LotR1-FotR-Seq03

[Rimbaud]

This sequence contains one of the few seconds of film that make the trilogy for me. Sadly the one that really hooked me was McKellan's look to Frodo at the Council that I will have to elaborate expanisvely upon later , but here it is Ian again, with his reaction to the ring. As, perhaps unarguably, the best actor in the picture (and for lack of whom much of TTT doesn't work for me) it behooves Gandalf to make the most of his status. And here he does it brilliantly. Nobody can fail but to be impressed that the Ring is a Nasty Piece of Work by his reaction. For me, this is the clincher on that story-line - from then on the audience knows it's bad; where all the 'bouncing' and Williams music built it up, here one look from a decent actor tells you 300% as much.

Sadly, as happens often in these flicks, Jackson tries very hard to spoil his actors' best work by throwing in a lot of soft-focus jumbalaya with mutterings of riddles and such, but the initial impact was enough and we know.

For the rest of the sequence, I'm with Mr U. It's overly compressed, disorienting, and could perhaps (come on, shout me down) have been done better with a voice-over...?