In his 1966 preface to the paperback edition of The Lord of
the Rings, TRR Tolkien emphasised that the writing of this long, three-volume work about a long quest had been a long journey for him as well. Its composition, he said, “went on at intervals during the years 1936 to 1949 … The delay was, of course, also increased by the outbreak of war in 1939, by the end of which year the tale had not yet reached the end of Book I [the first half of the first volume]. In spite of the darkness of the next five years …
I plodded on, mostly by night, till I stood by Balin’s tomb in Moria. There I halted for a long while. It was almost a year later when I went on …”
If this vast book was sometimes a plod to write, its readers may also have felt it was occasionally a bit of a plod to read, despite Tolkien’s undoubted narrative skills. “It is timeless,” said one critic of The Lord of the Rings; “it will go on and on.” And, yes, as others have said, it does go on and on. This is not a short book. The three volumes add up to more than 1 000 pages, and Tolkien is not afraid to complicate his story. As befits an epic, it has stories embedded within the main story, and many a song or lay is interjected, satisfying Tolkien’s desire to pastiche ancient poetic forms. He also has much history and background to impart in his creation of this extraordinary imaginary world, all of which adds to its richness but does slow the narrative.
One thing the film version does not do is plod. In fact, once it has got going, The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (opening December 19) fairly sweeps along. Which is just as well, because this, the movie of the first volume and the first of three (to appear at annual intervals), is three hours long. Any foot-dragging and the audience would begin to feel close to expiry (as it is, the experience is pretty exhausting) — and the movie would assuredly be unable to cover the necessary ground to get Frodo Baggins and his compadres from the Shire, homeland of the hobbits, to the borders of the Land of Shadow.
In case you don’t know, Frodo Baggins is a hobbit, one of the little people, though most definitely not a dwarf (that’s a different species). Into his hands falls the Ring, an object of power with a tortuous history. The Dark Lord Sauron is rising once more, calling this most powerful artefact to himself (“It wants to be found”) as part of his plan for total domination of Middle Earth. It is up to the Fellowship of the Ring (Frodo, his three hobbit companions, Gandalf the wizard, two men, a dwarf and an elf) to keep it from his clutches. This requires a major odyssey, moving far from Frodo’s comfortable home in the Shire, across mountains and through the dwarfish mines of Moria, to the elf land of Lothlórien and beyond, with many a peril faced en route. Here is a quest narrative to rival all those ancient epics, as Tolkien intended.
The movie is magnificently realised. Those who feel that they’d rather stick to their own imagining of the text (if there are any such hippies left) should simply submit to its enormous visual power. Environments such as Isengard, where the turncoat wizard Saruman digs his devilish mines, are superbly realised, as is the mediaeval-style hobbit village (with a touch of bawdy), and the subterranean world of Moria. The scenery of New Zealand, where the film was made, is equally imposing when presented au naturel.
The creatures of evil are especially well done: the Orcs (Sauron’s footsoldiers, as it were), the Ringwraiths, the Balrog (the fiery monster that confronts our heroes at the Bridge of Khazad-dûm), are truly scary in their mutant ugliness and sheer menace. And there are so many of them! By comparison, as another critic has pointed out, the baddies in that other wizard movie, Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, aren’t frightening at all. Perhaps that’s because this is much more of an adult movie than Harry Potter is.
The compelling nature of these evil creatures adds much to the action sequences in The Fellowship of the Ring — sequences that are very good, saturated with the desperation of a small band pitted against hordes of voracious killers. Understandably, the film has concentrated on such action, and is all the better for it.
It also makes intelligent changes to the schema of the book. The elven princess Arwen is introduced much earlier than in the book, and given more of a role in spiriting Frodo to safety. Moreover, the sight of the gorgeous Liv Tyler whipping out her sword and confronting a posse of Dark Riders, challenging them to “come and get him”, is indeed stirring. The nascent love between her and the human king Aragorn also adds a sympathetic dimension; Tolkien himself rather shied away from any hint of sexuality.
Likewise, the film subtracts some of Tolkien’s archaic language (Frodo does not shout things like “O Elbereth! Gilthoniel!”) and adds expanded scenes of confrontation between Gandalf, the good wizard, and the traitor Saruman, to impressive effect. It also gives itself a more powerful close than the book’s. The book is pleased to leave us on a rather subdued note, as Frodo sets off on the next leg of his quest, but the film sensibly gives us a rousing (and somewhat tear-jerking) climax.
In the context of all this spectacle, it would not have been surprising had the human performances been somewhat overwhelmed. Yet the actors (with the exception of Cate Blanchett as the elf queen Galadriel, who sounds like she’s on Valium) manage to give appealing life to their characters, particularly Ian McKellen as Gandalf (wizardly gravitas with a bit of a twinkle) and Elijah Wood as Frodo. Wood has a wonderful face, oddly shaped, more elfin than hobbity, perhaps, but it works. And the way the movie has been shot or computer-manipulated to maintain the scale of smaller hobbits and larger others is quite masterly. For all its championing of the little people, this a big movie in every respect.
And it’s enthralling. As usual at Montecasino, where the lavish premiere was held, the movie was slightly out of focus throughout. I wanted to go and complain, but I couldn’t tear myself away.