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weaver
Gondolin
Dec 4 2007, 5:46pm
Post #1 of 10
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realism vs. fantasy....
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Since the boards are slower with a few of our regular features on a break, I thought I'd toss this one out there as food for thought.
I recently rewatched FOTR and TTT with my non-reader husband. He's very much a non-fantasy sort of person, who felt Tolkien was rather "silly" before he saw the films. After our latest viewings, he commented again, as he has before, about how amazed he was that Jackson and company had managed to convince someone like him that this sort of world was "real."
Now, Jackson has said often that the original thinking that led him to filming LOTR was the desire to make a realistic movie about a fantasy world. And certainly, in the case of folks like my husband, who have an aversion to fantasy, that kind of approach was pretty darn smart to bring someone like him to the theaters -- several times.
But what if Jackson had taken a more "fantastic" approach to the whole thing? The RR discussions on Tom Bombadil and Goldberry going on right now, for example, made me think of how it might have been interesting to see the films attempt to capture the sense of these "nature spirits" guised as Tom and Goldberry and communicate a sense of what lay behind the veil of them, so to speak. Timing concerns aside, is it possible to introduce a purely fantastic thing like that in a "realistic" sort of film? The beacons, for example, are a much more fantastic kind of sequence, but it's been viewed as over the top and not fitting to the realistic tone of the rest of the films.
Would the films have been as well received by critics, and by non-readers, if they had played up the mystical side of Tolkien -- if there had been more "mystery" to it, I guess, which is part of Tom and Goldberry's appeal. If Lothlorien's agelessness had been played up, or if the Barrowight scene had been included, complete with the hobbits being decked out in those ceremonial clothes, and the disembodied arm groping bit, etc.
Well, this has been a bit of rambling post, but I hope there are some thoughts in here worthy of discussion. I guess the main point is -- would a film that emphasized the fantastical side of LOTR over its realistic side have done as well?
Or did you feel that the films did capture both sides of the story quite well?
Any thoughts that come any where near close to this topic are welcome...and if anyone can help me say what I'm trying to say better, well I would appreciate the help!
Weaver
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Compa_Mighty
Dor-Lomin
Dec 4 2007, 8:29pm
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Tolkien treated his story as history, and Peter Jackson took that and made the ultimate historical movie.
Before anyone says anything, think about it. Compare LOTR's detail with that of many recent historical films. Every single aspect is more carefully done with Jackson's trilogy. Tapestries, the forging of weapons, the motifs of the decoration are coherent and carefully thought of before being executed.
Peter was a Middle Earth historical rigorist (except for some scenes like Elves in Helm's Deep, but that's not the point.) It was as if he took the textbook and brought it to life, with attention to every detail. When John Howe and Alan Lee, alongside with WETA, designed Middle Earth, they did not create imagery for an imaginary world, but rather tried to remake what existed a long time ago.
Historical rigor in Tolkien is also quite clear. Honestly, the Appendices are all about that. That's what makes Middle Earth feel real.
If you will, Tolkien is an ancient historian who writes about even older times... Peter Jackson's team were modern archaeologists and historian who took the things that were the least verosimile to try to portray the actual happenings of the time.
Middle Earth is Troy, Tolkien is Homer, writing about the Trojan War with Mars running through the battle and Jupiter intervening in the outcome of fights. Peter Jackson, is Wolfgang Petersen... taking the gods out, and leaving history in.
I believe we all agree who was a better interpreter of that ancient history.
Let it be heard! We want Jackson for The Hobbit!
Essay winner of the Show us your Hobbit Pride Giveway!
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weaver
Gondolin
Dec 4 2007, 9:10pm
Post #3 of 10
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..and I like your comparisons...
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I like what you said here:
If you will, Tolkien is an ancient historian who writes about even older times... Peter Jackson's team were modern archaeologists and historian who took the things that were the least verosimile to try to portray the actual happenings of the time.
Middle Earth is Troy, Tolkien is Homer, writing about the Trojan War with Mars running through the battle and Jupiter intervening in the outcome of fights. Peter Jackson, is Wolfgang Petersen... taking the gods out, and leaving history in.
This is one of the best things I've seen yet in terms of explaining the difference in "tone" or style between the books and the films; I am thinking it would help to frame things in these terms, when preparing a movie-firster for what to expect from the books...
Thanks for this insightful reply!
Weaver
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BuckyUnderbelly
Menegroth
Dec 9 2007, 5:45am
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The sense of historical realism is actually one of my very favorite elements of PJ's films. Because these movies are so firmly grounded in a believable, detailed and relatable reality, it's that much easier for us to follow these characters and invest in them emotionally. We don't have to bash through (or get rebuffed by) a barrier of the "fantastical" in order to connect with these characters. Regardless of whether we're talking about men, elves, dwarves or hobbits ... Tolkien's and PJ's Middle Earth makes a great deal of logical and historical sense. They all feel like real people with real cultures.
And it's all in the details. The tiny, tiny, often unseen details. Details you may never be aware of. PJ fleshes out the deep, deep backgrounds of his locations with so much detail that it sometimes feels like he just took a camera to a real Middle Earth and shot a documentary. The microscopic detail in the clothing, props, armor, weapons, sets, models, creatures, set dressings ... detail you may never have been able to see unless you were lucky enough to be there there in person ... give the whole world a depth and richness that films rarely achieve.
And the cumulative effect was that they created a sumptuously concrete world, and one that feels absolutely real. They did exactly what Tolkien did, only in a different way. The spirit is the same. Tolkien's attention to and ... well, let's be honest ... near obsession with ... the minutae of languages and cultural histories of Middle Earth is mirrored in PJ's attention to its clothing and architecture.
Unlike a lot of "fantasy" books and films, Tolkien's and PJ's Middle Earth feels so meticulously researched that it had to have been a real place. It's more like sociology than fantasy.
One of my favorite tiny details has to be in Bilbo's kitchen. Next to his kitchen sink, there's a tiny wooden dish rack with some tiny dishes drying in the sun. It's the kind of thing you may not notice the first few times through the film -- indeed, you may never notice it at all -- but it's such a heartbreakingly banal and domestic detail that it nearly makes me cry. There's something so ordinary and unfantastic about it that totally grounds the story. Hobbits aren't magical creatures ... they stand at their kitchen sinks and daydream out the window while washing the breakfast dishes ... just like we do.
So their pain, their joy, their excitement, their terror, their love ... is all instantly relatable. Accessible. Real.
And that's a beautiful thing.
"In Hollywood the screenplay is a fire hydrant. And there's a line of dogs around the block." -- Frank Miller
(This post was edited by BuckyUnderbelly on Dec 9 2007, 5:46am)
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FarFromHome
Doriath
Dec 9 2007, 7:56am
Post #5 of 10
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with everyone's take on the value of realism in the movies.
So I'll just try to add a comment about the other side of the coin, your question about whether a more "fantastical" LotR would also work. I think the problem with this approach might be, paradoxically, that film has a long history of creating fantasy. Right from the early Disney cartoons, a particular kind of fantasy world has become quite familiar to movie-goers, because it's something that camera tricks and/or animation can pull off well. The idea of making LotR along these lines may be what really gave Tolkien his fears about a movie version - he's known to have detested the Disney style. Because no matter how good such a fantasy film may be, the movie tradition seems to include an underlying self-consciousness that this is after all "just" a fairy-tale - adults at least feel the need to distance themselves a bit, and modern fantasies like Shrek acknowledge that deliberately by including lots of winks to the adults in the audience. LotR isn't like that. It isn't "just" a fairy-tale, or "just" a fantasy. It might have been tempting to try to film it that way, because that's what film actually lends itself to. But LotR is so much more, and PJ's historical setting is what makes the break with movie fantasy tradition and lets us enter the world fully, and relate to it as a serious, meaningful film for adult viewers.
...and the sails were drawn up, and the wind blew,
and slowly the ship slipped away down the long grey firth;
and the light of the glass of Galadriel that Frodo bore
glimmered and was lost.
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Lily Fairbairn
Gondolin
Dec 9 2007, 3:50pm
Post #6 of 10
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The reviewer for the local newspaper gave a good review to The Golden Compass, but then undercut it all by referring to it, the Narnia movies, and the Harry Potter movies, as "kiddie movies". In the past he's included LotR as a "kiddie movie" -- but I think he's gunshy of mentioning it any more. When he gave RotK a C+, his highest grade of the three movies, the newspaper got so many letters of protest that they printed up an entire page of them in the editorial section, and then got another reviewer to give RotK its "A".
I think it's this realism of the LotR movies that threw the original reviewer. He expects "realism" to be drug addicts and domestic violence (judging by the movies he does like) and seems much more comfortable with a very clear divide between fantasy and realism.
* * * * * * *
Do we walk in legends or on the green earth in the daylight?
A man may do both. For not we but those who come after will make the legends of our time. The green earth, say you? That is a mighty matter of legend, though you tread it under the light of day!"
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Loresilme
Doriath
Dec 10 2007, 8:02pm
Post #7 of 10
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That reviewer is just the type of reviewer I disagree with
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... that realism can only be drug addition, or domestic violence, or the seedy underside of life, etc. Please ... Realism is also emotions and issues that everyone deals with, which run all through LOTR. Elrond / Arwen, for instance, if you subtract the immortality / Elvish fantastical aspect, who cannot relate to the universal pain of a child growing up and making decisions that will result in separating from the parent? And Eowyn/Aragorn, ... unrequited love, anyone? Ring a realistic bell? Or Eowyn herself ... trying to find one's place in the world? Hardly fantasy.... or Theoden, facing the end of one's days and taking stock of one's shortcoming.... pretty basic stuff of real life, if you ask me. There are so many others, not to mention the overall deep, and sometimes dark question of, what would I do with power, if I really had it, and why?
If he was thrown by finding real life issues running through a 'fantasy' movie, then he should go back to reviewer school ... or wherever it is that reviewers go to decide that they are experts in that field  .
Whew... ok, vent over  !
I think what your newspaper did was great, to run all those contrary opinions! Good for them!
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Voorhas
Menegroth
Dec 10 2007, 8:12pm
Post #8 of 10
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I'd go as far to say that every work of fiction is a fantasy...even ones about inner city crime and drug addiction. They're all products of an author's imagination, and have their own distortions and cliches and conventions. It's the grimy stuff that always gets the Seal of Approval!
"They who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night." -- E.A. Poe
(This post was edited by Voorhas on Dec 10 2007, 8:15pm)
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sador
Gondolin
Dec 13 2007, 12:34pm
Post #9 of 10
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I agree with the gist of what most people said above.
But about Elrond and Arwen, I think Loresilme missed a major point.
One cannot substract the immortality aspect of it, since it is about everything.
Remember, Tolkien was a deeply religious man. A choice like Arwen's, is basically something like marrying out of the faith - you know it's not separation for the rest of this life, but for Eternity.
Another undercurrent might be Arwen's betrayal of her mother - Celebrian took the road to the Havens quite a few centuries before, expecting to be reunited with her family. She won't.
Of course, in Tolkien's world, choosing Man's fate is not equivalent to being eternally damned. But the sense of separation "that will endure beyond the circles of the world" (quoting by memory from 'Many Partings') is the same.
Possibly, most contemporary readers (even believers) find such a feeling hard to relate to; but that's what gives this story its real depth, and that's why I feel happy about the addition of Arwen's visions and choices in the films. And for some reason, I feel Hugo Weaving captured these emotions.
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weaver
Gondolin
Dec 13 2007, 1:05pm
Post #10 of 10
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Remember, Tolkien was a deeply religious man. A choice like Arwen's, is basically something like marrying out of the faith - you know it's not separation for the rest of this life, but for Eternity. I had never thought of Arwen's choice along the lines of marrying out of your faith. It's interesting that Tolkien provides her with an unknown, but potential form of salvation "beyond the circles of the world", given his strong beliefs and feelings. Thank you for this insight... **goes off to think about this one some more...**
Weaver
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About Arwen and Elrond
[