Is all the "magic" gone?

[Bêthberry]

Wow! This thread is hopping!

But, even if we were to film the books ourselves with unlimited resources so that it matched our own visualisation in every respect (and the films certainly lived up to my own visualisation in very many respects), I am still not sure that the feeling would be the same when we watched it back. And that, I think, is because the "enchantment" arises when we use our imaginations as we read (the "progenitive" process as Tolkien put it). So the visualisation of the books can never hold the same enchantment for us as the books themselves. Mr. SaucepanMan

Interesting indeed. This idea from Tolkien that literature is more "progenitive', ie, stimulates the mind more, seems to support Eomer of the Rohirrim's point that no human actress-no actual representation--could be as successful as the image we create in our own mind from reading.

I'm not completely sold on this idea. It seems to me to be a little too close to the old idea that visual representations are inferior and even suspect. (I'm thinking of how the Puritans, for instance, banned drama and limited pictorial representations in their churches, a very different culture from that Tolkien knew in his Catholic churches.) I wonder what a visual artist would say to this idea that art restricts imagination.

But despite this argument, is it not interesting that Tolkien seems to have inspired a great many visual artists to attempt to depict his vision? Off the top of my head I cannot think of any other fantasy writer who has inspired so many artists. The names are legion; there are 207 artists represented on
Torania's Tolkien page , alone. It seems to me that there is some very compelling, very strong impetus in Tolkien's writing that leads people on to create images of Middle-earth.
Of course, this could be more evidence in support of SpM's point that literature inspires the imagination more than visual representations. Maybe we should see the movies as the latest in a long line of attempts at visual recreations of the printed page.

[Child of the 7th Age]

Maybe we should see the movies as the latest in a long line of attempts at visual recreations of the printed page.

Bethberry -

Yes, and no. If I could experience the films purely as a visual event, there are very few thing with which I would feel uncomfortable. Peter Jackson did an amazing job recreating the visual fabric of Middle-earth. Yes, there were things here and there that I thought could be improved on: a too young Frodo, a Lorien that needed more light and faerie (Oops! There's that word again!), the need for a Grey Havens which reflected what was happening to the Elves. But overall, I was impressed with how PJ handled this part of the retelling.

My problem with the movie did not lie in its visual depiction of Middle-earth, but in its treatment of character and plot. And again I would say that, for the most part, I could enjoy the movie while I was seeing it. The comparisons and wishing for more came after I walked out of the theater.

Tolkien: However good in themselves, illustrations do little good to fairy-stories.

Methink the author doth protest too much! And also SPM!

SPM: So the visualisation of the books can never hold the same enchantment for us as the books themselves.

Are you sure about that SPM? I am not. This may be a classic example of Tolkien saying one thing and, shortly thereafter, saying or doing another. Take a close look at Hammond's book on Tolkien as artist and illustrator. The author spent endless hours immersing himself in the chore of visualization, not merely in terms of LotR but the Legendarium as a whole. Tolkien wasn't much on drawing the human body, but he was quite good at landscapes. I don't think he would have made such a effort unless the task held more than casual interest for him, and this would have included the desire to convey some sense of the meaning in the books, the enchantment which draws us in. (That word seems to be popping up everywhere!)

And JRRT obviously gave serious thought to his ilustrators. Witness his intense dislike for Remington and his open admiration for Pauline Baynes. You get the feeling he thought Baynes "saw" Middle-earth in a very special way and was able to convey that to us. This sounds like more than merely a commercial interest.

Incidentally, I agree with the author on how special Baynes was. The slim little editions she illustrated -- Tom Bombadil, Farmer Giles, Smith, Bilbo's Song -- are among my favorites in my bookshelves. Bilbo's Song with its double pages -- one showing the old journey of The Hobbit and the facing one the new journey to the West -- let's us visualize the whole concept of life as a journey and the idea of the open road.

So I think you can have a successful visual expression of Middle-earth. And I would say that visually PJ himself came very close to that ideal. I did, for example, find his depiction of the Shire quite enchanting. I only wish the Grey Havens would have lived up to that. (Sometimes I wonder if PJ actually understood the ending of the book....)

[The Saucepan Man]

Bêthberry

It seems to me to be a little too close to the old idea that visual representations are inferior and even suspect.

I wouldn't say that visual representations are necessarily inferior to works of literature. They each have a different effect. Visual images stimulate the senses more than they do the imagination, while written works stimulate the imagination more than they do the senses.

I wonder what a visual artist would say to this idea that art restricts imagination.

But surely it's axiomatic that it does. A piece of writing and a visual rendering of that piece of writing will both stimulate the imagination of the reader/observer, but only the reader of the written piece will be using their imagination to create the visual image itself.

Maybe we should see the movies as the latest in a long line of attempts at visual recreations of the printed page.

Yes, I think that is a fair way of looking at them although, as moving images, they of course differ from illustrations in that they visually recreate the action as well as the characters and places.

Child

If I could experience the films purely as a visual event, there are very few thing with which I would feel uncomfortable. Peter Jackson did an amazing job recreating the visual fabric of Middle-earth.

I thoroughly agree. But even so, I think that there is something missing in the visual experience that is present in the reading experience. And, although it's part of it, I don't think that this is just down to the plot and character changes. I think that even if we lived in an ideal world where the films portrayed the characters, conversations and events exactly as they are in the book, something would still be missing. And that "something", I think, is the sense of enchantment that we get from creating the images ourselves while we read. Perhaps this is why (in my experience at least), this "enchantment" is at its most intense when we read the book for the first time.

Are you sure about that SPM? I am not. This may be a classic example of Tolkien saying one thing and, shortly thereafter, saying or doing another.

I don't think that Tolkien was saying that illustrations have no value in themselves. The point he was making, I think, is that, in the case of a "fairy-story", they will have less of an effect in stimulating the imagination than the text itself and that, for that reason, they are unlikely to enhance it. Funnily enough, I came across that extract from "On Faerie Stories" in a note to one of Tolkien's Letters to Pauline Baynes concerning the illustrations that she was doing for "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil". I think that he referred to it to it when agreeing to a point that she had made (although I can't recall the exact point and haven't got the Letters to hand).

I agree that Tolkien highly rated Pauline Baynes' ability to capture the essence of his works. However, I get the sense from his Letters that, where illustrations were included in his published works, this was at the insistence (or at least recommendation) of his publishers. I suspect that, left to his own devices, he would have done away with illustrations altogether (in his Middle-earth tales at least), and that he was only prepared to compromise because the illustrations used (his own and those of Pauline Baynes) were in line with his own vision.

So I think you can have a successful visual expression of Middle-earth.

I agree. In my view, the films are an example of just that, and I would include many among the multitude of artists inspired by Tolkien's works. But I would say that they are successful only as far as they can go. They will never capture entirely the enchantment that the reading experience brings us. So I stand by my statement:

... the visualisation of the books can never hold the same enchantment for us as the books themselves.

[Bêthberry]

Fair enough I suppose, Mr. SaucepanMan, to posit a difference between appealing to the senses and appealing to the imagination, although there was a time in European culture when images and symbolic representations stood in place of reading and I wonder if that more sensual experience involved less imagination. I am thinking particularly of my (limited) experience of European cathedrals--the Gothic use of light. Certainly Verseilles the palace requires reading as a narrative. (Well, maybe that is more like joining the dots. ) And modern performance art in my experience places great demands on what I would call my imagination, although what is going on there likely would fall into the category of 'making meaning' rather than 'forming images in one's mind'.

But this is to belabour a point which takes us away from the issue here of the nature of the enchantment in the movies and the books. I'm not sure, though, that I would agree that the enchantment works best on a first read. Tolkien said that it was war and the experience of war which brought him closer to his idea of Fairie. I can say that a rereading twenty years or so after my first, at a dying person's bedside, made me experience in far greater poignancy many of the passages in LOTR. Perhaps this takes us into definition of 'reading', 'meaning', 'creating.' Or perhaps it suggests I was a lousy first time reader of Tolkien

Child, I would agree with your point that Jackson's great accomplishment is his visual recreation of Middle-earth. Can we generalise that this applies more to his use of landscape than character? I would agree that his depictions of The Shire, of Rohan, of the plight of the refugees, of Gondor are very satisfying (and of the Grey Havens is less so). I am, however, on the whole less satisfied with the visual depictions of characters. (Perhaps this harkens to your point that you are most dissastified with character and plot in the movies.) Gandalf and Sam seem to me to capture an essence I feel in the reading and Boromir I think is better done in the film than the books because he is placed differently in the narrative. But the aching agony of Frodo and Sam (I would call this magic) which I feel when I read the the book was missing in the movie and as the movies progressed I felt less and less I was seeing the Frodo I had imagined. Seeing the representations of the orcs and oliphants--generally the villains--was bothersome to me--and this was in the watching, not afterwards. I wonder if this suggests something about Jackson's own imagination and powers as a film-maker or if it tells us something more about the nature of the enchantment Tolkien created.

I only wish the Grey Havens would have lived up to that. (Sometimes I wonder if PJ actually understood the ending of the book....) Child

Do I hear a tiny bell ringing the possibility of a thread? Or at least, to discuss the varieties of interpretation.

[Lalaith]

Interesting discussion about visualisation. One of the reasons I enjoyed the films so much was that they visualised for me things that I hadn't really been able to conjure up in detail in my imagination - the physical surroundings and settings of the book. I had strong and definite ideas about Tolkien's people, but not so much about his places, and the way that these places came to life on film actually enhanced the 'magic' for me, as far as that went.

My complaints are more to do with characterisation. Tolkien used the terse, non-psychological writing style of heroic/mediaeval literature. Motives and inner dialogue are NOT spelt out, part of the magic is speculating for yourself what is going on beneath the surface of action. Having motivation either discussed on screen, or simply fabricated in an attempt to give the characters more 'texture' to appeal to a generation reared on psychobabble, did rather dispel the magic for me.

[The Only Real Estel]

Interesting discussion about visualisation. One of the reasons I enjoyed the films so much was that they visualised for me things that I hadn't really been able to conjure up in detail in my imagination

Exactly the way it is with me, places in the movies like Rivendell & the Shire really aided my imagination, sometimes I have a little trouble straightening out what I think things look like . Characters too, I was a little bit iffy on Aragorn, but as soon as I saw Viggo playing the part, I knew that's the way I'd always imagined him. Of course, as has already been pointed out, the movie will probably restrict your imagination in some ways, but for me it aided mine easily as much as it restricted it, quite possibly more.

[Lobelia]

Originally Posted by Lalaith

My complaints are more to do with characterisation. Tolkien used the terse, non-psychological writing style of heroic/mediaeval literature. Motives and inner dialogue are NOT spelt out, part of the magic is speculating for yourself what is going on beneath the surface of action. Having motivation either discussed on screen, or simply fabricated in an attempt to give the characters more 'texture' to appeal to a generation reared on psychobabble, did rather dispel the magic for me.

I think we have to understand, here, that film and novel are two different experiences. A film that had everyone acting like the heros of a Nordic mediaeval saga would fall flat. We have to care about the characters - and I should add that one of the things I loved best about the novel is that I did care deeply about them, admittedly the hobbits being easiest to care about, but all of them, yes.

Think of the film as an interpretation, like a piece of music or a painting or sculpture. It might or might not work for you, but it's valid. Now, me, I wouldn't have pictured Viggo M as Aragorn, who is not, to my way of thinking, meant to be a hunk (though there was the case of the woman whose husband wrote an annoyed letter to Tolkien basically complaining he was having to compete with a fictional character... [g]). But once I saw him and heard that melodious voice, watched his interpretation, I accepted him - he has become Aragorn for me.

And I also think that while it's fair enough to say, "Cate Blanchett's Galadriel didn't work for me", there's no point in blaming the poor woman for not being like a genuine Elf! Sorry, we don't actually HAVE any Elves to act in our films, or I'm sure PJ would have hired some. In the end, it's just going to be a matter of how we see them ourselves, in our minds, and I think, guys, we will all have to agree to disagree.

[Legolas]

The magic was lost to me in the corny gloss spread over a lot of the affair. Gimli's stupid "funny" comments in the face of the impending end of the world, Gollum's "split personalities" always talking to each other (real split personalities are unaware of each other usually, and it was just stupid), Pippin made out to be a 5 year old, some of Aragorn's "moving" speeches, the odd, misplaced emphasis on Arwen (the inserted scenes in movies 2/3), etc. The first movie was my favourite overall...most consistent in the 'enchantment' category. The third movie had some great parts, but fell in a couple of places that disrupted the flow. Some of the best lines from Gandalf in the book (some of the best lines in the book, period) were left out - they could've been used when he's talking to Pippin in Minas Tirith.

I thought Galadriel was done wonderfully. Susan Sarandon was/is too old looking. No matter how old she is, Galadriel was an elf, and I can't see Sarandon being made to work in either respect (age or elven-feel).

[Vanya]

Well, I don't know ant actor that could be beautifull enough to be an Elf, even with all the make up and effects. Maybe among the models...Anyway, I think that it's good that they used actors that are not too famous (like Pitt, or de Niro, or Clooney, or Julia Roberts and Sharon Stone for example). The cast was made very wise, out of good actors, but now we could really except them as characters from the book more easily.

[Essex]

Child, your post re jackson's visualisation:

I did, for example, find his depiction of the Shire quite enchanting. I only wish the Grey Havens would have lived up to that

What exactly did you see wrong with jackson's visualisation? I thought, like the music at this point, it was marvellously understated. We could have had some real tearjerking material both with music and speech, but like Tolkien does, he keeps it to a bare minimum.

Or do you have a problem with the 'style' of the grey havens. I would say a harbour is a harbour. Does it really matter what it looks like? In my visulation, for some reason I always saw the grey havens in my mind's eye as a jetty on a beach. Jackson's was somewhat more grander, but I do not mind this. I think the havens look beautiful and melancholy.

A second point on another post re your problem with character and plot. Where does Jackson deviate from the plot to its detriment? Yes, we have aragorn 'dying' and the hobbits taking a detour to osgiliath that I don't agree with, but the journey remains the same, and the plot (mainly) is not different from the book.

ring found, ring goes on a journey, descision taken, ring taken south, frodo runs off with sam, the rest go their seperate ways, rohan saved, minas tirith sacked, treachery of gollum, spider dies, witch king defeated by hobbit and woman, victory on pellenor field, frodo taken by the Enemy, Frodo saved by Sam, King fights at the black gate, hobbits climb up mountain, Frodo assumes control of ring, Frodo's finger's bitten off, ring destroyed, hobbits honoured, king crowned, hobbits go home, ring bearers head West.

ok, so we don't have old forest, tom, barrows and scouring, but these are no as much plot changes as deletions!

[Bêthberry]

Lobelia, I suspect this comment was directed to me, as I think I am the only one here who has explicitly expressed disappointment with Galadriel's depiction.

and I also think that while it's fair enough to say, "Cate Blanchett's Galadriel didn't work for me", there's no point in blaming the poor woman for not being like a genuine Elf! Sorry, we don't actually HAVE any Elves to act in our films, or I'm sure PJ would have hired some.

My point was not to "blame" Blanchett for her looks or for failing to look genuinely elven. My comments address the artistry of acting and movie making and not personal appearance per se.

Have you ever seen a picture of someone who is beautiful in the light of day but who is not photogenic, who the camera betrays? Or the converse, someone who appears pleasant but perhaps rather ordinary in appearance but who on film becomes something more, a wholly other person or representation? This difference is what I am referring to: The measure of artistic creation.

Ulmo/Legolas,

I thought Galadriel was done wonderfully. Susan Sarandon was/is too old looking. No matter how old she is, Galadriel was an elf, and I can't see Sarandon being made to work in either respect (age or elven-feel).

Fair enough that you feel this way about Sarandon. I think of her work in Dead Man Walking but not all need have the same response I do. Nor, indeed, is she the only actress I can think of as Galdriel. Michelle Phiffier? If Sarandon is too old for you, I suspect that Angelica Huston would be even farther off the mark.

I can understand how people are happy with Galadriel's depiction in the movie. After all, if we have only LOTR to go on, not the Silm, nor Tolkien's post-writing commentary where he rewrites her back into the Legendarium, then we are left with the description, "No blemish or sickness or deformith could be seen in anything that grew upon the earth. On the land of Lórien there was no stain." Yet this power which Haldir says is "the power of the Lady of the Galadrim" is the power which Haldir also says, "perceives the very heart of the darkness." This power I did not feel, only the very lovely loveliness. Everything else was technical pyrotechnics.

But tell me, did it not strike you as strange that Elrond should look older than his mother in law? Perhaps this is indeed a suggestion that the days of Rivendell are numbered but it remains a disappointment to me.

So, in all, I agree with those here who feel that Jackson was better at capturing the magic of Tolkien's landscapes--Essex despite your acceptance of the Grey Havens it remains for me more a departure on a luxury Caribbean excursion than sailing away to another realm entirely. It is too happy and pleased with itself, too much the requisite happy Hollywood ending.

Child, SpM has graciously asked permission to restore post # 37, which I deleted feeling it was off-topic. Subsequent posts have made it less so, but I would like to draw your attention to a comment I made to you at the end: there's a thread for you in the making, I think.

[The Saucepan Man]

I was listening to the RotK soundtrack the other day, and it occurred to me that there is one way in which a representation of the book on film might, in some respects, convey more "magic" than the book itself. (Have you guessed? )

Unless you are an unfeasibly talented musician, I doubt that any of us imagines a score to accompany the words while we are reading the text. But, properly done, a film score can add greatly to the "magic" of the events being portrayed on film. And I think that Howard Shore acheived this "with bells on" throughout much of the trilogy. His Elven theme, for example, puts me directly in touch with that feeling of enchantment that I felt on first reading the book. For me, it stunningly evokes the sadness and the fading beauty of the Elves. It conveys sheer "Elvishness". And the score which accompanies the events at Sammath Naur is incredibly powerful, and serves to underline the gravity and the sheer significance of those events. There are, I think, many other examples of this too. I only have to listen to that overrriding theme which starts each film of the trilogy to feel a sense of marvel and wonder.

So here, I think, is one area, where the film does have an added ability to convey the "magic" over the books. Although I still feel that the books win out because, even though we might not have our own score running in our head while we read, the sense conveyed by the score is still there, I think, while we read. For me, it was Shore's genius which actualised that sense in musical form.

I agree with Essex on this one...the final film WAS almost perfect. Obviously, I'm a bit biased to to think that everything 'Sam' is awesome, but Sean Astin really hit me with RotK. I mean, he just gave to much to the emotions and thoughts of Sam...his facial expressions, the way he said the lines, everything. The first 2 films WERE great, but the magic is just really there for me in the last one. Know what I mean? I know this kinda doesn't make sense...but you just get this feeling watching it. I don't know how to describe it. It's the same feeling I get reading the books. It just really is~ magical.

[Kath]

The problem is that there is no conceivable way that Peter Jackson could have made the films acceptable to every single person who watches them. If he had put in all the history of Middle Earth to explain why things are firstly the film would have been about a week long and secondly he'd have lost a large chunk of the audience. He had to sacrifice some things to give people who aren't familiar with the books a chance to experience it.
I agree that because of this some of the magic of the books was lost - like the missing Tom Bombadil scenes, that was a shame. However some of the things that he did do were absolutely perfect. For example the scene where Gollum was crawling down the Emin Muil with the moon behind him. I have had that picture in my head for years since I first read the books and to see it depicted on the screen like that really was a magical moment.
And as for the Galadriel thing - I only skim read this thread so I don't know who it was - but the person who said:
We don't have any real elves to act elves
has a darn good point.