BBC Tolkien in Oxford

[davem]

Yep - the Beeb have finally gotten around to making one of the most important pieces of Tolkieniana available.

Tollers himself on film.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/archive/writers/12237.shtml

[narfforc]

Anyone who has not seen this before, should now do so. It is strange now to watch the people in the film, and listen to their ideas of pre-Silmarillion or latter day Tolkien released literature. If only one who had read all we have today could have interviewed him.


Thanks for showing the link Dave.

Can anyone find the link to the Christopher Tolkien Interview?, I have it on disc, but would like others to watch it.

[Inziladun]

Great link! It's actually the first time I've seen that.
"I'm very fond of beer", he says. I can't help but agree. And while watching him smoke, one is very reminded of Gandalf.
The narrator of the book passages sounds a great deal like the late actor, Tony Jay.

[Lalaith]

That is brilliant - I'd never seen that before, although I had seen the clips of Tolkien watching fireworks in another documentary.
I loved Tolkien composing the Ring's Black Speech inscription in the bath, and kicking the sponge out when he'd finished, and also quoting Simone de Beavoir from a clipping he carried around.
Less impressed with some of those awful Oxford students, particularly that pair who thought they were leftie radicals but were in fact patronising misogynistic gits going about secretaries who like Tolkien...quite slappable.

[radagastly]

Was it just me, or did the guy with the glasses and mustache that didn't like Tolkien because it was escapist and did not address today's social problems look like Eric Idle doing a Monty Python sketch?

[narfforc]

Originally Posted by radagastly

Was it just me, or did the guy with the glasses and mustache that didn't like Tolkien because it was escapist and did not address today's social problems look like Eric Idle doing a Monty Python sketch?

The one with the red tie and red views. Britain was rife with these mad trade unionists in the sixties and seventies. I see what you mean though.

[Lalaith]

That's exactly what I thought, and thus I also assumed that he must be Roy Strong. But I don't think he is - too macho and robust. However, Mr Lalaith has I think fairly conclusively identified the fairly cheery pro-Tolkien chap with the side parting - it's AN Wilson.

[davem]

Fairly sure this is from the same 'shoot' http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/new...561405&bbcws=1 - seems to be an out-take (probably because of its 'obscurity' at the time) & there're other clips of Tolkien in the Newsnight feature on CoH http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/new...news=1&bbcws=1

Can't help wondering what other 'out-takes' may be gathering dust on some shelf in Broadcasting House....

[narfforc]

Originally Posted by davem

Can't help wondering what other 'out-takes' may be gathering dust on some shelf in Broadcasting House....

Yes mate, something along the lines of.....The Prof turns to the camera at the end and says......................'The Balrog had no wings and Gandalf would have thrashed The Witch-king'.................... maybe sitting on a shelf somewhere.

[Eönwë]

I also hadn't seen this before. It really is interesting to see what people thought about LOTR before the days of the Silm and the films (they came out when I was 7/8, so I didn't really have the experience of knowing what people thought of them before the films).

Originally Posted by narfforc

Gandalf would have thrashed The Witch-king'

Didn't he already? On Weathertop? Ok, I'll stop now...

[TheGreatElvenWarrior]

Just got around to watching this now. It was really great, I think. And it made me feel ridiculously nerdy in the process, because my parents walked in and asked what it was about when I was watching it.

I guess all I have to really say about it is that Tolkien was quite entertaining and was somebody who I would have really loved to meet.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

I've been meaning to watch that programme for a long time now, and now that I've seen it, I can't help but feel disappointed. It seemed to have been put together without any real idea of what it should be about. The Verger of Merton was grudgingly allowed a few seconds of screen time to say something completely irrelevant about the history of the college, but was rather rudely cut out before he could say anything interesting, and the only other person worth listening to in the entire twenty minutes was JRRT. Those students were basically all awful, even the ones who liked LR: the plot synopsis girl in particular sounded as though she'd been dragged out of an opium den to trot out her tedious précis; and after the third use of the phrase 'social and political reality' I was wishing a slow and agonising death on the activist. As for those oh-so-laconic and bored undergraduates, whose politics just happen to be those that were fashionable among undergraduates at the time: they came across as boys trying to sound like men of the world; which is, of course, exactly what they were. I quite liked the prediction that LR would become a cult over here, though. It was the one thing any of the students said to suggest they belonged at university at all.

The interview components of the film seemed to have been cobbled together at random. One moment Tolkien is reminiscing about the old layout of Merton gardens the next he's demonstrating how to write in Tengwar, while in between we have two seconds of a callow sociology student demanding that we all put down our books and protest against whatever it is everyone's striking over this week. There was a meaningless scene of Tolkien at what I presume was a Guy Fawkes Night party, and other pieces that looked like the setting up of shots rather than the shots themselves. All in all, I'd only rate it as valuable because Tolkien was in it, and it gave something of an insight into his usual demeanour that most of us won't have had before. His comments about trees alone justified a documentary.

[Rune Son of Bjarne]

I rather enjoyed this short clip, even though it seemed like a prolonged clip from the news. . .
Like when they go and ask the people lying in sleepingbags in front of a bookstore "what is so special about Harry Potter?" and then go and ask the guy wearing a "I hate Harry Potter" T-shirt what he thinks about the books.

Also it seemed that one or two of the people in the clip where rather dim.

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Don't get me wrong: I liked the parts with Tolkien in them, especially those in which he was just chatting with the interviewer: the brief description of his time as Merton professor is pure gold. I just felt that it could have been a lot better if competent people had taken care of the editing and so much time hadn't been spent on uninspiring vox-pops.

As JRRT would have been well aware, the full quotation from which we derive the phrase 'vox populi, vox Dei' is Alcuin's warning that the voice of the people doesn't always make much sense. "Neither should they be listened to who only say 'the voice of the people, the voice of God', because the turbulence of the mob is always close to insanity."