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Transferring any written text into cinematic form is very difficult. The arts of writing and filmmaking are very different. The techniques an author uses to make a successful piece of writing are not the same as those used by a director of a film. Therefore, it is impossible to film a written text. The director cannot go page by page, copying the author. The result would be an incredibly long and unsuccessful cinematic copy. What a film has to do, is film the spirit of the book. The film must transfer the author’s feelings from the page to the screen. Changes to the text must be made for this transformation to be successful.
Peter Jackson had an even more difficult task than most film makers when making a film adaptation of a text. This is because J.R.R Tolkien is not, as Tom Shippey argues, a “professional author.” The way he constructed his work, The Lord of the Rings, contains many signs of his amateur writing skills. The novel takes far too long to introduce the main story line of destroying the one ring in Mount Doom, and also takes over eighty pages to close the tale once the ring has been destroyed. Another aspect of Tolkien’s writing that made him unprofessional was his habit of not showing important events, but having another character tell of them after they occurred. These characteristics of Tolkien’s writing made it a more arduous undertaking for Jackson to represent the story on screen.
The Lord of the Rings is a different type of text. Tolkien did not create a world for the story of the ring. He created a world with its own history, governments, geography, and languages in which this story happened to occur. This difference excuses his lack of professional writing ability. Jackson was faced with many challenges while filming all three films of The Lord of the Rings, but the third installment, The Return of the King, was especially difficult because it was the culmination of all three movies. Jackson was triumphant with his efforts. He was able to create a successful film based on Tolkien’s work that retained the essence of Tolkien’s Middle Earth.
One of the issues Shippey addresses in his paper “From Page to Screen: J.R.R. Tolkien and Peter Jackson” is how to treat the character of Arwen Evenstar. Shippey notices that Jackson is “building up the role of Arwen,” and hypothesizes it is “perhaps with the aim of using yet one more alternative ending.” While Arwen is included in one of the many endings, there was more meaning to increasing her role. Arwen is a very complex and very important character, but she is given very little space in the main text of The Lord of the Rings. The reader sees her in Rivendale before the fellowship departs and again when she and Aragorn wed after he is made King of Gondor. She is mentioned infrequently throughout the text. Most of her story is told in the Appendices, and not until then does the reader realizes her importance. Jackson could not film her part of the Appendices and show it to the audience after the ring had been destroyed because her character is strongly tied to Aragorn and his determination. Arwen’s father Elrond will not permit Aragorn and Arwen to wed, until Aragorn is King. Therefore, Aragorn and Arwen’s future is tied to the destruction of the ring.
Jackson could not film the character Arwen as she appears in the written work. He was challenged to find ways to incorporate her. He dealt with this throughout all three films, but this paper will focus on her role in the third film. Jackson successfully integrates Arwen into the film by increasing her role. Once she gives up her immortality, her life is tied to the destruction of the ring. She cannot live while there is so much evil in the world. Jackson flashes to her in Rivendale as her health declines. Now Aragorn must fight for her life, their future together, and the survival of Middle Earth. Arwen’s personal struggle with relinquishing her immortality is also presented. Arwen is ready to sail to the Gray Havens with the elven folk, yet it is a vision of motherhood that keeps her from leaving. Arwen, in the film, is the person who convinces Elrond to have the sword of Elendil re-forged. This ties her again to Aragorn, and gives hope to the race of men. Jackson was able to find a solution to including Arwen more in the films even though she was absent from much of the text, by adding her to scenes and events that already occur in the book. All the changes concerning Arwen’s character are additions that fit well into Middle Earth. While Arwen is not a participant in these scenes in the text none of these changes are hard to believe because they were created with Tolkien’s ideas about the nature of Middle Earth.
Another point in Shippey’s article is that the nature of the cinema is not the same as the nature of written work. He claims that the “commercial cinema, for obvious reasons, is essentially a triumphalist genre.” Movies are expected to have happy endings. While the audience may feel suspense and fear, there is always a hidden knowledge that good will eventually prevail over evil. There is no foreshadowing of a happy ending in The Lord of the Rings. There are far too many places for the characters to fail in their task, and allow evil to succeed. The characters are continually faced with insurmountable odds. There is the ever prevailing feeling that all the characters can do is make a strong last stand. Their failure is likely.
This aspect of Tolkien’s writing relates back to his world view and his ideas concerning the nature of fairy tales. Tolkien suggests that a necessary characteristic of fairy tales is the “eucatastrophe” or the sudden, “good catastrophe.” In his paper he suggests that such an event “is a sudden and miraculous grace: never to be counted on to recur.” This is seen in the destruction of the ring. It seems that Frodo has determined to keep the ring for himself, failing in his quest. The eucatastrophe comes when he and Gollum become entangled in a fight for the ring. Frodo’s finger is bitten off, yet his finger, the ring, and Gollum all fall to their destruction in the fires of Mount Doom. This is sudden, miraculous, and unexpected. It provides the happy ending of the fairy tale as well as the cinema, but in a very unforeseeable way.
Still, Jackson had to find a way to provide a happy ending for the films. In order to end The Two Towers with a feeling of optimism and victory, Jackson allowed the Ents destruction of Isengaurd and the victory at Helm’s Deep to serve as the climax. Therefore, the chapters “The Voice of Saruman” and “The Palantir” from book three of The Two Towers, and the chapter “Shelob’s Lair” from book four had to be moved to The Return of the King. This way the audience left the theater after witnessing a double victory instead of seeing Frodo wrapped in a cobweb cocoon, and Pippin foolishly looking into the Palantir and being seen by Sauron. Using this method Jackson was able to end the second movie with a positive feeling. This ending reinforces Tolkien’s idea that victory is not predictable, but it is attainable if there is courage and persistence. The ending of the third movie had to be dealt with differently because there was no fourth movie for additional information to roll over into.
One of Shippey’s primary concerns is how Jackson will end The Return of the King. As written earlier, one of Tolkien’s faults as a writer was taking too long to end the novel. Yet its length is understandable. Middle Earth is a complete and intricate world, and even though the end of The Return of the King drags on and on, Tolkien wasn’t able to include everything that happened to the fellowship members after the destruction of the ring. So, while there are pages and pages of resolution, there are many more pages that continue the story in the Appendices. This aspect of his writing relates again to his world view and his fascination with fairy tales. In his paper, “On Fairytales,” Tolkien asserts that “there is no true end to any fairy tale.” This is present in his work, because the story doesn’t end with the final page of The Return of the King.
Jackson tried to deal with this challenge by cutting out many of the endings, because while a fairy tale doesn’t need to have an end, a movie must. Jackson couldn’t end the film with the destruction of the ring, because then the fates of the characters that the audience has come to know through over ten hours of film would be left out. The third film’s resolution is not as long as the text, but it still takes up a lot of time. In the Director and Script Writer’s edition of the third film, Jackson and the other writers acknowledge this problem. They explain that they weren’t just ending one film, they were ending three. This justifies the length of the ending. Of the many possible conclusions in Tolkien’s work they included the destruction of the ring, the fellowship’s reunion in Rivendale, the crowning of Aragorn as King, the reunion of Arwen and Aragorn, the return of the Hobbits to the Shire, the passage of Frodo into the Grey Havens, and the passing of the book from Frodo to Sam. All of these were essential in order to return to and provide some sort of resolution for the many different side stories that occur in Middle Earth, and imply that the lives of these characters continue even though the film may not. By including so many endings Jackson was able to acknowledge the influence fairy tales had on Tolkien.
Jackson ended the film in the exact way that Tolkien ended his text. Sam returns to his home, and utters the words, “Well, I’m back.” Shippey claims these are “the most noncommittal final words in modern literature,” as well as the “ultimate anti-climax.” Why then, would Jackson choose to end his cinematic trilogy this way? There is another interpretation to this ending. The writers ended as Tolkien ended. They, as they mentioned in the Director and Screen Writer’s edition, ended on the same page despite all the changes they made to his work. During the process of making the text into a film scenes were added, parts were removed, dialogue was given to different characters, and the timeline was altered. Yet, somehow, both the book and the movie were able to come to the same resolution. The third film is the only film that displays the words “The End” before the credits roll. This creates a sense of unity between all three films, as there is between all three sections of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings.
Shippey mentions that no person would film Merry and Pippin’s explanation of how the Ents destroyed Isenguard. The problem with this is that Tolkien is telling his audience what has transpired instead of showing them. This is an aspect that Shippey uses to support his theory that Tolkien is not a professional writer. Jackson had a very simple way of dealing with this challenge. He filmed the destruction of Isenguard and used it as a climactic scene.
Another issue similar occurs in the third part of The Lord of the Rings. Aragorn, Gimli, Legolas, the rangers, and the rest of their company arrive at the battle of Gondor in the ships of the Corsairs of Umbar. How they came to acquire these ships the reader is not privileged enough to know, until after the battle, and after the scenes in the houses of healing. Legolas and Gimli then relate the story to the inquisitive Merry and Pippin. Jackson would not be able to film this passage successfully because it occurs too long after the battle and the audience is now preoccupied with other parts of the tale. The audience cannot be forced to visualize it for themselves. The audience needs to see the Army of the Dead annihilate the Corsairs of Umbar. That is exactly what Jackson does. By doing this, Jackson was able to incorporate more action and excitement into the third film.
In the Director and Script Writer’s edition of the third film, another interesting challenge that occurred because of Tolkien’s writing is discussed. The main villain in the story is a giant, burning eye. While this eye has the potential for evil, there is no immediate threat. Sauron has the capacity for incredible evil once he has the ring, but he doesn’t have it yet. Sauron is an ever present, looming possibility of evil. For the film adaptation to be successful the audience needed to see and feel a force trying to prevent the destruction of the ring.
To accomplish this, Jackson increased the roles of other antagonistic characters in the film. Saruman was an antagonistic force throughout the text. Yet his murder was moved from its original place during the Scouring of the Shire to the beginning of the The Return of the King. Jackson could no longer utilize the possibility of his return to evil. Therefore, he focused on other characters. The Witch King is shown dressing for battle, showing his intention to harm the soldiers. The Mouth of Sauron is also included in the third film. He delivers the message that Frodo has been killed. While the audience knows this is false, the characters do not. Gollum is also characterized more as a sneaky and conniving creature in the third film than in the previous two. Jackson allowed him to actually break Sam and Frodo up during their journey, something that never occurred in the text. In this manner, Gollum is one of the most successful villains, because Frodo could not have completed the journey if Sam had not returned. Jackson also created an additional villainous character that was not present in the text, an orc general. Gothmog is first seen commanding orc troops at the attack on Osgiliath. This was very successful because it gave the orcs a leader, an enemy the audience could recognize each time he showed up. All these different forms of villains enforce Tolkien’s belief in the many different forms of evil. By extending the roles of minor villains Jackson created more suspense, a suspense that was lacking in the novel but essential for the success of the film.
Jackson was very successful in surmounting the difficulties of creating a film adaptation of The Return of the King. These challenges arose because writing and film making are not the same art. In order for Jackson to create a cinematic interpretation of Tolkien’s work changes had to be made. Yet, Jackson was successful in his attempt because every part of the movie was created remembering the characteristics of Middle Earth as Tolkien imagined them. Therefore, nothing that was added seemed like an anomaly, and anything excised could be sufficiently justified. Tolkien’s unconventional writing style created challenges for transferring The Lord of the Rings from its original form onto screen. Jackson was able to surmount these difficulties by recreating the essential elements that Tolkien valued in his work and considering Tolkien’s world view. Tolkien’s Middle Earth, as Tolkien imagined, was created visually in Jackson’s cinematic interpretation of The Lord of the Rings.
Bibliography Jackson, P. (Director). (2004). The Return of the King [Motion Picture].
Shippey, T. (2003). From Page to Screen: J.R.R. Tolkien and Peter Jackson.”. World Literature Today: A literary Quarterly of the University of Oklahoma , 69–72.
Tolkien, J. On Fairy Tales.
Tolkien, J. (1994). The Return of the King. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company.
Annika Laughlin? September 24, 2008, at 01:34 PM Annika Laughlin? September 27, 2008, at 02:17 PM
