Conan the Barbarian
e.tv, Channel 194, Friday, 20:30
You wouldn’t think that stories about a tall, muscle-bound meat-head running around in his underpants slaying evil sorcerers and hideous monsters with a big sword would be the subject of any serious analysis, would you?
But you’ll find an endless line of critics and nerds willing to discuss the film for hours and hours, reading into it themes of self-belief, feminism, misogyny, fascism, the Nietzschean “übermensch”, even Christian themes — and arguing for hours over which of those elements the film does or doesn’t possess.
Were any of those things actually intended to be portrayed in this simple fantasy adventure, or are people reading too much into it? The author of the original Conan pulp stories, Robert E Howard, apparently wasn’t the most mentally stable of individuals, so should we really infer any serious social commentary from his work?
But this movie, based on the Howard character, is still good fun to watch and it basically kickstarted Arnold Schwarzenegger’s career. I’ll always remember a funny story about it I saw on the DVD “making of” features, where the director tried to placate the producers who were worried about casting the inexperienced Schwarzenegger in the lead role, by telling them: “If we didn’t find Arnold, we’d have to build him” — clearly meaning that finding someone who better fit the physical profile of Conan would be impossible.
It also stars James Earl Jones in a very imposing role as the cult leader antagonist Thulsa Doom, and Sandahl Bergman as Valeria, Conan’s striking, Valkyrie-like companion.