Capturing Tolkien's Vision vs. A Literal Interpretation

[IronParrot]

Some other major ways film differs from text:

- Perspective - First-person perspective, particularly in terms of what characters are thinking and feeling, is practically impossible in film. Voice-over narration is a tacky device as it is unless it's stylistically appropriate (as in Fight Club, which LOTR is not), or used in introductory/transitional/closing montages (as is actually very well demonstrated by LOTR). Tolkien's writing reached out to all five senses plus one. Especially the "plus one", since the Ring was so largely a psychological device, and so much of what happens to the characters happens at a deep psychological level. In film, you only have visuals at your disposal, and to a lesser extent, sound. You can zoom out as much as you want and paint on an epic canvas, but you can only zoom in so much.

- Narration - in addition to the aforementioned point about VO's being cheesy, film also doesn't have the liberty of "telling" so much. Film is all about "showing", because with visuals, that's all you do. The written word is a combination of showing and telling. Writing instructors would encourage the former, but it's still a balance, and Tolkien does tend to "tell" from time to time. Especially when you have characters telling selected parts of their life story to someone else, as in the Council of Elrond.

Somebody's going to say "flashback! flashback!" but in response to that, excessive flashback is also really bad. It's good if used appropriately: LOTR does it to just the right extent out of narrative considerations, though that's already making a sacrifice. The Godfather, Part II does it right because the flashback makes visual sense in a parallel, thematic manner. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon has the only good extended half-hour storytelling flashback in any film because... well, actually, that's one of the weak points of an otherwise near-perfect film.

So in a movie, you don't have the luxury of being able to explain things openly. That means if you stick to the book, you have all kinds of questions drifting about that can't be answered very conveniently. Why doesn't Aragorn have a working sword? Why is Frodo so reluctant to leave the Shire during the summer? You can't just come out and explain everything. It's highly ambiguous and interpretable. It's just like how if you look at a picture, or any given frame of a film, everybody notices different subtleties about it. The written word is more explicit: there is a greater control over the focus of the verbal "camera", so to speak.

If Tolkien's fundamental assumption about film (i.e. different media not being that different) falls - and it does - all subsequent arguments that essentially amount to "because Tolkien said so" also fall.

By all indications, the only kind of movie "faithful to Tolkien's vision" (in the words of the purists) would be a really crappy movie. Obviously somebody's going to say that, well then, maybe LOTR should not be filmed, ever.

Some of you probably agree with that. I certainly don't. I love Tolkien's work. I love his masterpiece The Lord of the Rings to the core of my being. And that's reason why I'd rather see an excellent tributary production that truly excels in the cinematic medium, than so-so cinema that sticks to the source down to the letter. The current films belong to the former - and by cinematic standards, they are indeed unparalleled achievements, and that's an opinion that can be justified on purely objective and quantitative terms of merit.