Screencap of the Day, 10.25.10 -- Denethor's domain...

[weaver]

Happy to be your hostess for this first post in a new round of Screencap of the Day!

Today I bring you this look at Gondor's Throne Room:

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While there are many great character shots in this sequence, I picked this one because it's one of the few images that give you a sense of the throne room setting where some key scenes play out..

Questions to consider -- pick one or more, or just add your own thoughts:

1. First reactions? This setting has always looked like a stage, to me, and in past discussions, some have also referred to this as "Denethor's chessboard." Do these analogies fit, for you? What elements help to draw those types of associations?

2. Do you like the look of the throne room? Did it match your sense of this place from the books? What features stand out for you? Why is this place so black and white -- and so empty?

3. Here, we've got Faramir observing an interaction between Denethor and Pippin; in a few minutes, we'll get Pippin observing Denethor's actions toward Faramir. Was Denethor just getting two pieces of business done before lunch? Or was this set up done deliberately, and if so, why would Denethor do that?

4. What's up with those unnamed servants hovering around the edges? Were they just there to serve the food? Or is Jackson up to something, in this case, by having these figures in the background?

5. Other comments on this image?


Thanks and have fun with this -- appreciate all who comment and lurk!

 

[Richie Rich]

I love that shot of the throne room, it really gives you a good sense of scale.

1. First reactions? This setting has always looked like a stage, to me, and in past discussions, some have also referred to this as "Denethor's chessboard." Do these analogies fit, for you? What elements help to draw those types of associations?

I wouldn't say it looks like a stage, but the amount of empty space definitely gives it a distinct feel. Unfortunately I don't understand the "Denethor's chessboard" reference.

2. Do you like the look of the throne room? Did it match your sense of this place from the books? What features stand out for you? Why is this place so black and white -- and so empty?

I really do like the look of the room. The columns, the lack of color, and the sheer length really add to the "feel" of the space. I think this was done to help emphasize the coldness and emptiness of Denethor himself.

3. Here, we've got Faramir observing an interaction between Denethor and Pippin; in a few minutes, we'll get Pippin observing Denethor's actions toward Faramir. Was Denethor just getting two pieces of business done before lunch? Or was this set up done deliberately, and if so, why would Denethor do that?

It seems intentional to me. Almost as if Denethor is "flexing his muscles" with a very deliberate and specific "audience", if that makes any sense.

4. What's up with those unnamed servants hovering around the edges? Were they just there to serve the food? Or is Jackson up to something, in this case, by having these figures in the background?

I think adding a couple more people in the background was fantastic. It helped give the room a bit of life, without overdoing it.

5. Other comments on this image?

I love how the throne itself sticks out like a sore thumb!

 

[macfalk]

1. Hmm.. I don't know! But I love this set. It's grand. You get the impression of that Denethor sits there on his black throne plotting all day long.

2. Yes I do. Like my picture from the book? Perhaps not, hard to describe but I think they did a great job with this one. Black & White? Well, it's The White City after all. Black pillars for the contrast to form a majestic design.

3. No idea!

4. That is indeed a great question. I suppose a few servants are needed for Denethor's everyday requests but those servants standing beneath a pillar there - seems like a pretty random positioning to me.

5. Good pic and questions, Weaver []

 

[Darkstone]

“I do not love the bright sword for it's sharpness, nor the arrow for it's swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend. NOT!”
-Denethor II (You mean there was another one???)


Questions to consider -- pick one or more, or just add your own thoughts:

1. First reactions?

Chessboard.


This setting has always looked like a stage, to me, and in past discussions, some have also referred to this as "Denethor's chessboard." Do these analogies fit, for you? What elements help to draw those types of associations

The statues, the construction, all remind me of my old black and white marble chess table and pieces. It’s strengthened by the sense that Denethor is playing a game with his own sons as chess pieces to sacrifice and “spend”. He could just reach out, call his allies, call Theoden, and save his nation and his people. But that way *he* wouldn’t “win”. It’s the one-on-one game he’s playing with Sauron that’s important. The stakes, the lives he’s supposedly responsible for, the rest of the world, are irrelevant.


2. Do you like the look of the throne room?

It’s nice.


Did it match your sense of this place from the books?

Nope. (Thankfully.) I’d pictured something with wooden panels, a bit dusty, with smoking torches. Glad to see someone else’s interpretation.


What features stand out for you?

The King’s and Steward's thrones appear to be in tandem. But looks are deceiving. (This means something.) On closer look, they’re not. If the King’s throne was brought down the Steward’s seat would be on the left side. Note that in the Meduseld it was the opposite. The counselor’s seat, held by Grima and later by Gandalf, was on the right.

I note those exactly correspond to the pilot and copilot seating in a helicopter versus fixed wing aircraft. The pilot seat in a helicopter is on the right, in a fixed wing aircraft the pilot’s seat is on the left. They're mirror images. Like maybe the rulers of Gondor and Rohan?

Anyway, the king’s throne is impossibly high, which matches Denethor’s impossible expectations of any candidate for king. The throne is too high for any mere man to aspire to. (I imagine it was raised higher and higher in each renovation. Eventually it will be raised clear out the ceiling, out the roof, and finally be balanced high on the very tippy top of the Tower of Ecthelion.)


Why is this place so black and white -- and so empty?

That’s Denethor. Everything now is just win or lose. It’s the emptiness that occurs when winning becomes the only thing. He’s forgotten what he is fighting for.


3. Here, we've got Faramir observing an interaction between Denethor and Pippin; in a few minutes, we'll get Pippin observing Denethor's actions toward Faramir. Was Denethor just getting two pieces of business done before lunch? Or was this set up done deliberately, and if so, why would Denethor do that?

It’s interesting that Denethor thinks he can find loyalty and songs and devotion only from someone outside Gondor.


4. What's up with those unnamed servants hovering around the edges?

They’re bean-counting bureaucrats from New Line.


Were they just there to serve the food?

No. They’re also there to take away the food. And to clean up the food. And to clean up Denethor.


Or is Jackson up to something, in this case, by having these figures in the background?

The Meduseld also has bureaucrats lurking about in the background during the entrance of The Three Hunters and again when Aragorn bursts in to deliver news that the beacons were lit. Maybe when they need bureaucrats lurking in the background in The Hobbit that’s where they can stick in the buxom blonde starlets in business miniskirts everyone seems to think that the average moviegoer won't come to see the movie without.

I do note they’re suspiciously like the priests in the background in the scene of Ladyhawke (1985) where they watch Etienne and Marquet joust in the cathedral of Aquila, then stand by as the Bishop starts to stab Isabeau in the back with his staff that turned into a kind of spear, and then they finally freak out when Etienne skewers the Bishop with his bastard sword. All to the 80s rock beat of the Alan Parsons Project.


5. Other comments on this image?

That’s a long way down. Somebody could break his neck if he took just one wrong step getting up off the throne. Which I guess is exactly why Gondor has no king. King Elessar needs to be well-balanced in his rule in more ways that one.

 

[Alientraveller]

In the Appendices Alan Lee states they based it on Charlemagne's Chapel, which was cool and another example of how Middle-earth blends history and fantasy.

As others have pointed, the starkness of the black-and-white and largely empty throne room emphasises Denethor's state of mind and the fall of Gondor. Gandalf asks where are Gondor's armies, well where are the civil servants too? In fact, as amazing a set it is, and it was a very large set according to the Appendices, it actually seems rather small, I thought there were statues of every king? Who decides what king gets a place there? In any case, if it's merely the front room, then that makes Minas Tirith's Great Hall all the more stupendous.

 

[Gimli'sBox]

But, it didn't post. Grrr. I wrote a big post, then oof: gone, and I didn't have the heart to write it again. And I've always wanted to try these out. So here is the second try.

1. First reactions? This setting has always looked like a stage, to me, and in past discussions, some have also referred to this as "Denethor's chessboard." Do these analogies fit, for you? What elements help to draw those types of associations?
I like the open space look. I always thought that they were trying to show how big it was and how much bigger it seemed to Pip. He was all alone it a huge city. Plus if it does look like a stage I think that is pretty cool to with them trying to balance the whole feel between Shakespeare and fantasy. I also agree with the other elements fellow sibs have been naming- Denethor's state of mind, Denethor using Faramir as a pawn, etc.

2. Do you like the look of the throne room? Did it match your sense of this place from the books? What features stand out for you? Why is this place so black and white -- and so empty?
Love it. I really love the crown above the throne. Very nice detail. It is a bummer that you don't get to see it very well in the movie. The only way I noticed it was by watching the special features. And I really like the Steward's chair. Looks awesome. Btw, great stuff about the mirroring thrones!

3. Here, we've got Faramir observing an interaction between Denethor and Pippin; in a few minutes, we'll get Pippin observing Denethor's actions toward Faramir. Was Denethor just getting two pieces of business done before lunch? Or was this set up done deliberately, and if so, why would Denethor do that?
They where talking about this in the writers commentary. Like they wanted Faramir to feel like he had to go fight otherwise Denethor would send Pip in his place.

4. What's up with those unnamed servants hovering around the edges? Were they just there to serve the food? Or is Jackson up to something, in this case, by having these figures in the background?
Idk, really. Maybe they were thrown in. Maybe they were there for a reason.

5. Other comments on this image?
Thanks for putting up here! I've got the chance to do one before. After I created an account the quit and I was like "what?"[laugh]

 

[weaver]

Or was that not the kind of muscle flexing you meant? []

Both book and movie Denether are pretty cold and calculating types -- Movie Denethor, though, seems to really enjoy having an audience for his actions. Everything is quite a performance for him!

 

[weaver]

In both cases, you've got this silent group of witnesses to the action taking place, which they can't really influence at all.

These guys, here are pretty stiff and formal -- the ones who watch Faramir are full of emotion and heart. If they were furniture, the first set would be a formal dining room set, the second, well worn living room pieces. That's a pretty bad analogy, I know, but best I could come up with until I make more coffee

 

[weaver]

I'll have to watch the appendices to see if the kind of symbolism you're talking about was indeed part of their thinking -- well, it certainly works well that way, even if it wasn't!

Airplane analogies? Now, that's a new one...I do like your comparison between the positioning of the counselor's seat in Rohan and in Gondor, though.

I've worked with a few Denethors in RL who play the steward role very well -- feigning that what they do is in service to the person in charge, but really isolating and removing the leader from the action in order to get a personal agenda enacted, or to just have power without having to earn it...those who say LOTR is black and white in terms of how it presents bad guys would do well to study Denethor; he's a great and complex villain, even in the only very highly distilled version of him we get in the films.

 

[weaver]

He does a good job of explaining how you can view this set through that lens...

I agree with you that somehow this very large set seems very small -- I suppose it's because it's hard to get a sense of the scale of the place, mostly because it's so empty, I guess, or lacking the kind of things that would give you a human frame of reference for it. Kind of like Denethor, really, he's got a large responsibility, but he's locked himself into a very small way of seeing the world, and he's lost his perspective on things.

I always feel sorry for poor Faramir and Pippin here, forced to stand there without anything to lean on, or sit on. They always look like they are on trial, to me...

 

[weaver]

I have learned the hard way that I should remember to highlight my post and hit "copy" in case I need to to do that...or at least to preview it somewhere along the line.

Nice observations on Pippin here -- I had not thought before about how the setting here would mirror Pippin's sense of being lost in this big city. That bit about Faramir feeling that Pippin would need to fight if he did not was interesting, too. I guess I'm so focused on the Boromir/Faramir and father/son relationships in this scene I forget that Pippin's position, here, would be impacting Faramir as well. It makes perfect sense he'd be sympathetic to Pippin, who probably reminds him of himself at a younger age. Especially when the deleted scene between these two characters, about Pippin wearing Faramir's armor, is included.

It's clear they put a lot of thought into the Pippin/Faramir interaction, even if some of it is not seen on screen, at least in the TE. That helps, I think, to provide a basis for why Pippin feels such a need to try to save Faramir from Denethor later on.

 

[Arwen's daughter]

And I've struggled every time it comes up to explain exactly why I don't like it. Let's see what I come up with this time.

I have a hard time unmarrying it with Charlemagne's chapel and other Roman & Byzantine buildings. It feels, to me, that they stripped the ancient architecture of all of it's character, it's opulence and decadence, and left us with an empty husk. I recognize that PJ et al. likely wanted to convey this sense of loneliness and emptiness, but it just doesn't work for me.

Denethor is a proud man, and he's a vain man. We see this in his costume and his insistence on wearing armor as though he's still a soldier. We see it in every interaction he has with the characters around him. Where is this vanity in his halls? Where is Gondor's show of wealth in gold and gems? Why are the lush velvet and fur of Denethor's costume not reflected in curtains, carpets, and tapestries on the walls? I'm sure that some of this was meant to distinguish them from Rohan, who have tapestries and banners to spare, but something about it is just off for me. They could have brought in so much more: golden candelabras and stained glass windows, incense and mosaics.

The throne room doesn't just look empty to me; it looks bleak. It looks like an artists rendering of a ruined building "before" but without any concern for the paint and the decorations that would have been there. It looks like Denethor moved into an empty house and never bought any furniture for it.

And perhaps that was the filmmakers' intent all along...

I may have just talked myself into understanding this set. Only took me 7 years [laugh]

 

[Richie Rich]

I may have just talked myself into understanding this set.

Don't you love it when that happens!

 

[weaver]

And a good one at that...[]

It also makes a lot of sense. If Denethor never "moves in" it communicates that he's just a temporary ruler...if he's just filling in for awhile, there's no need to unpack, is there?

I suspect all the gold and silver is kept in his quarters...you're right that anyone wearing that robe would like to surround himself in luxury and symbols of power, at least in private...

 

[squire]

I agree with you. Very well expressed. Both that the set is woefully underdressed (it is also under scale, and it shows in lots of ways), and that the filmmakers say or believe that that was a positive thing. The official line is that it wonderfully conveyed the proper message about the moral and political state of Gondor under the Stewards -- especially in comparison to the hall at Edoras with its rich decor.

But I say, stick to your guns. There are far more realistic degrees of bleakness and monochromatic finishes, appropriate to the nexus of the greatest empire of Middle-earth. The best demonstration of this is, look at the model of the city - detail, detail, detail (on a different scale, of course, but the point carries). I think the designers missed their mark, and have been tap-dancing to cover it up ever since. As you say, the bleakness goes beyond a subtle statement of dynastic decay, and simply looks unfinished, even poverty-stricken. Edoras too was "sick" when Gandalf showed up there to heal Theoden, but that set is a great big pillow pit of gorgeous texture and nordic wealth. Indeed, I have long suspected that when building and filming this set for the Great Hall of Minas Tirith they *whispers* ran out of money and time, - and justified it with too much protest about its brilliant design "message".

 

[N.E. Brigand]

It may not work in the film, but the book describes a spare decor that fits with Denethor's ascetism.

The door opened, but no one could be seen to open it. Pippin looked into a great hall. It was lit by deep windows in the wide aisles at either side, beyond the rows of tall pillars that upheld the roof. Monoliths of black marble, they rose to great capitals carved in many strange figures of beasts and leaves; and far above in shadow the wide vaulting gleamed with dull gold. The floor was of polished stone, white-gleaming, inset with flowing traceries of many colours. No hangings nor storied webs, nor any things of woven stuff or of wood, were to be seen in that long solemn hall; but between the pillars there stood a silent company of tall images graven in cold stone.

I don't think the table the film includes would be found in the book's version of that hall. Denethor receives guests here; he dines in a private chamber.

 

[batik]

First reaction...it is impressive to look at but I would not want to hang out too long. Chessboard? I can see that. Obviously, the faint outlines of the "squares"/tiles of the floor play a part in the illusion. Faramir, standing there like a knight about to be moved, just adds to it.

I like the look of the room well enough to take a walk through and check out all the carvings and such--rather like a museum. The black and white decor--didn't Hildy and Doug do this on Trading Spaces? []

Those *lurkers*--this reminds me just a bit of those guys that were hanging around in the Golden Hall.

Perhaps Squire is on to something with regards to budget issues--thus the table being present when, as NEB pointed out, it should be in another room. (Move the table in or build another set?)

 

[Silverlode]

that this hall wasn't meant to be the principal throne room of the kingdom. There must have been a much grander one in Osgiliath. This is the hall of the Tower of Guard. It's spartan in style because it's a military command post as much as a hall of state.

 

[N.E. Brigand]

Minas Anor became the capital of Gondor in 1640, and wasn't renamed Minas Tirith for another 400 years. Surely Osgiliath was even grander, but the Tower of the Sun/Guard has been the seat of royalty and power of such stature and history as few real-world cities can match.

 

[Silverlode]

I stand corrected. And yet, as Tolkien described it, the hall is nearly bare.

Perhaps all adornments were removed in mourning when the last of the Kings died and the Stewards chose to keep it that way out of symbolism, in keeping with their plain chair at the foot of the steps. The White Tree is dead and the Throne Room is empty, waiting for the return of the King.