Peter Jackson's "The Return of the King" Film
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.
Eric's Thoughts (3/24/18)
The Return of the King surprised me. My recollection of the LOTR movies was that they got sequentially worse. (Perhaps that's because I'm remembering the Extended Editions that I watched.)
Whatever the reason, I enjoyed the Return of the King almost as much as the Fellowship, if not just as much. Perhaps it resonated with me more this time because of the current state of affairs in the U.S. The theme of the movie is clear -- people riding out in the face of certain death to face unspeakable odds. The Return of the King is about a volitional act, about people deciding they have had enough of the bullying and riding out to meet it. (Note the contrast of the boxed-in survival of the Two Towers.) Rather than waiting for the enemy to come, King Theoden rides out to certain death with his armies -- because it's the right thing to do, and it's better than waiting around for the end to come. The battle scene does not disappoint; the elephants are fun to watch and add a nice flavor to the battle.
In turn, Frodo and Sam's subplot was also far more interesting than in the Two Towers. Gollum is up to his old tricks again, and leads the hobbits into Shelob's lair. At the top of the Stairs of Cirith Ungol, Frodo says he doesn't want to go on. Gollum has a moment where he is baffled and doesn't know what to do; for a moment, it looks like all of Gollum's scheming has come to naught. Gollum simply says, "Go in, or go back." Frodo recognizes the folly of not going on and replies, "Well, I can't go back." A fun exchange to watch. Inside the lair, the spider is delightfully foul, and Frodo struggling in the webs was probably the one of the best scenes of the whole series in terms of creating an actual tense moment.
The film also hits a high point, just like in the book, when Frodo hangs over the edge of Mount Doom, deciding whether to drop the ring into the fires, but is not able to cast it away. Instead, Frodo claims the ring as his own. A truly chilling moment.
At the same time, the rag-tag remains of Rohan and Gondor face the hordes of Sauron at the black gate, ready to die. When Gollum steals the ring from Frodo and falls into the abyss, and Sauron's armies flee, the moment truly feels earned.
In short, I didn't really have much to criticize about this movie. A fun romp with a feeling of stakes. And a great way to end the journey of blogging through every chapter of Lord of the Rings.
Ben's Thoughts (6/8/18)
It's taken me far too long to blog about The Return of the King film. Part of that, I truly believe, was trepidation about how the film would resonate with me. I remembered parts of this movie just being bad. And those parts did not disappoint. They were bad. So bad.
However,
in the same moment, parts of the movie were glorious. As both Jacob and
Eric noted, the Battle of the Pelennor Fields, translated to the big
screen, is awe-inspiring (even with the elephant surfing -- after all,
they had to top the shield-surfing of the previous movie). The climax of
the film, especially the Frodo, Sam, and Gollum half of the climax, is
masterfully done. (More on these two setpieces later on.)
But do the good parts of the movie make up for the bad parts? I'm left uncertain. Like Two Towers,
I watched this film in three installments. The first hour takes us to
Shelob's Lair and the muster of Rohan. The second hour finishes out the
Battle of the Pelennor. And the final hour includes the climax and
denouement. But unlike Two Towers, I felt like the pacing here
was more uneven. The setpieces, while largely visually spectacular, were
interspersed with bad humor and cringeworthy emotional beats. Some of
the plotting seems questionable, in light of the intricacy of how the
book plays out. Even some of the visual effects felt less impressive
than in previous films.
First, touching on a couple of main plot points. Why does the movie have Frodo believe that Sam is eating all of the food? Does that make any sense, given what we've seen to that point? This subplot is in place to awkwardly separate Sam from Frodo so that he can charge in later "unexpectedly" (as if a single viewer didn't believe that Sam wasn't going to save the day after Shelob wraps up Frodo). But at what cost? It effectively deletes Gollum's aborted redemptive arc from the film; gone are the beats such as where Gollum watches Frodo sleep and then Sam foolishly berates him. I know Two Towers covered a lot of that ground already, but Gollum is in full-on villain mode in this film, and I think it is a less complicated, less interesting film as a result.
Second, Denethor has lost all his nuance in the film. I can recognize the beauty of the charge of the Gondorian cavalry, juxtaposed with Denethor slobbering over his dinner and Pippin's melancholy song hovering in the background. It is a masterful piece of technical and emotional filmmaking. But it comes at the cost of Denethor's complexity; the internal conflict; the question of how much of his actions were because of Sauron's corruptive influence and how much because of personal weakness; his moments of true leadership before the final collapse. Even his demise is altered; instead of making the affirmative choice to end his life in the face of his insurmountable despair, here he is knocked back into the burning pyre by Gandalf's horse, of all things, while he is in the middle of strangling Pippin (or something; Pippin spends a lot of this movie screaming randomly with his mouth wide open) and burns up rather accidentally (and then runs and throws himself over the edge of the city? Well, now you're burning alive AND falling to your death, not sure that really solves anything). It's all blockbuster cinema, but I think hewing closer to the source material would have been just as good if not better.
I could go on. Probably the runner-up is the fact that the film spends SO MUCH time on Eowyn in the first two-thirds, and she is completely and utterly forgotten in the final third. At least Tolkien tried to give her some closure. Film Eowyn is just abandoned. But in any case, what continually pulled me out of the movie more than plotting decisions was emotional beats.
I feel like Peter Jackson is fully committed to the emotional poignancy of the book. Return of the King is a wrenching text in many ways, dealing with loss and fear and death and perseverance in the face of hopelessness. And much of the film treats this subject matter well. Aragorn's speech before the Black Gates captures very poignantly and cinematically this particular theme. But boy, are there some duds squatting perversely in the midst of this film.
Pippin's silent shrieking, as the camera tilts wildly, as he grips the palantir, made me cringe and roll my eyes. Merry's goofy smiles at, well, basically everything ("Milady!" he squeaks, with a foolish grin on his face, as Eowyn scoops him up onto her horse, is just one example of many.) Sam's blubbering. His quivering bottom lip could receive its own billing in the credits. And Frodo's smiles. Oh, those smiles. I am not one to read unintended undertones into films where I think the filmmakers did not intend them. But the cinematography, angles, lighting, and expressions the director has these characters make (Frodo and Sam in particular) leave me firmly convinced that Sam and Frodo are either a current romantic item or are desperately longing to become one. (Frodo actually kissing Sam at the Havens, but slighting Pippin and Merry, does nothing to discourage this view.)
And oh, that bedroom scene. The bedroom scene.
Gandalf's forced laughter. The members of the Fellowship coming in one by one (even the ones that we never saw Frodo develop a relationship with or even interact with, like Legolas and Gimli). The hobbits jumping on the bed. Then more jumping on the bed. Then Merry or Pippin randomly hurling themselves backwards onto the bed. Then Sam's entrance, with the sun shining so fake behind him and Frodo's lopsided, contorted expression of love on his face. That scene ripped me out of the movie so much the first time I saw it, and still does today. It's one of those scenes that makes a moviegoer embarrassed to be in the theater when it comes on.
There is much to love about the film. The scope of the Battle of the Pelennor Fields is breathtaking. When the Rohirrim arrive, and the CGI horsemen line up on the hilltop, you cannot help but feel something like joy stirring within you. I think the end of Two Towers does it a little better, with Sam's speech interspersed between images of victory halfway across the world, but this is good too. Really, anything in the film that involved Bernard Hill as Theoden, and Miranda Otto as Eowyn, was phenomenal. Bernard Hill in particular steals the movie once again. His frustrated statements about Gondor at the beginning, juxtaposed with his selfless decision to ride to their aid when they ask for it. His speech to the men at Dunharrow and then before the final battle, again addressing that need for valor and perseverance, even in the face of hopeless, soul-crushing odds. "We cannot defeat the armies of Mordor," Gamling says. Theoden replies, "No, we cannot." And then, after a pregnant pause, "But we will meet them in battle nonetheless." Basically everything about Theoden and Eowyn is perfect in this film, down to the last moment where they repeat their conversation from Two Towers: "I know your face..."
Similarly, the scene preceding the destruction of the Ring is masterfully done. Frodo succumbing to the Ring's seductive influence is just as terrifying on the big screen as in the text. Gollum's treacherous strike against Sam is unexpected and cruel - Gollum at his most sinister. I loved how Sam's words mirrored Elrond's to Isildur, that we saw in flashbacks in Fellowship, but with a hobbit-like twist that made the desperate plea his own. When I first saw the film, I was frustrated with how Frodo attacked Gollum after his finger had been bitten off, and how that struggle was what led to the Ring going over the edge; I thought that they should have stuck with Gollum slipping and falling like in the book. But upon this rewatch, I find myself pleased with the juxtaposition of Gollum and Frodo: Gollum has literally nothing left but the Ring, to the point of holding it up out of the lava for as long as he can before he is incinerated. Frodo, on the other hand, chooses to live, even if it is just for Sam: "Don't you let go!" Sam shouts, knowing Frodo's temptation of hurling himself after his Precious.
I stayed away from reviewing the film for its major themes, because Jacob and Eric touched on those so eloquently. For what it's worth, I think it conveys a powerful message in a (generally) effective way. As a work of entertainment, it's less effective, because of the sketchy parts I outlined above. All in all, a good film, but not a great one. Fellowship is still the best, and I would put this one (surprisingly) behind Two Towers as well.
And that's a wrap, folks!
...who wants to read The Silmarillion with me?
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