Lording it over the Rings: Part 2 - Lots of Horses and a CGI Wretch

The Two Towers


The Two Towers was always my least favourite of the three films. Not because I didn’t think it was great or that I didn’t love it, I did. I think I just missed the simple linear story and the more magical feel of The Fellowship of the Ring. Plus it had one storyline that, frankly, just rather bored me.

The Two Towers is that tricky middle act of a story where you can almost feel as if you are treading water until the big stuff happens later on. This is something Lucas managed to avoid with The Empire Strikes Back, making that the best film of the Star Wars saga. It is something Peter Jackson almost avoids with The Two Towers. What these middle films can do is devote more time to character building and moving story elements in to new and often darker places. And this is what happens here. Basically The Two Towers is a war film. It is a grim story of an attempted genocide against an entire people, the people of Rohan by the industrialised forces of Isengard. It is a story of the destruction of nature in an attempt to dominate the world with iron. This war against nature is shown through the third of three separate story threads, the destruction of Fangorn Forest and the awakening of the Ents, tree-like beings who live in the forest, and their eventual furious rise against Isengard and the now evil wizard Saruman. It has to be said that the whole Ent plot is my least favourite thing about this film. To be honest I don’t much care for Treebeard or the story of Merry and Pippin who are with him and the other Ents. I know it is important thematically and plotwise for the story, but I just get rather bored by slow moving, talking trees. Every time they cut to Merry and Pippin and Treebeard I just want to be back with Aragorn and the Rohirrim or with Frodo, Sam and Gollum. It is in those two stories that The Two Towers shines.

Firstly, the people of Rohan, the Rohirrim. They are a marvellous creation by Tolkien and brought to the screen wonderfully by Peter Jackson and co. They are basically a throwback to the Anglo Saxons if they had developed a horse-based culture and a history not interrupted by the Norman invasion. The realisation of their capital, Edoras, a city of wood and thatch built around a huge jagged hill with the great hall of Meduseld crowning its top, is fabulous. From the moment we get there the culture feels real and old and authentic. The people of Rohan are great with some wonderful characters and actors bringing them to life – none more so than Bernard Hill as King Theoden. Theoden is possibly my favourite character in these films. Hill gives him such world-weary depth. He is full of sadness and doubt over his role and ability as king, yet he is also filled with such bravery, sense of honour and genuine love for his lost son and for his lovely niece Eowyn. His story is fantastic. From first seeing him as the puppet of Saruman, controlled by the vile Wormtongue (a splendid Brad Dourif) then to grieving father, to doubt ridden king, to fearless and noble leader who accepts his fate as a part of how things should be, he is truly captivating. This is my favourite character journey in the films. I just adore Theoden’s simple, quiet and forlorn line to Aragorn, as the forces of Isengard are about to overrun his keep: “What can men do against such reckless hate?” This is so simple and so true and sadly relates so well to our world today. What indeed can we do? And then there is Eowyn. Ah, lovely Eowyn. She was always my favourite female character in the films…not that there are many to choose from. And she is probably my second favourite character after Theoden in terms of character journey. She encompasses everything that is good and true while being desperate to actually fight for what she loves and believes in. She is resilient and brave – emotionally as well as in battle. Her handling of her affection for Aragorn is heartfelt and mature, never letting it consume her. Her defiance of tradition and her belief in anyone being able to fight for what they love is beautiful stuff. And of course it pays off handsomely in The Return of the King in one of the best moments of the entire trilogy. Miranda Otto is perfect in the role. She has a fragile porcelain beauty about her, yet also a tough indomitable spirit. She’s lovely and she kicks some major ass. Watching her again as Eowyn I fell in love a little bit.

The war story comes to a head with the siege and battle of Helms Deep, the mountain fortress the Rohirrim go to in times of need. And the battle is spectacular in a grim, horrific, dirty and violent way. The action is built up slowly and purposefully; plenty of dread and hopelessness abounds as the people of Rohan await the awesome and horrific might of ten thousand orcs and uruk-hai. This is wonderfully shown in the tension between Aragorn and Legolas over the hopelessness of the cause and Aragorn teaching a young boy how to wield his sword and - more importantly - about hope, which is a major theme of The Lord of the Rings. Hope is always there no matter what. Never give up. Never lie down and die for you have no idea what may be waiting around the next corner, something that may arrive unexpected to turn your ill fortunes to good. Tolkien termed this concept the eucatastrophe, the opposite of catastrophe. And this eucatastrophe happens twice at Helms Deep, although one is invented by the filmmakers (the arrival of the elves) with the other being Gandalf and Eomer’s arrival out of the rising sun in the east to save the day. This is brilliant, elegant and deeply stirring stuff. The charge of the Rohirrim led by Gandalf down the steep hill with the sun blazing behind them is truly magnificent.

The other story strand of the film is of course Frodo and Sam’s journey to Mordor. This is where they hook up with Gollum who offers to lead them to Mordor through secret ways. Gollum is amazing. The CGI still looks fantastic even after the likes of Avatar. But it is the performance by Andy Serkis that really sells him. He is utterly believable and truly a wretched thing yet also pitiable. You can’t help but dislike Sam for always having a go despite knowing full well that Sam is right. When Frodo and Sam meet up with Faramir, Boromir’s brother, things get even more interesting. Faramir is the younger brother living in his older brother’s shadow, always seeking to please his dismissive father. So when the opportunity to do what Boromir failed to do – take the one ring to Gondor - comes his way he goes with it. This leads to the siege of Osgiliath and Faramir’s realisation that to really be strong and be right he must let Frodo go and resist the rings’ temptation. Which is what he does. And the film ends with Sam, Frodo and Gollum making their way closer to Mordor with Gollum secretly deciding to lead them to their deaths and reclaim the ring for himself.

The Two Towers is fantastic and plays a lot better than I remembered it. Even the Treebeard stuff, which I still don’t much like, I can cope with better now. But it is the wonderful Rohirrim and Theoden and Eowyn, the grim and brutal Helms Deep battle and the brilliance of Gollum that makes this stand out as the classic it is. The extended edition also gives us the fate if Saruman too. Any excuse to see the always-awesome Christopher Lee is fine by me.

The story concludes…

Lording it over the Rings: Part 1 - Hairy Feet and Fiery Demons

Being on leave this week and with plenty of time to fill I decided it was time to do something I’ve been meaning to do for ages: re-watch the entirety of the extended editions of The Lord of the Rings back to back…or as close to as possible. All twelve hours of it. I haven’t watched any of these movies all the way through for several years just having caught bits and pieces of them when they’ve been on tv (those being the regular and shorter cinema cuts.) This has partly been due to it being a major time investment to do so as the extended cuts are the definitive versions and the only ones I ever want to watch in their entirety. And you really need to watch them in order and then all together as it is one big story and one huge film. To call these extended editions is rather unfair really. They are actually entirely new editions of the films using different takes, added scenes, extended scenes, re-editing of the narrative, new music etc. to totally re-forge the story.

On Wednesday I broke out the lovely green and gold box of The Fellowship of the Ring. I popped disc 1 (of 2) in to my upscaler bluray player, turned on my 42” widescreen telly, adjusted the home cinema settings for digital 5.1, cranked up the volume and let rip. On Thursday I finished The Return of the King and have just finished re-watching the hours of wonderful documentaries that accompanied those discs.

And I gotta say that once again I was totally blown away.

These three films – especially in their superior extended cuts – are simply three of the finest films ever made. They are huge yet intimate, sweeping yet subtle, quietly emotional yet rousing. They are epics that tell a timeless mythic tale which, despite the magic and monsters and fantasy, always remains grounded in a historical reality that is utterly believable. They also contain so many of the best moments in modern filmmaking that it is almost ridiculous to behold. Though The Fellowship of the Ring remains my personal favourite of the three, The Return of the King is crammed full of so many gobsmacking scenes and moments with more glorious money shots than a dozen other films combined. In this marathon exercise I also gained a much stronger love for The Two Towers, always my least favourite of the three. So, without further ado…

The Fellowship of the Ring

I love, love, love this film - especially in its extended edition. The opening whispered Elvish words bleeding in to Cate Blanchett’s wonderful narration over the spectacular history of Isildur’s defeat of Sauron and his subsequent fall from grace, through the journey of the ring to the Shire, really sets the scene and lets you know this is gonna be something special. The extended stuff of Bilbo’s party is wonderful, as is the journey of Frodo, Sam, Merry and Pippin to Bree. The Black Riders/Ring Wraiths/Nazgul are introduced in this section and are the main threat for the first half of the film. And they are scary and freaky as anything. Truly the stuff of nightmares. It’s with the Nazgul that Peter Jackson’s horror movie roots shine. The knives in the dark sequence where the Nazgul try to kill the Hobbits at Bree is a dark, malevolent powerhouse of film making using brilliant imagery, music and cross cutting to put the audience in real fear for our heroes. And then comes the confrontation at Weathertop, which is equally stunning and nightmarish. This is then followed by the thrilling and tense ride of Arwen to Rivendell to save Frodo while closely pursued by the Black Riders. Upon reaching the river they snarl, “Give up the halfling, she-elf!” Arwen defiantly replies, “If you want him, come and claim him,” while unsheathing her sword. Awesome!

After the Council of Elrond where the Fellowship is formed, our band of heroes start out for Mordor. And there comes the journey through Moria and the confrontation with Goblins, a cave Troll and – of course – the Balrog. The Moria sequence all the way up to the Bridge at Kazahdum, Gandalf’s “YOU SHALL NOT PASS!” and “Fly you fools!” followed by its end on Frodo’s heartbroken face is probably my favourite sequence in this entire trilogy and one of my favourite ever in film. I remember when seeing The Fellowship of the Ring at the cinema for the first time and the Balrog turned up I lost my freaking mind. It roared that hot, gravely, rumbling roar…and the cinema shook. I felt my seat vibrating. Jesus H. Christ! That moment goes down as probably my single favourite movie going moment ever. Of course from then on this film can’t top that on a visceral and gobsmacking level. But it manages it on a purely emotional and story telling level with the realisation by Frodo that he must abandon his friends and go on alone to his likely doom. You have the sacrifice of Borimir, the flawed yet ultimately heroic warrior of Gondor. There’s also the oath of Strider, Gimli and Legolas to save Merry and Pippin from the orcs. And of course there is the selfless, unwavering loyalty of Samwise the Brave, which ends the film on a hopeful and reasonably positive note. Glorious!

Everything about this film is perfect. The performances are all very strong with Ian McKellen as Gandalf being the standout. I especially love Cate Blanchett as Galadriel. She brings a real otherworldly beauty yet also scariness to her role. And John Rhys-Davies as Gimli the Dwarf is wonderful fun too. His rivalry and burgeoning friendship with elf Legolas is a great thing to watch especially as it grows stronger throughout The Two Towers. A landmark in filmmaking, The Fellowship of the Ring is a truly brilliant film on every level.

The story continues…

The (not so) Lovely Bones

Hmmm…

I read the book last year. Though not the best written of works it does have a huge visceral and emotional impact and its themes are strong and affecting. Strangely, apart from a few individual scenes and moments, this film adaptation lacks in both impact and thematic resonance.

Peter Jackson's film of Alice Sebold's The Lovely Bones has been somewhat sanitised for movie audiences and seems happy to just fall back on sentimentality and overblown FX. What should have been an uncomfortable, heartbreaking, uplifting but – important this – a subtle story comes across as a well produced yet rather hollow melodrama with decent actors and lots of very expensive CGI.

To be honest I’m not really sure what the film of The Lovely Bones was really about or what the point of it was. I suppose it plays best as a coming of age tale as it does retain elements of the coming of age story in the book, based around young Susie Salmon’s yearning for her first boyfriend and her need to grow up, even after her cruel death. In the book she had a first kiss but it never progressed further. After her death she yearned to make love to the boy she loved – especially as in the book (but not in the film) she is horribly violated before being murdered. And that hideous act can’t be her one and only experience of sex. Basically she needed to grow up to be able to move on. But in the film this is over simplified to be all about that one first kiss. The emotional journey of Susie is completed using the same method as in the book only it is now lacking in any real weight and feels kind of rushed and rather awkward. And the characters it happens to in the film are not developed at all so we have no real sense of who they are or of their relationship to each other and of the importance to them of what Susie is doing through them. By ‘the characters’ I mean Ruth Connors, the rather odd, outsider girl from Susie’s school who loves art and poetry and has the ability to sense and sometimes see the dead, and Ray Singh, the handsome Indian/English boy who was Susie’s should-have-been boyfriend. In the book, Ruth and Ray come together and form a close and complex friendship based around Susie’s memory – even though Ruth never knew her very well. In the film this coming together and relationship isn’t developed at all. They chat briefly…and that’s it. Ruth especially is a major character from the book and yet she has only a few brief lines here.

The other major theme of the book is about family. How families can come together and also fall apart. But ultimately how life goes on, and, despite the terrible things that can happen, wonderful things will happen too. In the book a lot of time and attention is paid to the dynamics of the Salmon family and how Susie’s murder affects them all, how it starts to pull the family unit apart but also how her memory ultimately brings them back together with new happiness and love. In the film this theme is skimmed over at best with the positives being reduced to a few shots at the end over Susie’s last voiceover. Basically lip service is paid to the main themes of the book leaving the film feeling rather hollow and lacking. I know that in adapting a book to a film you need to cut away lots of stuff and move stuff around and focus your story more. But when doing that removes much of the point of the story then why bother? So in Peter Jackson’s film we get the pared down, straightforward story of fourteen year old Susie (Saoirse Ronan) being murdered, who then goes to ‘the in-between’ and runs around CGI hills and beaches, yearning for her aborted first kiss with Ray Singh while also watching her dad Jack (Mark Wahlberg) smash up his ships in bottles and obsess about finding her killer. Yep, bare bones of the book and rather unfulfilling. It is odd that Jackson, his wife Fran Walsh together with Phillipa Boyens who between them did such a grand and masterful job adapting the huge Lord of the Rings seem to have dropped the ball with a smaller more intimate tale.

Now, having been rather harsh, this is still a Peter Jackson film. And as a Peter Jackson film The Lovely Bones is technically very well made with certain sequences, scenes and moments being excellent and hitting their targets bang on. The entirety of the sequence in the cornfield with Susie being enticed by George Harvey and then meeting her end at his hands (which we don’t thankfully see) is beautifully directed and acted. You sit there watching it, knowing what is coming, saying to yourself ‘Please…just turn around and run home, Susie.’ Apart from the rape, which doesn’t happen anyway in the movie, and the murder itself, this sequence looks and feels just like how it was described in the book. Then there is Susie’s dad smashing up his ships in bottles and then seeing the strange candlelight reflection in the window. That was genuinely moving. As was the afterlife sequence where Susie realises the true horror of Harvey’s crimes. The sequence where Susie’s little sister Lindsey breaks in to Harvey’s house is also straight from the book and is handled very well. It is supremely tense and creepy.

And so what of the cast? Casting the central role of young Susie Salmon was pivotal to this film. You have to get from Susie innocence combined with genuine rage and sadness for everything she has lost and will never have. She is smart but not especially so. Sister Lindsey is the really bright one who excels at school and at sports. Susie is just a normal teenage girl full of conflicting emotions and bubbling hormones, trying to become a woman and yet still childlike in many of her ways. As Susie, Saoirse Ronan is good. She is not great – but then she is not given especially great material to work with and has probably been directed in an ill-advised manner on occasion. The main culprit for this is in the over sickly and breathy voiceovers. They should have sounded more subtle, mature and wise in their speaking. Instead they are rather overwrought and theatrical. But she is certainly a good actress and with her long limbs and huge emotive blue eyes she looks striking and sells her scenes well enough. Mark Wahlberg as Susie’s dad Jack is good too. It is a low key and understated performance. He is not required to do much except be a nice, quiet chap before later on getting bleary eyed and quietly heartbroken. And Marky Mark does fine. He is believable as a father who has lost the brightest thing in his life. His steady, low-key, unyielding obsession over finding Susie’s killer is played nicely. Rachel Wiesz as Susie’s mum Abigail sadly makes no impact at all. She plays a tiny role in the film and disappears for a large section. Her entire backstory and subplot has been removed. Susan Sarandon as Grandma Lynn is good fun as the comic relief – even more so here than in the book. And then there is Stanley Tucci as George Harvey, the Salmon’s neighbour and the killer of Susie. He is the standout in the film and is very good indeed. Perhaps too good. Tucci is instantly creepy and repulsive as the loner, dollhouse building Harvey. But to be fair that was the character from the book. Almost everyone in the book thought Harvey was odd and creepy with that being the main factor why Jack and his daughter Lindsey suspected him of Susie’s death. And Tucci is certainly good at being bad. Harvey is a genuine monster whose monstrous deeds and compulsions become further revealed towards films end. His manner is reptilian and his methods disgustingly well thought out and planned. You really hope he gets what’s coming to him. Nobody else in the film makes any impact. Ruth and Ray who should have been main characters are sidelined. The actors look the part and say their few lines well enough. But that’s it.

In the end The Lovely Bones is rather a disappointment for me. It is far from a bad film, though. Peter Jackson just seems to have missed much of the point of the story. And while certain parts are handled beautifully and will give your tear ducts a good testing, he has also misjudged or simply missed out things that would give this story the genuine overall impact that it deserves. To my mind the film he made is too overblown, sanitised and over-reliant on flashy CGI. It feels oddly hollow at its core and is lacking in an overall emotional connection while appearing rather muddled in what it is trying to do and/or say. And yet, despite its shortcomings, I still kinda like it…mainly for the scenes and moments Jackson gets dead right. For example Ray telling Susie, “You are beautiful, Susie Salmon.” Grandma Lynn telling Susie about first kisses, saying, “Just have fun, kid.” Ruth seeing Susie’s spirit rush past her in the night. The candle’s ghostly flickering in Susie’s dad’s window. The reveal of the extent of Harvey’s monstrous crimes and the following sad-yet-happy realisation by Susie that she is not alone. And the lovely final words and good wishes Susie gives to us the audience before the screen grows dark. A good film in parts then, but not really one that works as a whole. This is no Heavenly Creatures and certainly no Lord of the Rings. And that’s a real shame.

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The Lovely Bones (book)

I’d been meaning to read The Lovely Bones for a long time now – even before the Peter Jackson film was announced. And with the film adaptation's release imminent, I finally got around to it.

For those who don’t know, The Lovely Bones is a novel by Alice Sebold published in 2002 that tells the story of a girl called “Salmon. Like the fish. First name Susie.” On 6 December 1973 fourteen-year-old Susie Salmon is raped and murdered by a neighbour. Susie tells us her story in first person narration while watching over her family and friends from her own personalised heaven, ‘the in-between’, watching as they struggle to come to terms with her most awful of deaths. While watching her family in pain, Susie is struggling to let go of her mortal bonds and the terrible sense of loss she feels for the life she will never now have – especially the budding first love with a boy at school that started and ended with just one fleeting kiss.

I liked The Lovely Bones a great deal but it sure was hard going. It’s one of the most emotionally affecting things I've ever read. There were several places in Alice Sebold’s text where I was unable to keep the old eyes from leaking. Several places where I just had to stop and say to myself ‘Okay. That’s enough for now.’ Why? I guess the subject matter and the original way in which it's presented. The way the book presents the characters and how they relate to each other in the wake of tragedy. I’d defy the hardest of hearts not to be moved by young Susie Salmon, and then for that heart not to break as her tale goes on, before becoming healed at story’s end. For a parent reading this book I’d imagine it would be a gruelling experience. I’m not a parent and it was pretty tough for me at times. But despite the horror of Susie’s murder there is also an inherent warmth and hopefulness around the whole tale. It is sad and tragic, yes, but also rather life affirming in a strange way.

The Lovely Bones does a great job showing the different dynamics of a family shattered by the worst possible tragedy, of showing how that family tries and fails and tries again to put itself back together. As a novel it didn’t quite go where I thought it would. It’s not a murder mystery or solve the crime and catch the killer type of story. There are elements of that in there but that’s not what the story is about. This is primarily a story about discovery, of growing up and of moving on. It’s a unique coming of age tale about someone who will never come of age - at least not as she should. It’s a love story about life and family told from the perspective of someone who can now see every tiny aspect of life and family but cannot participate in it anymore.

The Lovely Bones is not the best written book ever. The prose can be a little dry at times. However it is always intriguing and tells a sad but also hopeful tale in a tough and often emotionally challenging way.

I hope that Peter Jackson’s movie captures the spirit and feel of the book, the horrific tragedy that can move you to tears but also the warmth and humanity that can make you smile.