Microphones in Middle-earth...the BBC Lord of the Rings

[ArathornJax]

Sorry I am almost done listening to this week's session and am behind because of it being end of term and I am trying to get finals and other stuff in prior to the deadline. Anyway, if no one else posts a review by tomorrow when I have more time, then I'll start it off.

[ArathornJax]

Transcript at http://www.tolkienradio.com/goldenhall.html

davem, hope this ok and I'm sure it won't be up to your professional level but I'll give it a shot! Also, hope the time with the in-laws went well, and that you and the wife enjoyed your time with them and together.

This episode begins with the the Ent Moot and their decision to go to war. Merry and Pippin are impatient with the time the Ents are taking prior to the decision being made. The Ents decision is announced by a loud song after Treebeard announces to Merry and Pippin that this could be the last march of the Ents.
I really love Treebeard and Stephen Thorne does an excellent job in conveying an image of an Ent vocally. His voice is deep and loud, while soft and firm at other times.
I know others will disagree and that is fine, but I'm not a fan of the Ents song. I would have preferred a chant instead of a song. Not sure why, but that is just me and my impression, and I've always felt that way.

I really enjoyed the scene at the Golden Hall. I thought the scene at the gate with the laying of the weapons at the doorway really was well done. I liked the interaction of Gimli and Aragorn and Gimli's willingness to follow Aragorn's lead here. I think this contrasts nicely with the scene in the previous episode where the three chasers meet Eomer and Gimli and Legolas speak up against Eomer and his ignorance. Here Aragorn has some arragance and is admonished by Gandalf to do the right thing to which Aragorn does and Gimli follows suit. Not sure if this was on purpose in preparing the script, but it shows a side of these friends and companions that I think is nicely done.

The interplay now between Wormtongue and Gandalf is also very enjoyable. I feel that Paul Brooke does an excellent job in bringing Wormtongue to life and for me, I enjoy his interaction even more than the movie. I also like that in this scene more time is taken to show the control/influence of Wormtongue over Theoden, with Theoden not even realizing it, though apparently still in control of his facilities.

The interaction of Gandalf with Theoden now shows to me a great example of how Gandalf is able to fulfill his task by sparking hope in the people of Middle Earth, specifically here with Theoden.

There is A LOT in the episode that I enjoy, and one that I have to mention here is the transitions between various scenes. The use of the language in the script like here where Gandalf says to Theoden that he looks to Mordor for our despair, and then hints that also that way lies the hope. Then the narrator comes in and the scene switches to Frodo and Sam. The transitions are smooth and I think really help to eliminate confusion for those who may not be die hard fans.

A personal note here. I had my 14 (well, on Tuesday coming) year old son with me, and he decided that though Andy Serkis does and excellent job, he feels that Peter W. here has to be considered an equal performance. I'm sure that will generate a comment or two, but I agree with my son on this.

Ian Holm does an excellent job of bringing out Frodo's despair in the fact that if they get the job done, there won't be a need for food or anything. I think Ian just does a tremendous job with Frodo from this point (well, from the Breaking of the Fellowship on; well, ok, he does a top notch job for the entire series, but I really think we see a change in the character as brought out by Ian Holm from the Breaking of the Fellowship on in terms of his inflections, his level of his voice, and how he portrays the character from here on out) on and we can really hear the change which brings about a visual image as well. How I see Frodo at the beginning and how I am seeing him now is really quite different and I think that is due to how Ian Holm voices/acts out the character.

I also like that as we go back to Theoden, that the script takes a good chunk of time and gives it to Theoden and company, while Aragorn, Legolas and Gimli though playing significant roles, don't overwelm the new characters. Guess I am saying that I really like the balance done in the scene.

There is so much in this episode I could be writing all night, but I am literally exhausted and will just touch on a few points. I would hope others would touch on things that I have just brushed over and not discussed, or not done justice.

The interplay between Aragorn and the Orc foreshadows what is to come and I liked that. It allows the listener to anticipate what is coming, to infer and that often causes increase excitement and desire to continue to listen. I also like that it is Erkenbrand that arrives and not Eomer, and that Eomer retreating with Gimli to the caves is so important to me because it shows to me (in a listener/reader response mode) how much Gimli is able to get past slights (intended or not) and work with those he needs and eventually develops friendships. I think this is true of Legolas and is also true of Eomer. I enjoy that in this adaptation that bantering and comradeship was included as I think it is something important for the listener to understand.

Like I said, excuse my spelling errors, and the facts that my thoughts are 1. my thoughts and 2. done with about 12 hours of sleep over the last 3 days (I am done after 12:30p.m. tomorrow and get rest and recuperate prior to doing it again next term).

Cheers!

AJ

[Mithalwen]

I constructed a faily substantial reply to this and teh computer swallowed it - honest ... I have to go now and probably won't be online tomorrow since I have a family thing so ... can we have a few days grace? I promise I will get a reconstructed and maybe improved post up on Monday?

Thank you....

[davem]

We're hopefully going to get around to listening to this one tomorrow. I hope everyone is ok with leaving Ep. 8 till next week?

Thanks to Arathornjax for his brilliant intro, btw.....some very good points to start us off.

[davem]

A few things struck me during this episode. First, the encounter with Theoden. I'm so glad we got the 'book' version rather than the histrionics of the movie. Its clear that Theoden is not 'possessed' or the victim of any kind of 'magic', but simply worn down by Grima's ill counsel. In short he has lost all hope in the face of what he has been convinced are overwhelming odds. I love how Jack May plays this. Again, I don't know whether he knew the book beforehand, but he captures the character's pshychological state. This Theoden is a warrior who has been convinced there is no point fighting but deep down is just waiting for the slightest glimmer of hope. As soon as Gandalf arrives & shows him that glint he forgets his despair & rallies not simply himself, but his whole people.

I mentioned previously that battles on radio are necessarily difficult. You can't see what's going on & you can't really have a narrator giving a blow-by-blow despription. The battles in this adaptation are very stylised - this one has character conversations intercut by choral singing - Pelennor Fields, as we'll see, uses character conversations intercut with a song which was composed after the event:

Narrator: And so King Théoden and the last of the Rohirrim came to Minas Tirith, to the Pelennor Fields. It was a great battle, afterwards told in many a song in the feast-hall of Meduseld.

This is something I like about this adaptation, because I think it brings out the 'legendary' nature of the story - as in the book we get the sense that these are events that happened a very long time ago.

Thankfully, because of these limitations the battles don't overwhelm the adaptation. Both Helm's Deep & Pelennor Fields take up about 10 pages of the book & maybe ten minutes of the production. All they need, really. LotR is a book about a war certainly, but one written by someone who had been in a war & knew that war is usually like that - a lot of slogging around, a lot of hanging around, & then a short, bloody battle.

The Frodo/Sam/Gollum scenes are again perfectly judged. Frodo's increasing resignation (Are we ever likely to need bread again?) is brought home. He has convinced himself that the end of the Quest will mean the end of his life - one way or another. I think Tolkien mentioned in one of the letters that Frodo expected to die & that he couldn't actually cope with surviving. Increasingly now we'll find Sam trying to warn Frodo of the danger they face from Gollum & Frodo merely responding with a 'don't worry, we aren't throttled yet...' etc. The scenes in the Dead Marshes again follow the book. The 'horror' is rooted in sadness & waste, in the fact that all that beauty & nobility came to nothing but rottenness, not in 'spooks' coming to get you! The danger of the marshes is that despair & hopelessness will overwhelm you, & its wonderful how this reflects back on the events at Meduseld. You get the sense that the real horror of battle is not the battle itself but the aftermath. Ian Holm nails that perfectly. And on that note - I'm not sure this adaptataion doesn't bring home the real facts of war better than the book - the stark contrast between the horrors of the old battlefield full of the corpses of the dead with the 'glorious' victory over the armies of Saruman at Helm's Deep is shocking. The Last Alliance won a victory over Sauron, but its lasting memorial is the corpse-ridden Dead Marshes. The Rohirrim defeat the forces of Saruman, but both good & evil fell. Even as we exult at the appearance of Gandalf with Erkenbrand & the annihilation of the enemy we can't help but hear Frodo's words echoing across the long leagues of Middle-earth & down the long years to us today:

I saw them: grim faces and evil, and noble faces and sad. Many faces proud and fair, with weeds in their silver hair. But all foul, all rotting, all dead.

[ArathornJax]

Just wondering where we are on this. Haven't seen any posts etc. This topic came up over at TheOneRing.Net and I let them know we had a discussion here so perhaps we'll get some more traffic. Hope that was ok.

Are we moving forward this Sunday to the next episode?

[davem]

Originally Posted by ArathornJax

Are we moving forward this Sunday to the next episode?

Hopefully - or I should say I definitely mean to. Of course, the boss (our six month old) has the final say on whether I have time.....

As to interest in the thread generally - we've had nearly 3,000 views at the time of writing this, but very few participants. I'm assuming that most people on here haven't heard the series, so they're reading what we post but not feeling able to join in. Hopefully some people will buy their own copy as a result of reading this.

That said, I know there are a fair few Downers who do have it because they've posted on here - they just don't seem to be posting anymore . Short answer is I don't know why this thread has so few participants but so many viewers.

I don't know whether I took the right approach - doing an episode a week. Maybe it should just have been a general discussion of the series as a whole - & if people want to change to that now that's OK with me.

All that said, if you take a look at the Chapter-by-Chapter discussion of LotR we did a few years back we often ended up (in the later chapter discussions) with only 2 or three participants.....

[Brian Sibley]

Originally Posted by davem

First, the encounter with Theoden. I'm so glad we got the 'book' version rather than the histrionics of the movie. Its clear that Theoden is not 'possessed' or the victim of any kind of 'magic', but simply worn down by Grima's ill counsel. In short he has lost all hope in the face of what he has been convinced are overwhelming odds. I love how Jack May plays this. Again, I don't know whether he knew the book beforehand, but he captures the character's pshychological state. This Theoden is a warrior who has been convinced there is no point fighting but deep down is just waiting for the slightest glimmer of hope. As soon as Gandalf arrives & shows him that glint he forgets his despair & rallies not simply himself, but his whole people.

It's strange... Looking back (or listening back) at the decisions we took in making the radio series, I am more often pleased than disappointed...

The film interpretation of Théoden's mental thralldom to Saruman is so imbued with comic-book/horror-movie imagery as to be - had it not been done as well as it was - totally risible.

Like so many aspects of the story-on-film, it abandons Tolkien's characterisation in favour of OTT hokum and cinematic trickery. Maybe that was necessary for the average cinema-goer who was not familiar with Tolkien, but what is lost is the subtle, insinuating evil of Sauron's power as shown in the book and, as a result, a lessening of Théoden's humanity...

Jack May was splendid in the role and I especially love his low growling voice in those early scenes...

[Estelyn Telcontar]

I'm sorry I haven't participated much so far - I have the recordings, but the fact that they are cut differently makes it difficult for me to find the right starting and finishing points. As preparation for the Tolkien Seminar has priority at the moment, I'm not taking the time for that complicated selection.

My research for the paper I will be presenting did lead me to a review of the radio production in Brian Rosebury's Tolkien: A Cultural Phenomenon. Here are a few excerpts for your enjoyment:

The 13-hour BBC radio production is, of course, fundamentally hampered by its inability to suggest the physical and cultural presence of Middle-earth, other than through inevitably rather generalised sound-effects...

That statement is less a criticism than a simple analysation of the shortcomings of the audio medium. Praise is given for the use of narration from Tolkien's text to give glimpses.

Dialogues are praised as well-delivered and skilfully abridged, with special mention of Woodthorpe's Gollum, though abridgements are said to tend to "flatten the text in the direction of an adventure story."

In summary Rosebury writes:

The strength of the BBC version as an adaptation lies in its largely faithful, and nearly complete, realisation of the sequence of events (...): in that sense, if no other, the criterion that as little as possible of the original should be lost is met more closely by this than by the movie versions.