The
Lord of the Rings Movies
Part
I
The
Fellowship of the Ring
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| Movie Poster |
Peter Jackson’s trilogy of films based
on Tolkien’s three part series is undoubtedly one of the most successful movie franchises
ever and not just from a financial point of view. For to a surprising extent
the three movies are artistic successes and are excellent examples of successful
epic movie making that works artistically.
The first film is following Tolkien’s
novel’s The Fellowship of the Ring. And
this review covers that film.
Of course it is by now rather well known
that Peter Jackson filmed all three films at once in one of the most grueling
film shoots of all time. This was done to reduce costs, because the whole
effort was a huge financial gamble that in the end paid off quite handsomely for
New Line Films, the company that bankrolled the project. It appears that by doing
all the principle film shooting for all three films at the same time Peter
Jackson was able to reduce the cost by about ½.1
Now Peter Jackson, although a respected
film maker, was hardly well known to the movie going public when he became
involved in the making of Lord of the
Rings. His films before The lord of
the Rings were hardly huge box office. Although he had made at least one
truly outstanding film. 1994s Heavenly
Creatures about two teenagers in New Zealand who plot to murder the mother
of one of them and then do it. It is a good, well made, film but hardly epic.
It certainly gives little idea that Peter Jackson was up to making a big
budget, big screen epic with what appeared to be a cast of thousands.2
Now there had been efforts to bring The Lord
of the Rings to the big screen before and many people tried their hand at doing
something with it. In fact at one time The Beatles tried to be involved in
making a film version of The Lord of the Rings.3 What killed carrying out making the films
should be plain by simply reading the books. The sheer scale of any attempt to bring
the books to film life was in the end daunting to say nothing of the obvious
huge cost of such an effort. It simply was a daunting task, financially and
logistically to do so and failure to do so would result in a cheap and utterly
unconvincing production. So not surprisingly the project got nowhere.
And those efforts to bring The Lord of
the Rings to film life that were done were hardly reassuring in terms of
showing how it could be done.
I am referring to Ralph Bakshi Film of The Lord of the Rings (1978)4 that was
intended to be part I. However part II was never made. Not a surprise if you
have seen part I. Ralph Bakshi attempted to do The Lord of the Rings as a cartoon. A rather obvious and sensible
way to get around the staging, logistical problems of a live action Lord of the Rings. Sadly has indicated
above the effort was a commercial and artistic failure that is bluntly not very
watchable. It is not a complete failure some scenes are effective, (I am especially
referring to the depiction of the Nazgul.), but overall it looks cheap and
fails spectacularly.
If Ralph Bakshi’s effort is remembered
has a failure one effort that is not remembered at all, presumably because it
is so painful is the made for TV cartoon Return
of the King, (1980) which was a sequel to the equally bad made for TV
cartoon The Hobbit (1977). Now
blissfully forgotten it has the all too standard awful TV animation, very bad
voice acting and some beyond belief terrible singing in the Return of the King. And it condenses Tolkien’s
plot in a way that is idiotic to the point of absurdity.5
With that sort of history behind it I
would presume that Peter Jackson viewed making these films with some sort of trepidation.
Well he pulled it off. The films are
overall a success and the first film shows why.
One of the most inspiring and important
aspects of all three films and it is quite clear in the first film is location.
The
Fellowship of the Ring like its sequels was filmed in New Zealand. The outdoor
shots are gorgeous. The beauty of New Zealand is extraordinary. Not only did
Peter Jackson by filming in New Zealand show a great love of his birth place
but he showed good sense. The fact is New Zealand had within it a great variety
of landscapes all within relatively short distances from each other and all
looking suitably epic and imposing. This is augmented by great sweeping shots
of a truly epic looking series of landscapes.
If the cinematography is impressive so
is the editing. One of the most impressive scenes is Arwen’s ride. The sequence
in which the Elf Princess Arwen carrying an injured Frodo to safety and is chased
by the 9 Nazgul. The scene is a stunning example of truly effective camera
shots, editing and dead on right for the sequence music. It is also thrilling
to watch. It is simply a sequence that should be taught in film schools to show
how editing and film shots should be done to create excitement.
Of course the Arwen’s ride sequence is
also a telling indication of another way Peter Jackson worked with the film. The
simple fact is that Peter Jackson realized that Tolkien’s book in order to be
successfully made into a movie had to be tweaked. Thus Arwen’s ride. For in the
books Arwen is barely mentioned and her relationship with Aragorn is only
described in any detail in the appendices to volume 3. In fact in the book
Frodo rides to the ford on his own while injured and is their saved by an
Elvish lord. Peter Jackson got rid of that and gave us Arwen’s ride and gave us
an Arwen who did something.
Thus Peter Jackson knew that some stuff
just had, for very good reasons of film sense and frankly avoiding annoyance,
to be left out. Thus the truly annoying Tom Bombadil and every even mention of
him is left out of the movie. Also almost entirely left out of the movie is
Tolkien’s execrable poetry. Further Peter Jackson left out many of the touches
that Tolkien had in the book that supposedly made the Hobbit’s “cozy”, but
which instead made them annoying to the nth degree.
Regarding
the acting and actors involved. Peter Jackson managed to get a really good cast
together.
First there is Ian McKellen as Gandalf
in a truly impressive performance. The character is at once both ordinary and
extraordinary. He is too put it mildly absolutely convincing as an immoral wizard. The best scenes in the movie involving
this character are not Gandalf being a Wizard but Gandalf being difficult if
slightly daffy old man.
Elijah Wood has Frodo, an ordinary
creature, (Hobbits aren’t humans.), caught up in very unusual events givers a
performance that is very convincing as an everyman who finds everything beyond
his control and wants to have a life free from such worry and care. Further the
way the character is played by Elijah Wood manages to avoid the kiddie,
annoying “Hobbit” coziness that is so annoying in the book.
Aragorn ha
played by Viggo Mortensen is very much a conventional male action hero but with
a sense of gravitas that such characters usually lack. But then the character although
he looks like he is in his late 20s early 30s is in fact over 80 years old and
heir to the kingdom of Gondor so a sense of seriousness is not remiss.
Bilbo Baggins
as played by Ian Holm is a joy. He is at once both serious and playful and it
works. The only problem is a scene set at Rivendell when with a cheap grade B
movie look in his eyes Bilbo utters “my precious”. Yes I know Peter Jackson
wanted that but it is annoying.
Sean Astin as
Samwise Gamgee is pretty good at portraying Frodo’s dearest friend in what can
only be described as a truly serious bromance. The friendship is convincing and
conveyed by gestures and tone of voice.
Billy Boyd and
Dominic Monoghan who play Merry and Pippin aren’t bad but frankly far too much
of the Hobbit annoying characteristic survive in their performances.
Legolas and
Gimli played by Orlando Bloom and John Rhys-Davies are great fun. The witty
byplay between then and competition they have does not in the least conceal a
budding bromance.
Sean Bean who
plays Boromir is again convincing as an action hero and has someone whose great
weakness is to think that using something evil can be a good thing.
There is also Christopher
Lee as the villain Saruman who goes over to the dark side; so to speak. Christopher
Lee plays the character as an over the top villain who relishes in his villainy
and gives a performance that can only be described as campy. It is great fun to
watch.
There are
sadly very few female characters and frankly they don’t get enough film time.
However given what is in the books Peter Jackson would have had a really difficult
time giving female characters a lot more film time without completely
abrogating the plot of the books for the films.
Still he did
beef up Arwen’s role and as played by Liv Tyler she manages to come across as
both formidable and as a rarefied almost godlike figure. Which considering that
she is an immortal elf is not a surprise. It is not surprising that Aragorn
loves her. What is surprising is that she loves him back.
Cate Blanchett
who plays the Lady Galadriel manages to have, even more than Arwen a stunningly
rarefied beauty and is if anything even more unworldly than Arwen. She is
played as someone who is immensely old and wise and has a touch of weariness
with it all and deeply desires to finally rest.
Another
interesting aspect of the film making is how Peter Jackson filmed it so that the
Hobbits would / Dwarves would look significantly shorter than Humans and Elves.
This was not achieved with CGI but with truly effective use of perspective
tricks. In other words Peter Jackson did it the hard way and because of that it
is much more convincing than CGI.
The makeup and
sets are A++ convincing and effective. The makeup especially is outstanding. The
Orcs who required masses of makeup design actually look like they are real.
Peter Jackson even went to the trouble of differentiating between different
types and clans of Orcs and individuals so that if you pay attention the Orcs
are not one un-differentiated mass. The other very convincing makeup is the
dwarves who look “real” and are individualized.
Regarding the
costumes. They are convincing and actually look lived in.
I mentioned a
few problems with the acting in the film. Other problems are that the film is
both too long and too short. It leaves out a lot of the book, some to the good
and some to the bad. It tries perhaps too hard to have a lot of the book on
screen. The result is a feeling of being hurried through the proceedings. A lot
of back story is not explained, but then Peter Jackson would then have been
accused of boring the audience. So a sort of unsatisfactory compromising had to
be done.
Although the
CGI is generally quite good there are some scenes in which the CGI looks
hurried. The Rivendell sequences have some of that.
And another
problem that repeats itself in the two sequels is that we never meet Sauron. That
is and remains a problem that we never get the payoff, so speak, of meeting the
chief villain.
At another
time I will review the other films in the series but I do recommend that they
be watched as the good films they are. They are also proof that epic popular
film making does not have to be lowest common denominator stuff but can even be
art.
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| Movie Scene |
1. Lord
of the Rings (Film Series), Wikipedia
Here.
2. Peter
Jackson, Wikipedia Here.
4.The
Lord of the Rings (1978 Film), Wikipedia
Here.
Pierre Cloutier
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