| Bill Ferny |
12-15-2002 02:37 PM |
Knight, I have to agree.<P>I watched the NG documentary a long time ago, buying it well before the release of the Special Edition. After comparing the special with information from various web-sites you will see that the documentary’s outline of Tolkien’s life was accurate, but abridged and edited according the producer’s theme. Biography, after all, is a matter of interpretation on the part of the biographer, and is as much about the biographer as it is about the subject.<P>It is obvious that the special attempted an over all theme, and that theme being the preservation of what I would interpret as “folk life” (rather than “greeniness” versus the encroachment of industry and war. In relation to the theme the whole bit about Finland fit well, as did the visions of industry on the horizon of Tolkien’s boyhood home. As for the bit at the end, I think there is an equally legitimate parallel presented by the makers of South Park (in other words, it was contrived).<P>This theme did risk the loss of other important integers central to the work of Tolkien, for example, his Catholicism (completely absent from the documentary, if I’m not mistaken), his Edwardian upbringing, his utter devotion to his wife and children, or his other works of fiction. Even though the special gave a nod to his devotion to scholarly pursuits, I suspect that this was done in order to give the special more credibility, and not done as an attempt to inform us about Tolkien. For Pete’s sake, Tolkien was a professor of languages at Oxford University! Isn’t it obvious that he would be interested in scholarly pursuits? On this score, the NG documentary is open to much negative criticism.<P>If it had been presented in a well rounded manner, there would have been nothing wrong about the documentary’s emphasis. To a great degree Tolkien was affected by the vision of his pastoral boyhood home, and the stark realities of the industrial age. To think he was unaffected by this would be folly, especially since it didn’t take a NG special to realize the parallel at work long before there was even mention of a movie. Likewise can be said about Tolkien’s experiences during WWI, a particularly brutal and mindless war that proved more foolish in the established peace than it did when being fought. Would I go so far as to say that LotR is an allegory of the horrors of war? No, but certain parts of the documentary seemed to be saying that. Certainly, though, the experience of war, especially such a stupid war, couldn’t help but have an impact on Tolkien. For example, we see the Battle of the Last Alliance ending in ultimate failure because of the short sightedness of the victor, and thus ensuring a future struggle. While not being allegory, its more than possible that the reality of WWI found its place unconsciously in Middle Earth. In both cases, however, I wonder if Tolkien would consider these the main catalysts of his work, or even slightly significant in comparison to his Catholicism or family, to name but two examples? Of course, a positive example of either of these things is well outside of NG’s domain of expertise.<P>The loss of tradition, of “folk ways”, was something that spurred Tolkien to write, to create a mythology that he saw as lost to his beloved England with the Norman invasion. So, in a way the bit about Finland is completely legitimate as a modern counterpart to what happened in England in the years following 1066, and Tolkien’s use of the Kalevala is a good excuse to draw the parallel. The problem with this is that the history of Finland is very different from the history of England, and the forces at work in modern day Finland are very different than the forces of Norman feudalism at work in the 12th century.<P>The special simply accepted Tolkien’s view on this matter without question, anyway, despite the fact that such a view is ripe with romanticism. I wonder if they would afford the same luxury to, say, a pope or a conservative talk show host? At least us Tolkien fans can rest assured that NG rates Tolkien up there with Kofi Annan and Jimmy Carter in the unquestioned acceptance category. A better way to go would have been to challenge Tolkien’s view, to see if he and his kind were ultimately wrong about that pre-Norman tradition being distinctively “English” or being completely subsumed by another culture. However interesting as this may have been, NG, staying true to form, avoided a real issue and opted instead for their usual agenda.<P>This brings me to the documentary’s presentation of the Sutton Hoo find, one of its few redeeming characteristics, at least in regard to content. But they seemed to have missed the mark in applicability. At the time of the find, Tolkien had already written most the material that would be in the Silm and The Hobbit, so the find would actually have played very little in the formulation of Tolkien’s mythology. Once again the documentary missed an opportunity when it failed to ask how much of the Sutton Hoo find indicates an eclectic Saxon culture, as opposed to the homogenous, romantic view held by Tolkien.<P>All in all, I don’t think that a DVD that I paid $15 for a few months ago was worth the extra $30 tacked onto the extended collectors edition set, especially since that DVD isn’t even worth a buck.<p>[ December 16, 2002: Message edited by: Bill Ferny ]
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