It almost feels strange to at long last write my final post here--about the film version of Return of the King--in part because I wrapped up writing about the novels clear back in April. My, what all we can experience in just 9 months! The years keep flying by, but a full year is still a full year, where anything can happen. By way of comparison: it's now been well over a year and a half since I rewatched The Two Towers for this project, and in some ways, I still feel the same sense of futility and despair I felt then, concerning the seemingly inevitable rise of the forces of ignorance, darkness, and bigotry. "What can men do against such reckless hate?" was and remains the watchword.
But on the other hand, in the year and a half since I last watched an LoTR film, there has at last arisen a genuine resistance of sort against that tide--far more belatedly than I would've preferred, of course, but at least it's there--and suddenly I find that the rapid series of turn-abouts throughout Return of the King resonate as much with me now as Two Towers did in 2016.
Seriously, every few minutes in this interminable film brings some new change in fortune: The orcs are seizing Minith Tirith! But wait, the Riders of Rohan have arrived! But wait, some weird elephant cavalry is making short work of them! But wait, now Aragorn has arrived with the spirits of the dead! Back and forth, back and forth--and these ceaseless and rapid shifts in fortune continue all film long. It can get downright exhausting, even eye-roll inducing, and if you had asked me to rewatch Return of the King just a few years ago, I think I would've grown irritated and finally bored by the whole ordeal.
But just as Two Towers resonated far more with me in 2016 than it did when I was 21, so too does Return of the King at the end of 2017, which has likewise featured an endless series of reversals: His cabinet is even more nepotistic, racist, corrupt, and radically unqualified than we feared! He signs an unconstitutional travel ban as one of his first acts! But wait, the courts have shut it down! And the mass protests have numbered in the millions! But wait, Congress is repealing the ACA without a viable replacement! But wait, the repeal failed! But they're trying again! But they failed again! But now bona fide Nazis are marching in Virginia! But Virginia just flipped even further blue! But now they're passing a tax break for the rich! But now the Dems have won the Alabama senate seat! But now the racist criminal sheriff he pardoned is running for senate! And on and on and on and on. It's absolutely exhausting. Eye-roll inducing. Irritating.
But that also means that the endless reversals of Return of the King feel far more true to real life. Northrop Frye in The Secular Scripture argued that literary "Realism" so-called is reliant on an endless series of cause-and-effect, of "A therefore B," whilst "Romance" is much more a series of "and thens," conceptualizing life as a string of abrupt events. Ironically then, "Romance" structurally feels far more true to life than "Realism," which, despite its pretentions otherwise, does not behave like real life at all!
Which brings me by a round-about way to another reason why it feels strange to be writing this final blog-post: because the implicit message of this film is that nothing ever really ends! As is notoriously known, even after Sauron is decisively defeated, the film just keeps going. There's at least 2 or 3 false endings in there. From a strictly cinematic standpoint, all these fake-out endings just kill the narrative momentum, needlessly stringing out a film that could've easily ended 20 minutes earlier. But from a Romance sort of perspective, all those fake-out endings also feel more true to life! Frodo sails away with the elves and Bilbo at the end, but Sam continues to carry on with the rest of his long, full life after. A big, fat "The End" covers the screen just before the credits roll, but that is also a misnomer: implicitly, Middle-Earth is still barreling forward after the termination of the events on-screen. Life continues--both theirs and our own. Indeed, all of our lives have continued forward since this film first debuted in 2003.
Maybe we, like the forces of Middle-Earth, will enjoy a decisive victory sometime in the near future. Maybe we're in for the long haul on an endless series of reversals. Who knows. The only thing we know for sure is that the story will continue on nonetheless. And for all of Tolkien's wizards, sorcerers, elves, orcs, and magic-rings--and for all of Jackson's CGI, practical effects, make-up artists and post-production--that is what renders the books and the films feeling the most realistic of all. Our most unexpected journey continues, long after we've closed the books and left the theater.
No comments:
Post a Comment