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Originally Posted by mormegil
Yet the way he is actually depicted doesn't show the subtilty of his plan. The book version is great where we see Saruman try and convince Gandalf and use the logic that "our goal is to accomplish order and we can do so by claiming the ring". It seems to me that Saruman is a pawn of Sauron with no agenda of his own. I think this detracts from the actual character of Saruman and doesn't show the duplicitious nature of his treachery.
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I agree that they did simplify Saruman's true aims, and it did come across as though he simply wanted to follow Sauron. I think that they may have done this to simplify Saruman for the audience, who may not have coped with a 'bad guy' proposing a 'third way' suddenly materialising so close to the start of the story; the film focussed on the good/evil divide, and was complex a story enough without troubling poor cinema goers' minds with Saruman's true aims.
At least I hope that this wa sthe aim, as otherwise I would take it that they themselves misinterpreted the nature of Saruman.
Still, even without this, I do think that this was one of the best character depictions in the films, simply due to the sheer quality of Christopher Lee's acting! And there is a hint that Saruman is more clever than we are led to believe. As portrayed, you can see him thinking on his toes all the time.
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Originally Posted by mormegil
This definately works on film, if it were simply dialogue between Frodo and Gandalf or Elrond and Gandalf it would be rather boring and uneventful. In this instance we are able to see and feel Saruman much more on a tangilbe level and it at least shows us where Gandalf went after he abandoned the hobbits.
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Yes, it would have been incredibly dull to only have heard of Saruman through the talk of other people in the film. Not only that, but when we read the book, when we first actually meet Saruman, we can flip back to the pages where he was mentioned before and view that information in a new light. You can't do that with a film, so this was the only way I believe.
The other thing about Christopher Lee's voice being so suitable for Saruman is that he is able to convey 'command' or 'authority'. It's worth comparing him in LotR to how he acts in The Wicker Man; in this film again he uses his voice to convey a character who it is very difficult to defy.