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No mud, no wrestling, but lots of words ...! (Long!)

24.0.34.251

Posted by Roxanne on January 27, 2004 at 21:13:23

In Reply to: I'm assuming that your wife watched a snippet of The Two Towers, since she mentioned joining the film in the middle; ... posted by Audiophilander on January 27, 2004 at 16:45:50:

I feel like somebody entered my name in the Primaries and forgot to tell me I was running, but after my (ahem) beloved AuPh decided to all but promise I'd contribute something, I feel compelled.

First, I will freely admit a couple of things. I don't claim to be cultured, vastly educated, or even highly literate. I will not quote obscure philosophical references. I will not remark upon ART FOR ART'S SAKE, which I find to be a discussion with absolutely no value, because art by its very nature is totally subjective. But I'll offer some street cred, for fun.

I am NOT a fine artist. I have some passing acquaintance with the masters, and I once took a really fast three-hour walking tour through the Prada. I think most modern fine art is crap, and I generally laugh out loud at the pretentious, self-important displays of toilet parts and dismembered mannequins painted with rainbows that passes under the label today.

I am NOT a connossieur of classical music, although I played with great dedication for more than 15 years, was a professional for five, and played with John Williams, Peter Nero, and the great Henry Mancini. (I also played with the Sons of Bluegrass and dressed in liederhosen to play polka at a political fundraiser. I say this because when you're truly employed in the arts, it isn't a high-concept occupation. It's working your ass off, generally teaching 40 hours a week so you can afford to take the next audition for the Symphony of the Most Remote Place on Earth, which will draw in 500 desperate, eager souls just like you.) And I find most modern classical music to be about as generally musical as broken glass in a box. I can say that, because I once had to play a piece called TUBE: A PIECE FOR NINE CLARINETS AND BROKEN GLASS. Dear God have mercy on my soul, I played it with a straight face.

I am NOT incredibly literate, in the sense that I seek out and enjoy great literary novels. I find most modern literary works have all of the depth of a toilet bowl, with none of the practical attraction, and I think if you analyze them closely, you will find there are three common factors in nearly every pretentious literary work: someone has a dream, someone acts in a way completely inappropriate to normal life as we know it, and generally, a bird appears that symbolizes something stupid and obvious. I have written and published many books, none of which qualify in the least as literary works. This does not distress me.

And now that I've explained that I am uncultured, unlettered barbarian, I'll tell you why I love "Lord of the Rings."

I have read the novels, many times. I read them when they were looked down upon as "kids books." I read them over and over as the world slowly, with great and ponderous dignity, worked its way around to mentioning that perhaps this Tolkein fellow might have had something. I loved them with a pure, burning passion. (Of course, I might have been tainted by the fact that nobody explained to me I ought to have been reading only Good Literature. I grew up reading everything from Nancy Drew and Erle Stanley Gardner to the Bronte sisters and James M. Cain. I like imagination. I am not particular about its form, I only demand it be well done.)

I was fully prepared to NOT like the films. I have rarely seen an adaptation that I loved as much as the original novels; they're either so slavish that they lose all sight of the spirit, or they're so free with the concepts that they no longer represent the work. And fantasy has been given even shorter shrift in film than in literary circles. It's most often been treated by the filmmakers as little more than cartoonish, and nearly always has been given some wink-wink-nudge-nudge aspect to remind us that the people making the movies didn't *really* expect us to believe this hogwash.

That was not what I found in Lord of the Rings. Instead, I found a team of people who had read and internalized the novels, who were nevertheless willing and able to make the changes that absolutely had to be made to bring the story to a visual medium. The adaptation is stunningly good, in my opinion. The characters are faithful to the spirit of the work. If I have a criticism, it is that the in-computer work does tend to have a flatter palette than I would have liked, but for heaven's sake, we're talking about an art form that is so new it's literally younger than most of the people seeing it. There is room to grow. I would be disappointed were there not.

I cannot fault the music, which does exactly what I wanted it to do ... underscore the story, and do it in a way that enhances but does not overpower. (And who knew Billy Boyd could sing? And so well!?)

But most of all, this film has something that I do not find in many movies -- I would say "these days," but that isn't true; it's simply never been there at all in fiction or film. It has the courage to tell a story that is the mirror opposite of what we're so often given as "heroic." I offer the example of another Oscar-nominated film: "Cold Mountain."

When I watched "Cold Mountain," I kept getting more and more annoyed by the obviously "literary" touches that practically screamed, "Look at me, I'M ABOUT SOMETHING!" (Remember my literary rules? Someone has a vision ... Nicole Kidman looks in the well and sees her beau -- and BIRDS! There are always birds. But I digress.) I groan every time I hear the grating, annoying trailer slurp its overdone accent across my ears. Who dares to say this movie isn't fantasy? Nicole Kidman can't get a date? Her piano stays in tune on a jouncing cart ride across the south to such an extent she can play beautifully WHILE THE CART IS MOVING? The Four Seasons just charged us to have *their* piano tuned before a party, and hell, they just rolled it across the hall.

But worst of all, the movie had no heart. Or, actually, it had exactly what it promised: a cold one. It hammered its message home with a piledriver: LIFE IS HORRIBLE AND SHORT AND WORTHLESS! YOU CAN'T MAKE A DIFFERENCE, YOU'RE JUST A SCRAP OF FLESH CAUGHT IN THE GRINDING WHEELS OF AN UNCARING UNIVERSE! The angstridden longing of Nicole and Jude was ludicrous to me, an overwrought and astonishingly selfish (and self-centered) anti-romance. (However, I fully approved of Renee Zellwegger, who said what I was thinking on more than one occasion.)

Exactly the opposite, in Lord of the Rings. Its message is really very simple: you make a difference. Not because you're pretty or wellborn or royal, but because you have the power to choose. It's a story of love and sacrifice and heroism, and that makes it different from nearly everything out there. The plight of Sam and Frodo at the end of the world means more to me than a hundred Jude Laws and Nicole Kidmans, whose main goal seems to be ensuring that they don't die virgins in the midst of all of the bloodshed and strife.

I like Lord of the Rings because, at heart, I'm one of those completely ordinary hobbits, thrust daily into a world larger and more frightening than I'd ever prefer. I love encountering, just for a brief, shining few hours, people who are willing to give their lives for love, for hope, and for something larger than themselves.

Because otherwise, we're left with the likes of Cold Mountain and Mystic River for inspiration, and personally, it's enough to make me want to go back to liederhosen and play another political fundraiser.

-- Let the flames begin! --

Roxanne Longstreet Conrad, aka Rachel Caine
(and the wife of AuPh, but don't blame him, I talked him into it)

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

The Cable Cooker

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