Re: Illustrations from an old Russion edition of the Hobbit
- From: Troels Forchhammer <Troels@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 03 Jun 2010 00:04:35 +0200
In message
<news:20100601120953.61D3.4.NOFFLE@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Dirk Thierbach <dthierbach@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> spoke these staves:
Troels Forchhammer <Troels@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
A bit of searching has revealed that the artist is Mikhail
Belomlinsky.
Well, that's what it says on the front page depicted there :-)
Bah! ;-)
I had to try to hand-transliterate by trial-and-error (and I am NOT
telling what my first attempt yielded <GG>) and then start searching
for appropriate parts until I finally found the guy.
I don't understand a single word they're saying in the film clips,
but, judging alone from the acting itself, I would say that they
capture the essential character of Bilbo and Thorin quite well
Hmpf. I'm not really convinced by the acting in the clips. It's
ok for a stage play, but not for a film.
I think this kind of stage play acting is actually very appropriate
for _The Hobbit_
There is a certain degree of frivolity or levity in the narrative of
_The Hobbit_ that is both directed at the reader, but also inward at
the story itself. The story _does_ get more serious towards the end
-- in particular after the death of Smaug -- but for the most part,
there is an element of caricature, even, in the portrayal of some of
the main characters: certainly, IMO, Bilbo, Thorin and Gandalf that
is, again IMO, better conveyed in the slightly exaggerated acting
style of the stage play than in the traditional cinematic style of
underplaying.
This is also tied to the fact that _The Hobbit_, whatever else I may
think of that fact, is very clearly a children's book (almost
aggressively so), and the narrative is pointedly addressed to
children. This, too, is an effect that is, IMO, better conveyed by
slightly over-playing.
I wonder what Tolkien would have thought, had he seen what modern
film-creators are capable of? What if he had seen for instance
the first fifteen minutes of the New Line Cinema LotR (along with
a few other clips of the best scenes -- Edoras, the Ents
attacking Isengard, things like that)? Would he have thought that
live-action film was capable of creating Secondary Belief?
I don't know what Tolkien would have thought, but IMHO one of the
high points of the PJ movies is their visual side. Not quite how I
would have imagined it, and not all the time, but overall not bad
and, hm, "possible" for lack of a better word.
Indeed -- the ability to produce a visual effect that was without the
tell-tale signs of 'special effect' even when it clearly violated the
laws of nature is one of the greatest advantages of Jackson's films:
you can almost believe it as long as you forget that it is supposed
to happen in an imaginary historical period of our own world
(visually it was only the most ludicrously exaggerated stunts that,
so to speak, broke the spell -- Legolas' shield-surfing and
Oliphaunt-climbing, the skull-slide etc.)
As Paul points out, it might have been easier to convince Tolkien
that film have developed enough to be a medium that is fully
appropriate for the telling of fairy-stories by showing him some of
the other well-done films in that genre -- the Harry Potter films
come to mind as does del Toro's _Pan's Labyrinth_ and, I am sure,
others would work as well.
In the end, I do consider it likely that Tolkien would have been
convinced, had he seen what has been done in films over these past
ten years or so. When I recall the fantasy films of my childhood --
even the very best of them -- the 'magic' does now seem crude and
unbelievable by modern standards.
I admit that film does not really have that power for me,
personally -- the Secondary Belief created by film is, for me, a
weak and pale thing compared to the 'real thing'
What destroys my secondary belief during the movies is mostly
bad dialogue and senseless plot twists.
One thing that has become to me abundantly clear is that we all have
our different 'worst moments' in the Jackson films, regardless of our
attitude towards the films in general. Some of that is indubitably
due to differences in our perception of Tolkien's book, e.g. what
about them we particularly love, but I do wonder how much of it is
due to differences in the way we experience films in general?
--
Troels Forchhammer <troelsfo(a)googlewave.com>
Valid e-mail is <troelsfo(a)gmail.com>
Please put [AFT], [RABT] or 'Tolkien' in subject.
And he that breaks a thing to find out what it is has left
the path of wisdom.
- Gandalf, /The Fellowship of the Ring/ (J.R.R. Tolkien)
.
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