Frodo v's Elijah

[Child of the 7th Age]

PS Apologies if I've got anyone wrong, but just because he's not 'your' Frodo from the books should not cloud your judgment on whether Elijah wood acted well or not, should it?

Essex -

My perspective on this is different than your own. I find it difficult to separate the character from the actor. This is not only true of LotR, but of other movies as well. If am ill at ease with the way a particular character is depicted in a film, then it is difficult for me to say that the individual did an excellent job in acting. For me, a great or even good performance is made up of two elements. One is "behind the scenes" and is the responsibility of the screenwriter and director. The other lies in the hands of the actual actor. Unless the screenwriter and director come through, there is no way that an actor can give a true quality performance.

This is one of the problems I have with Elijah Wood, whom I did find disappointing when compared, for example, with Sean Bean, Sean Astin, Christopher Lee, the two Ians, or even Viggo. How much of my disappointment lies with Elijah and how much with PJ and Boyens? That's hard to determine. I only know I found the constant eye rolling and falling to the ground both melodramatic and overly simplistic, lacking the subtlety that I saw in Frodo in the book scenes. I do not think that Elijah came up with all this on his own: the script and the director had to play a major role. Because of Wood's young age at the start of filming and his lack of familiarity with the original material, he was especially reliant on PJ. I will also acknowledge that I've seen Wood in other movies where I actually thought he had a better handle on his role (e.g., Eternal Sunshine). In the end, though, I felt Wood's portrayal of Frodo was uneven. There were scenes where he came through individually and others where I felt I was watching a "canned" sequence from PJ's brain.

As to the question of "your Frodo" versus "Elijah's Frodo"..... Perhaps, we need to think in terms of a three-part scenario: "my" Frodo (I have gone ahead and personalized the term), Elijah's Frodo (actually an amalgam of Wood, PJ, and Boyens), and Tolkien's Frodo. These three are admittedly not synonymous, and you are right to point out that elements of opinion are involved in both "my" version and Elijah's. However, I think it is possible to agree on certain things.

There is little question that the movie Frodo was appreciably different than Tolkien's Frodo in certain key respects. I see this as fact and not opinion. Movie Frodo was primarily portrayed as a victim. The scenes in which Frodo showed "spunk" or willingness to fight were omitted from the film: dancing on tabletops, striking out against the wraith at Weathertop, deciding to stay and fight for his friends at the Barrowdowns, galloping towards the ford and raising his voice in defiance---"you shall have neither me or the Ring"..... This list could go on. Whatever the reasons for these changes, and they may have been legitimate ones from the standpoint of creating a movie, we are left with a very different Frodo.

Moreover, it is clear from the way the Gollum-Sam-Frodo triad is handled in RotK that Frodo has been deeply deluded by Gollum. It is Sam who has the clearest understanding of Gollum and his nature. There is no question of Frodo showing pity because that is the right thing to do, which is one of the central themes of the entire book. In the movie, we are primarily dealing with psychological motives and deceptions. This makes perfect sense in the context of a 21st century audience; it makes far less sense in the context of a book that draws on the legends of the north, the lure of faerie, and the "true" myth of Christianity. Tolkien was a lot more interested in morality than psychological motive; PJ was not.

Finally, there is the question of age. I do not think the issue here is how a hobbit looks at age "33" or "50" under the influence of the Ring. The central question is one of maturity, not physical looks. Frequently, in the early pages of the books, Frodo is shown to be wiser than the other hobbits and in a position of authority. The four hobbits are not "equals" in this sense. Sam looks up to Frodo and virtually idolizes him from a distance; Merry is Frodo's "helper" in the early pages and does what he's instructed to do. Frodo is also able to chastise the others (was it Merry or Pippin?) when they start teasing Sam about the bathwater. Only later in the story, do Sam and Frodo break down class barriers and become friends. Whatever book Frodo may or may not have looked like, he started out on a different footing than his three companions.

We can argue endlessly whether the movie required that certain changes be made in Frodo's role because of differences in format , the need to show a profit, and the very nature of a medium geared to a mass audience. But I don't feel anyone could dispute that the movie Frodo and book Frodo are significantly different. That does not bother some folk at all: other folk, it does bother. I fall in the latter group. Wood's performance for me is lacking. In my opinion--and it is nothing more than opinion, he can never be a strong Frodo because the underlying characterization is severely flawed before he even steps in front of the cameras.