Wilhelm der Eroberer

The best part of this film is actually the music, which is very well made by Arthur Shelton, recalling the best days of John Barry. The cinematography is also excellent, the film is all through an aesthetic pleasure, and the actors are splendid, especially Vincent Deniard as William, while all the actors playing him are excellent, the boy, the youth and the man. The script though is very poor. The French have done a great job in investigating and researching the background and history of William, the problems of the fact that he was not legitimate and his rise to power against overwhelming adversities, and the part of his visit to the pagan Normans of his ancestry is very interesting. The dialogue though is almost puerile in its coarseness, which is even worse than from any B Hollywood Western. They fight with their swords over and over again exhausting the audience more than themselves, and the chief crook is ordinarily banal. The entire concept is superficial, as it only sticks to William's early career, completely avoiding the cases of Harold Godwinson and Harald Hardrade, thus entirely ignoring the Norwegian intrigues that led up to the invasion, which was just playing dirty with the blessing of the church: Harald was to attack the English in the north while William was to attack from the south, thus invading England by two fronts. The Norwegians were defeated in the north, which marked the end of the Viking age, which sacrifice made the game easier for William in the south. But the film is more a documentary of the times and their ways than any comprehensive history lesson. It is well made, but all that is missing was more interesting.