the love which I have chosen, I shall not now lament

[incandescens]

Please excuse me while I fume.

(It's annoying; I can't even rant uninhibitedly when I know that I'm typing it in and I know that I'll be checking it for any obvious stupidities before posting. Self-editing, a bad habit when it comes to spitting out pure anger. I annoy myself at times.)

I have come to the conclusion that the main reason that I felt dissatisfied by parts of Return of the King was that I loved the original book too well, knew it too well, and was constantly listening for speeches which I hoped to hear, or looking for moments which didn't turn up. I'm not just talking about the Scouring of the Shire here; I'm thinking of moments like Eowyn and the Witch-King, which lost some of its beautiful dialogue, or Denethor and the palantir and why this extremely capable and intelligent man is slipping into paranoia, and . . .

I am aware that this is the same complaint that I made with the first movie, when we lost the Gandalf/Saruman dialogue (the "many colours" one) for that stupid fight scene instead. I realise that the dialogue may have had to be snipped because a film cannot be precisely as a book is. I know all these things.

They convince me all the more that I love the book (the entire work, to be fair) which was -- which is -- a work of genius. I am grateful to Peter Jackson, who has done a magnificent piece of work, and to all the associated actors, special effects people, scriptwriters, whatever.

But if I saw the films and the books both about to vanish, and could only choose one, I wouldn't hesitate. Not for a single moment.

I read them for the first time when I was 7, and even if I didn't fully understand them, I understood enough. Deconstruct as you will; the Lord of the Rings is an epic and a dream which I will keep and cherish.

---

"Begone, foul dwimmerlaik, lord of carrion! Leave the dead in peace!"

A cold voice answered: "Come not between the Nazgul and his prey! Or he will not slay thee in thy turn. He will bear thee away to the houses of lamentation, beyond all darkness, where thy flesh shall be devoured, and thy shrivelled mind be left naked to the Lidless Eye."

A sword rang as it was drawn. "Do what you will; but I will hinder it, if I may."

"Hinder me? Thou fool. No living man may hinder me!"

Then Merry heard of all sounds in that hour the strangest. It seemed that Dernhelm laughed, and the clear voice was like the ring of steel. "But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Eowyn I am, Eomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him."

-- The Return of the King, JRR Tolkien

Comments

[scottscidmore.livejournal.com]

It will be interesting to see if the extend length version on DVD will restore anything. I can see the cutting the Scouring, that would add a lot of time to the movie; I agree that Eowyn and the Witch-King should have be left unmolested.

[archangelbeth]

They cut that part? Dear stars! That was in the animated version -- how could they cut it? It was so cool to the wee child I was, watching the cartoon...

Bother. Now I'm going to have to watch my cartoon version sometime.

*sulk*

[incandescens]

Oh, it didn't get cut out! Don't worry. It did, however, have some of the dialogue trimmed a little. (Which I, as a lover of that section, found annoying enough.)

[archangelbeth]

Oh, whew. Okay, I won't have to cry now...

Someday, someday, the minx will be willing to sit through it at least for more than 5 minutes at a time...

[jackwalker.livejournal.com]

Agreed. I found with all three films that I couldn't enjoy the first viewing all that much - I kept having cognitive dissonance as I expected to see scenes or hear dialogue as they had gone in the books. By the second viewing each time I was better prepared to enjoy the films as they were presented.

I will grant you, Return of the King was especially disappointing in that some of the most dramatic moments from the book fell flat on screen. The Pelennor Fields sequence is one wonderful dramatic peak after another in the book - but on film it came off as rather rushed and didn't give us the same kind of repeated catharsis.

Both forms of the work are brilliant of their kind, but I find I prefer the books overall. (Although the films do give me a whole sheaf of wonderful images that I can keep before my mind's eye when reading the books . . .)

[marith.livejournal.com]

I had to declaim some of Eowyn's speech to Trip in the car afterward, because it wasn't in the film :) Am hoping that both her triumph and Denethor's madness will be less abbreviated in the director's cut.

To me the films are no less magnificant because they could not duplicate the original; they are a tribute, not an intended replacement. But it'll take at least another year, another reread of the books and another viewing of the films to see them in perspective. (Oh, the horrible prospect...)

[drivingblind.livejournal.com]

I haven't seen the movie yet, and in fact, the only reason I have some sense of how it's going to end is because I saw the Ralph Bakshi abomination when I was young. Later in life I tried reading the books, and I discovered that Tolkein required the reading discipline I always lacked in order to make it through. I didn't make it more than a few chapters in. Too dry, obscure, long-winded, something. Whatever it was, the books never clicked, so in general, I'm going to go and see these movies very much in the context of them as standalone works, and to date, I've not been even a shade of disappointed with how they've turned out.

If you think that Tolkein's stuff really is a Great Work of Man, then look at it as Shakespeare, and the movies as a production thereof. Without the freedom to interpret, reorder, and *edit* the Bard's work, I would not have had the chance to see some truly stellar productions of Midsummer Night's Dream (Bottom's disillusionment at the end of the play, anyone? Dear gods, how that reframed the entire work), Richard III (in the Great War), and others. Only "purists" would miss the value that these performances had, and I can only look on them with a profound sadness.

Things like the movies don't kill or diminish the source. They add to it, accrete as a glowing armor, and ensure that it will shine for years to come. Forced to choose between either? If you've gotten to the point of having to make a choice, your cherished object has already lost something.

[incandescens]

Fair points, all. I think I was more than a touch angry when I wrote the above, though; I'd been reading too many lj/blog entries where the author felt it necessary to say how he/she loved the film but hated the books, as though they felt that they could only elevate the one by depreciating the other.

You're right. :) I shouldn't be choosing between either, I should be enjoying one as a facet/appreciation/homage of the other.

[captain-boots.livejournal.com]

In a way, Peter voices those same sentiments. He says at one point in the extras that the movies are the movies and the books stand on their own. Of course, he doesn't phrase it in the: if I could only chose one to save .. :)

They are, indeed, two entirely different ways of telling the same story and I'm not surprised if many prefer the book(s) over the movie(s). The books hold a place with me that no other book will fill; I think the difference with me is that I don't know the books as well as others so the changes weren't as troubling. I was just glad to hear some of the strong lines of the book delivered ....

'drums .. drums in the deep'
'not idly do the leaves of Lothlorien fall'

and so on. :)

[incandescens]

'not idly do the leaves of Lothlorien fall'

Oh, true. My mother and I cheered when we heard that one. ;)

[rvdammit.livejournal.com]

It sounds like by not having read them I will will have a better time at the movie.

[shellefly.livejournal.com]

You shall.
It's a wonderful movie, it just suffers by comparison.

[kit-hartford.livejournal.com]

Indeed. The only way to fully understand the motivations of some characters in the film you have to have read the books (Denethor's actions) or seen the extended versions of the previous films (the Phial of Galadriel, Denethor to a lesser extent, etc). I'm hoping some of the "missing" material will be in the extended DVD edition, but I'm surprised how rushed and/or compacted some sections of the film are (to squeeze it into 3:30 minutes).
[As an aside, its amazing how much difference even minor changes in the EEs make to some extant scenes in the theatrical versions, such as the "A chance for Faramir, Captain of Gondor, to show his quality" at Henneth Annun after the new Denethor/Boromir/Faramir piece at Osgiliath.]

I like the books and the films (and the BBC radio plays for that matter), each being different interpretations of the same story. Yes, there are changes to the films to make them fit the movie format (just as there were to the radio plays for the same reason) and while I don't agree with all of them, I do appreciate the reason for some of the additions/changes and structure modifications (check out the Jackson/Walsh/Boyens commentary on the Two Towers EE disk for more on the subject).

Now, I'll admit that while I love the LOTR books, I've never been a fan of Tolkien's poetry and am quite glad that it was used sparingly in the films (visions of "Thorin sits down and sings about gold" for those of you old enough to recall the old Hobbit game). Purely personal preference.

[multiplexer.livejournal.com]

I read LotR when I was 8, and what I remember of reading the books was skipping large swaths of them to get to the good parts.

Peter Jackson can do in one beautifully crafted sweeping shot what JRR Tolkein does in 6-8 pages of very long-winded expository text. And that, I appreciate.

You're never going to have those long monologues in a movie with all that arcane dialogue because, on film, they're boring. They lie like a thud on the page; they're unfilmable otherwise. The Bard is filmable because Shakespeare wrote for the masses and intended his stories to move briskly and entertainingly. Shakespearean works, for all their artistry and language, are still just pulp fiction designed to be consumed in big budget productions by the masses. JRR Tolkein never intended his books to be filmed, so he has time to fall in love with his own use of language and exposit for pages upon pages with long winded descriptions and monologues that do not, essentially, move the story forward.

The movies have to appeal to people outside of those who have read the books, and there are issues of shots, setup shots, establishing shots, and most of all, story pacing. Most of the dialogue was cut from the scenes because it is simply unnecessary -- Peter Jackson needs to establish the plot point in the story on screen and move onto the next scene, not linger. The story must move forward. Some story points are changed so that the story flows better in the context of a movie. Some are just cut because they don't move forward his vision of the books.

He has only three hours and change to cram in everything everyone wants to see and still, he has to cut an hour of story just so that his distributer will get it up on screens. Otherwise, the print won't ship at all. (And yes, he cut one hour 10 minutes of stuff -- I'm sure it will all be in the extended version.)

The story must be understandable in the context of the movies to people who have never and may never read the books. So he gets in, cuts anything that looks even vaguely unnecessary, and gets out. If he filmed the books word for word, the movies would be 8 hour long a piece and nothing would happen for hours at a time.

Millions of people will see Return of the King and think it's fantastic and never know -- and never care -- that this or that was missing. Heck, I don't care, and it's only interesting in framing what scenes got cut and what will be in the Extended version.

No one is going to come in and steal your books and say, "HA HA! Now that the movies are out, YOU MAY NEVER READ THE BOOKS AGAIN." They're different works. It's essential to remember that books and film are two completely different media with different aims and different ways of presenting information. No movie will ever be exactly like the book, and no book will ever be exactly like a movie.

[tanbi.livejournal.com]

(FTR the man's name is Tolkien- i before e.) I probably couldn't have gotten through LotR when I was 8, and possibly it was unwise to try at an age when your reading skills weren't up to handling the epic style. I read it when I was 16 and couldn't put it down, but by that point I'd also waded through Dickens and Hugo and Dumas so I was used to the notion of a style that was doing other things than just moving the plot forward. Oddly, telling a ripping yarn is not necessarily the most important part of a book. Language and the sense the language creates is equally and sometimes more important. The Time-speak version of LotR wouldn't have given me the same sense of vast ages and vast continents as Tolkien's archaic and considered style. The films don't give it to me either. Film action is ephemeral, happening in a constant now and over in an instant. You have to be a Kurosawa for film action to have weight.

But I wasn't brought up on TV and everyone else was. I fancy that may be why so many people have trouble reading a slow and crafted prose style. They want plot and they want speed- the good parts, as you call them- and find descriptions of ohh say, scenery and weather an unnecessary and boring distraction. De gustibus...
-mjj