It's very easy to pick holes in a screenplay adaptation of a novel, particularly if you haven't thought much about the problems involved. A picture may paint a thousand words, but the converse does not necessarily hold. Not every "kiloword" can be replaced by a picture. The key to adaptations seems to be selecting which "kilowords" in a source can be turned into a picture and which will have to be modified or replaced and then doing so in a way which captures the spirit of the work. So what are some of the headaches created by "Lord of the Rings"?
These are the obvious ones which should be apparent to any intelligent human being. There are other, not so obvious, criteria. William Goldman*'s books, Adventures in the Screen Trade and Which Lie Did I Tell, give a good idea of the problems involved, so I'll give some illustrative quotes from his books and discuss them.
*William Goldman? - think Butch Cassidy, The Hot Rock, All the President's Men, Marathon Man (novel as well), The Princess Bride (novel as well), Maverick, Absolute Power, etc., etc. ... His books build an irreverant and cynical picture of the Hollywood screen trade into a pair of illuminating dissertations on the art of screenwriting. Mind you, he generally writes for Hollywood and Hollywood generally plays it safe. Which is why (thank you fate) Lord of the Rings is being made by an independent.
OK, having seen the first film plus the extended edition, what does Goldman have to say, and how do I think PJ & Co. have handled things.
First quote (Goldman on the second wave of attacks which got left out of "A Bridge Too Far" but where, in Goldman's opinion the real heroism lay.):
...what is genuinely heroic in life may not work for film. It simply, as they say, won't shoot.The strength of Tolkien's work is that, despite being based in fantasy, we can identify with the characters - they are real and Frodo in particular is genuinely heroic. I suspect that the bulk of Frodo and Sam's journey together falls into the genuinely heroic, but not filmic, category. So what does a screenwriter do about it? From what I've heard, Faramir travels a lot further with the pair and is more equivocal about the ring, providing a protagonist for the journey to Morgul Vale in The Two Towers. Plus the ring has a more obvious effect on Frodo's behaviour (rather than just on his thoughts) so we see the effect, rather than just hearing him tell Sam about it. In Mordor (when even Gollum is absent) ???????who knows. Maybe Sam will be less tolerantly supportive creating more tension in the relationship, particularly if the ring's effects on Frodo continue to be magnified.
(Goldman on the mere 16 key characters in the novel "Absolute Power"):
...it's too horrible You simply cannot have that many characters in a movie today. It's confusing, it's a turnoff, and in terms of movie storytelling, it's just wrong.He then goes on to talk about the problems it creates with casting stars - a Hollywood MUST, which was why they could never create an acceptable LotR, but which is not applicable to the Peter Jackson version. Nevertheless the points above do apply. The majority of filmgoers just cannot cope with a plethora of characters. Even with the cuts already described, it was a problem for many non-Tolkien buffs. The best testament to the excellent job done by PJ and Co. is the number of people who went out and bought the book after seeing "Fellowship" - i.e. confused but not turned off.
(Goldman on the problem of studio executives and their favourite/pet stars):
Stars do not - repeat - do not play heroes - - stars play gods.Well, the closest thing to a god in the fellowship is Gandalf, but Hollywood gods don't die/disappear two thirds of the way through the movie. By Hollywood standards there are no star parts in LotR. Hence there were never going to be any Hollywood "stars" in the cast. Hence the problem in getting financial backing. Before we complain too much, think how much easier it would have been to put a god in the script and walk into Hollywood.
(Emphasising the difference between TV and movie writing):
But in a movie, and only at the beginning of a movie, we have time. Not a lot, but some. Time to set up our people. Time to set up our situation. Time, if you will, to set up our particular world.And, boy, did PJ and Co. need that time. And, boy, did the television junkies whinge about how slow the start of the film was. And yes, I think that they should have left a bit more of the "setting up" in. 5-10 minutes? It's where the DVD extended edition really scores over the theatre release. The prologue sets up the big picture. The Hobbiton scenes not only set up a few of our characters - they set up our situation. What the hell have these bucolic, fun loving beings got to do with rings, and power and wars - even if Frodo is one of only two hobbits we see reading? But even now we've only met a few of the characters...
Subtext ... is the pulse beating beneath those words; it is the unexpressed subcon- scious life that brings size and weight to your writing.In movies, these are the visual cues which fill in the details. An example of subtext is shown by how PJ & Co. handled the difficulty of a continual influx of characters, some of them major, throughout the story. It's the middle of the film; you can't take the time to set them up. This is where subtext had to come in.Think of the way Boromir rides into Rivendell, powerful canter, stops, looks round from horseback assessingly, the camera looking up at him. Compare with the way Legolas arrives, flowing canter, light leap down, looks round and up with pleasure, the camera on a level with him. Then Gimli, stomping along on foot, all ground based power, the camera looking down to him. The differences between the characters are set up - simple, yes - clever, yes! but subtle.
Endings, frankly, are a bitch. A proper ending for a film is one in which an expectation is fulfilled for the audience. But once they get a sense of it com- ing, often they're ahead of you. You don't have to rush. But you must never waste even a single shot - because I think the ending requires the most delicate and thoughtful writing of any part of a movie.And Goldman never had to deal with splitting the world's best loved epic into three films! Let's face it - no matter what PJ & Co. did, the films were always going to have a greater degree of separation than the books. Hence the need for a degree of completion in each one. Hence the finalisation of the breaking of the fellowship at the end of film 1. But because it's an ending now, rather than a continuation, we only get the single shot of Boromir's funeral boat. Yet because there has to be a continuation, we get the setting up of the next film: Frodo and Sam setting off together; the "Let's hunt some orc!"; the omission of Merry and Pippin's fate. It's short, it has to be short, because to drag any of it out after THE BIG FIGHT would make it anticlimactic. I'll bet that Frodo doesn't make it to Cirith Ungol by the end of film 2. Why? because non of the others reach that date, and because of the greater separation between the films the threads have to tie together. Otherwise the start of film 3 will be hell on viewers. Return to Films
Background: The device of Idril Celebrindal, from the dust cover of 'The Silmarillion' (1977). Image used without permission.
Last update 11/12/02
Copyright © Susan H Law, 2002, and her licensors. All rights reserved.