroes are escaping, however, Thulsa Doom kills Valeria with an arrow made from a venomous snake. Valeria is cremated then with hopes of her peace.
Thulsa Doom personally leads an expedition to recover the King's daughter, re-donning the same steel armor he had long since abandoned. Conan, Subotai, and the Wizard successfully repel Doom's attack, and he alone is able to escape.
When the battle is lost, Thulsa Doom decides to kill the King's daughter. However Conan saves the King's daughter. The Princess finally realizes that she was a lured victim into the Snake Cult and agrees to help Conan in the final battle... to kill the High Priest who preached Set's evil ways.
In the final scene, Conan sneaks into the Mountain of Power. Thulsa Doom preaches that it is the eyes of Set, his deity that drives the darkness away. He tries to make Conan believe that he is his father as a result of his lack of physical practice, from the years he relied on his followers without doing much of a part.
Conan decapitates Doom in front of thousands of his devotees, revealing their high priest as a fraud. Tossing the head of Thulsa Doom, Conan makes the devotees see the deception of the Snake Cult. The Snake Cult's temple is burned down to the ground.
An epilogue states that Conan later went on to become a great king by his own hand, adding, "but that is another story."
Other versions
A version first released as the "Collector's Edition" featured several deleted scenes and an alternate ending. Most notable among the deleted scenes is an extended discussion between Conan and Subotai.Relation to Robert E. Howard's stories
The movie is regarded by fans as a radical departure from Robert E. Howard's Conan series and owing much more to the original script and direction of John Milius. They feel that it draws only a few major elements from its literary namesake, including:- The spoken prologue, "Between the time the Ocean drank Atlantis and the rise of the Sons of Aryas..."
- The referral of Conan's people as Cimmerians, and his father's blacksmith profession
- Conan's devotion to the god Crom
- The crucifixion episode, which is reasonably true to the events in A Witch Shall be Born
- The scene where Conan climbs the tower, inspired by The Tower of the Elephant
Yet other elements of the film have no relation whatsoever to Howard's stories, including the "Riddle of Steel", the Black Sun Cult of Seth, Conan's adolescence in slavery, and his service as a gladiator in the East. Howard's Conan was still with his tribe in Cimmeria around the time he was 15 or 16, taking part in the destruction of the Aquilonian outpost of Venarium. Moreover, the Conan character portrayed by Schwarzenegger displays little "panther like agility," nor does he have the characteristic "black mane" and "volcanic blue eyes" of Howard's original (though Schwarzenegger's eyes are in fact blue).
Although the inconsistencies with the stories turned-off many fans, the film does, to a certain extent, reflects the "spirit" of the Howard's Hyborian world. Though the film lacks many of the qualities of the literary character, the story is richer than often credited and includes rich symbolism and themes. The special edition DVD includes some insightful commentary by the director and Schwarzenegger.
Music
Originally, producer Dino de Laurentiis had planned a soundtrack of pop music for the movie, but was eventually persuaded by Milius to use a full orchestral score. For this purpose, Milius hired Basil Poledouris, a former classmate from the film department at the University of Southern California, and tasked him to make "a continuous musical drama." [#endnote_SOUNDTRACK] The result was a choral and orchestral soundtrack that fills nearly every moment of the film, with pronounced use of leitmotifs to portray mood and character.The violent early portions of the movie are filled with intense pieces including "Anvil of Crom", played by 24 french horns, stings and timpani, and "Riders of Doom", loosely inspired by "O Fortuna" and other portions of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana. Thulsa Doom's theme, which recurs throughout the film, is based on the Gregorian chant "Dies Irae". A number of quieter pieces fill the middle of the movie, including "Civilization", "The Leaving", "The Search" and the sensuous "The Orgy" (co-written with his daughter Zoë) before the music again intensifies for a series of battle sequences at the end of the film.
Several of the pieces, including the "Anvil of Crom" are frequently used in the movie trailers of other films by Universal Pictures. Much of the film's music was also reused in Conan the Destroyer.
Track listing from soundtrack album
- "Anvil of Crom"
- "Riddle of Steel" / "Riders of Doom"
- "Gift of Fury"
- "Wheel of Pain"
- "Atlantean Sword"
- "Theology" / "Civilization"
- "Wifeing"
- "The Leaving" / "The Search"
- "Mountain of Power"
- "Tree of Woe"
- "Recovery"
- "The Kitchen" / "The Orgy"
- "Funeral Pyre"
- "Battle of the Mounds"
- "Death of Rexor"
- "Orphans of Doom" / "The Awakening"
Casting
For a large budget film, the cast of Conan the Barbarian includes an unusual number of then-inexperienced actors. Dancer Sandahl Bergman and surfer Gerry Lopez were cast in major supporting roles as Conan's closest companions. In addition to Schwarzenegger, the cast also included several famous bodybuilders including William Smith, Sven-Ole Thorsen, and Franco Columbu, as well as former Oakland Raiders star Ben Davidson.Cast
| Actor | Role |
|---|---|
| Arnold Schwarzenegger | Conan |
| James Earl Jones | Thulsa Doom |
| Max von Sydow | King Osric |
| Sandahl Bergman | Valeria |
| Ben Davidson | Rexor |
| Cassandra Gava | The Witch |
| Gerry Lopez | Subotai |
| Mako | The Wizard / Narrator |
| Valérie Quennessen | The Princess |
| William Smith | Conan's Father |
| Franco Columbu | Pictish Scout |
| Jack Taylor | Priest |
| Sven-Ole Thorsen | Thorgrim |
Trivia
- In the 1914 silent film Cabiria, a slave named Maciste pushes a mill wheel for ten years just as Conan does.
- Conan is the anglisicized version of the Celtic name Conán, derived from "Hound". There are several characters who bear the name Conán in Irish mythology, most notably Conán Maol Mac Mórna. While uncommon,the name is still used in Ireland ; It is also the name of a 4th century Breton king.
- Following the decapitation of Thulsa Doom, Conan walks down the steps towards Doom's followers. As he approaches them, they lay down their weapons in homage to him. This scene echoes the ending of another film John Milius wrote, Apocalypse Now.
- The character of Thulsa Doom was intended to represent a dying race of intelligent people, similar to the Atlanteans referred to in the film's prologue. As such, the character played by James Earl Jones had long, straight hair and blue eyes.
- "Weird Al" Yankovic's motion picture "UHF" contains a brief satire to "Conan, The Barbarian" called "Conan, The Librarian"
- At Wrestlemania 22, WWE Superstar Triple H came out with an entrance resembling Conan the Barbarian.
- Sandahl Bergman nearly lost her finger when a fight scene went wrong and the stuntman hit her finger instead of the blade, going all the way down to the bone. Instead of asking if she was alright, director John Milius told her "Valeria would never let that happen again."
- Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sandahl Bergman did all their own stunts as there were no stunt doubles available who matched them in size.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger said in his audio commentary that Sandahl Bergman actually injured more stunt men during the fight sequences than he did.
- The cast suffered various injuries during filming. Arnold Schwarzenegger was pulled down by the dogs that were chasing him and took various injuries to his back in addition to bashing his head open by a rock and later having his neck sliced by an axe. According to Schwarzenegger, director John Milius called himself "The Dog Trainer".
- Sandahl Bergman, then 32, was very uncomfortable shooting her love scene with Arnold Schwarzenegger.
- The helmets worn by Thulsa Doom's warriors in the opening scenes closely resemble those worn by the Teutonic Knights in the 1938 film Alexander Nevsky.
References
- ↑ Conan the Barbarian Original Motion Picture Soundtrack liner notes by Kevin Mulhall.
- All Movie Guide: [Conan the Barbarian]
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.