New interview with Christopher Tolkien

[Mithalwen]

Prejudices aren't always hereditary!!! And it isn't an insult to call someone an intellectual in France - and there is the warmth and the wine and the stringent privacy laws.. and just an hour's flight away from the UK. Not an unprecedented choice for wealthy Brits, retiring to the South of France...

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Mithalwen

and just an hour's flight away from the UK. Not an unprecedented choice for wealthy Brits, retiring to the South of France...

I've often wondered if Mick Jagger might be a neighbour.

Ted Nasmith was also initially asked to be part of the movies but unfortunately at the time he faced some difficult family problems and couldn't participate.

I think, though, even with Lee's and Howe's work, there are still aspects of Nasmith's work in the movies.

[davem]

An interesting documentary coming up on BBC Radio 4 on Saturday 4th August The Hobbit, the Musical http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01ld15z

Actor Billy Boyd, who played a hobbit in the films of The Lord Of The Rings, narrates the story of the first ever stage production of J.R.R.Tolkien's The Hobbit, at New College School in Oxford in 1967. It was written by Humphrey Carpenter, with music by composer, Paul Drayton, then music teacher at the school. We hear from the boys who performed it, who were choristers at the time and who are now eminent in the musical world: Choral conductor Simon Halsey, Martin Pickard Head of Music at Opera North, artist's agent Stephen Lumsden and composer Howard Goodall- who watched his older brother Ashley, now a marketing professional, perform. They talk about their memories and about Tolkien's presence in the audience on the last night.
The present-day Chamber choir at New College School sing some of the original songs, and we also play a never before broadcast recording of the production as it happened in 1967.

Yep - a High School musical of The Hobbit, written by Tolkien's biographer, which Tolkien attended. Carpenter spoke about it in a talk he gave after Tolkien's death. Carpenter went to discuss the project with Tolkien. While Tolkien apparently wasn't very enthusiastic about the idea, according to Carpenter he did suggest ideas for music for some of the songs & attended. Carpenter stated that Tolkien smiled when his original words were used but winced at any changes.

This other Radio 4 doc also looks fascinating Tolkien in Love http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b01l8qr2

Novelist Helen Cross, who herself lives in Birmingham, uncovers the story of the young J.R.R. Tolkien, falling in love with Edith Bratt. The love story of Beren and Luthien at the heart of his novel The Silmarillion was inspired by their relationship. They were both orphans, living in a boarding house in Edgbaston, Birmingham. The teenagers would talk out of their respective bedroom windows until dawn, and go for cycle rides to the Lickey Hills. However, when their romance was discovered, Tolkien's guardian, Father Francis Morgan, forbade Tolkien to see Edith until he came of age.Tolkien won an Exhibition to Oxford and Edith went to live in Cheltenham. But at midnight, as he turned 21, Tolkien wrote to Edith saying his feelings were unchanged. Unfortunately, in the intervening years, Edith had got engaged to someone else. Tolkien got on a train and she met him at Cheltenham station. They walked out to the nearby countryside and Tolkien persuaded her to break off her engagement and marry him instead. But the First World War was about to intervene, and Tolkien volunteered and was sent to the Somme.

Helen Cross visits key locations in Birmingham, Cheltenham and Oxford, to tell the story of Tolkien's young life and the love story at the heart of it.
Readings by David Warner as Tolkien and Ed Sear as the young Tolkien.

Both should be available via i player (radio programmes are usually available worldwide http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/radio/b..._four/20120714 )

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

I've often wondered if Mick Jagger might be a neighbour.

Going by the descriptions, I'm suspicious it's near where my old mucker's brother mistakenly bought an old house - well off the beaten track, wild boar everywhere which drove their dog insane to the point where she disappeared into the woods and went feral. It was all a failure because they realised Lancashire is much nicer

Ted Nasmith was also initially asked to be part of the movies but unfortunately at the time he faced some difficult family problems and couldn't participate.

I think, though, even with Lee's and Howe's work, there are still aspects of Nasmith's work in the movies.

Do you think you can pick out the Nasmith bits? I want to know now so I can go back and see if those scenes do look different. Because he has a completely different style to Lee, much more lurid - it works in his landscapes which are fabulous but I've never really got on with his figurative work because it moves towards the D&D style there.

[Mithalwen]

Don't suppose that Christopher Tolkien would have retired to Lancashire. He is a Yorkshireman by birth after all.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by davem

I'm not sure that's entirely fair - if Jackson had gone for a straight action movie aimed at 15 - 25 year olds I think a great deal of the background material (most of the extra material in the extended editions) would have gone by the wayside (I think of Theodred's funeral & the heart-breaking scene between Elrond & Arwen in TT among other things). What Jackson certainly did was create a movie that would prove attractive to 15 -25 year olds as well as older people. There is too much stuff in the movies which wouldn't be there if Jackson had merely done what CT accuses him of.

Oh come on, you just don't like CJRT.

Originally Posted by davem

Its unlikely any movie of Lord of the Rings would have suited CT

I agree. But then I would not put CJRT alone like that - I think many people would not be happy with any movie. I know I wouldn't.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

I wonder has he ever realised that the books are packed with action?

They certainly are, but they are not action-based books. I mean, if you have a book without action you're probably holding a botanical encyclopedia. Yet the books (LOTR at least) do not emphasize the action, and it happens slowly, and allows other things to happen too. You don't have 20 pages of descriptions of how Aragorn chops orcs in half, three at a time, at a rate of 60 orcs/minute. But you can't expect to sell a movie to 15-25 y/o's nowadays without it being like that - which brings me back to the beginning of this endless cycle.

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

What about this controversial statement?

I don't know. I'd feel guilty too if it was my father's work that I altered.

Originally Posted by Nogrod

What would have Tolkien thought about an HBO/GoT kind of a settlement with something like six seasons fex. (one season to every book) aka. 60 hours of top class drama? Would that kind of possibility, if presented to them, have changed their minds from the LotR being "in principle" unsuited to transform into a visual dramatic form?

I think that it would not work this way either. I have not seen GOT, but I'd imagine it works well, because there is so much detail on everyday details, if you know what I mean. Like, in LOTR, you'd hardly expect to read about a trip to the privy because of an indigestion from last night's feast. And there is less detail in general - whereas GOT would describe a fight with all the moves and details and gore, LOTR would read "they fought and X won". The scope of LOTR makes it difficult to fit into x amount of hours, but its lack of details in the writing style makes it difficult to make a series without making it profane and ruined.

So I think that LOTR is, indeed, "on principle unsuited to transform into a visual form" as a whole. Parts have been done well in the movies, and there are many beautiful drawings, but I think you just can't reenact it from cover to cover and get it right. It's just like that. For lack of a better description - on principle.

[Lalwendë]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

They certainly are, but they are not action-based books. I mean, if you have a book without action you're probably holding a botanical encyclopedia. Yet the books (LOTR at least) do not emphasize the action, and it happens slowly, and allows other things to happen too. You don't have 20 pages of descriptions of how Aragorn chops orcs in half, three at a time, at a rate of 60 orcs/minute. But you can't expect to sell a movie to 15-25 y/o's nowadays without it being like that - which brings me back to the beginning of this endless cycle.

Of course it doesn't focus on the violence of battle. I think you might need to read some of the Conan books for that kind of thing, and even then it's not half so violent. If I wanted to read about violence, I wouldn't turn to fiction of any kind, but to history books and the daily news.

But Lord of the Rings is a Quest, and that's inherently an action based story. Constantly moving on. And without the action of challenges along the way, it would be incredibly boring. This is where I think it's a very tricksy book, because the feel of it is pure magic, and we don't always notice that driving narrative. And it's also part of the reason everyone can re-read then so often. Once you know the narrative and have gone on that adventure, next time around you can spend more time looking at the flowers Tolkien describes and drinking in the atmosphere.

To be fair, I think the films did capture the same sense of movement and the same quotient of action as shown in the books. The sweeping panorama shots of the Fellowship moving through the hills are the filmic equivalent of Tolkien spending a few pages on exposition, describing a changing landscape.

[Galadriel55]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

But Lord of the Rings is a Quest, and that's inherently an action based story. Constantly moving on. And without the action of challenges along the way, it would be incredibly boring.

Aye. But.

LOTR was not a kind of story that I read because I was anxious about what happens next. If I want some of that, I'll reread my GoT. The action happens more subtly, peacefully, gently. You're interested about what happens next, but it doesn't have the kind of read-non-stop grip that some other books do. Instead, what gripped me was what is there besides the plot.

Once again, even books without plot still have some kind of plot, unless they are math textbooks or something like that (though even in those you may find many a plot point.... ok, bad pun on analytic geometry). All novels have some kind of plot. But in LOTR, despite its being a Quest, the plot is not what makes it remarquable.

Originally Posted by Lal

To be fair, I think the films did capture the same sense of movement and the same quotient of action as shown in the books. The sweeping panorama shots of the Fellowship moving through the hills are the filmic equivalent of Tolkien spending a few pages on exposition, describing a changing landscape.

That's true. I enjoyed those scenes the most, probably, with only a few exceptions. They have the right feel in them.

[Elemmakil]

Originally Posted by Galadriel55

I think that it would not work this way either. I have not seen GOT, but I'd imagine it works well, because there is so much detail on everyday details, if you know what I mean. Like, in LOTR, you'd hardly expect to read about a trip to the privy because of an indigestion from last night's feast. And there is less detail in general - whereas GOT would describe a fight with all the moves and details and gore, LOTR would read "they fought and X won". The scope of LOTR makes it difficult to fit into x amount of hours, but its lack of details in the writing style makes it difficult to make a series without making it profane and ruined.

So I think that LOTR is, indeed, "on principle unsuited to transform into a visual form" as a whole. Parts have been done well in the movies, and there are many beautiful drawings, but I think you just can't reenact it from cover to cover and get it right. It's just like that. For lack of a better description - on principle.

Good point, though it is often PJ's thoughtless additions that create the bulk of the problems. I have oft times felt that if I could simply take PJs movies, edit out the bad additions (which, I think could actually be done in some cases without necessarily doing harm to the overall narrative) the whole could be significantly improved. Some things would need to be refilmed to fix, however, so that couldn't be done. For example, one could probably delete the whole bit about Aragorn falling off the cliff and "dying" in TT and it would hardly be missed, though the movie would then cleave that much more closely to the books. Ditto for some elements in Moria, like the whole bit about collapsing staircases over vast chasms. Even muting bits of annoying dialogue (such as the Ringwraith's use of "she-elf", as though they were descended from Tarzan) would help some scenes.

Mostly just an interesting thought experiment, but something I wish I could at least try and see what happens.

Another, related, thought experiment of mine would be to take Bakshi's animated and add or reshoot elements of that, along with dialogue, and make it truer to the books. Curiously, that probably *could* be done (from a technical perspective - I'm not going to touch the legal aspects, of course) using modern computer graphic software. One could even give Aragorn trousers, and get rid of Boromir's annoying horned helmet! Perhaps even have Gandalf say "Saruman!" instead of "Aruman!" By the by, I am semi serious about this; if anyone knows how one could accomplish the above (software required, rotoscoping, etc.) I would appreciate the insight.

[Bêthberry]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

Do you think you can pick out the Nasmith bits? I want to know now so I can go back and see if those scenes do look different. Because he has a completely different style to Lee, much more lurid - it works in his landscapes which are fabulous but I've never really got on with his figurative work because it moves towards the D&D style there.

It's the landscapes mainly. Check out Nasmith's "At the Falls" and his depictions of Minas Tirith, maybe the cliffs of Rivendell (not the buildings). That's what I can recall; it's been quite awhile since I watched the movies.