Your regularly scheduled movie Gondor rant
Mar. 2nd, 2023 10:22 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anghraineThis isn't the post on the subject I made on Tumblr, but the longer, rantier version I drafted before that and decided against posting there. Some people wanted the full version, but I didn't want to deal with Tumblr tag hell, so I thought—hey, I'll post it at Dreamwidth and link it for the people who want to read.
Okay.
I was thinking over the omission of the scouring of the Shire from Jackson's ROTK, which is both easily understood and one of the films' worst decisions IMO in terms of LOTR's treatment of war.
And, of course, I was also thinking of how underwhelming I find film!Gondor, which is largely reduced to Minas Tirith and the fields around it (clearly not farmland in movieverse Gondor), and which even with regard to Minas Tirith is pretty underwhelming to me. I think that taking a country inspired by ancient Egypt, the Byzantine Empire, and Italy more broadly (including some explicit Gondorian analogues to places like Venice and Assisi) and making it that blah and watered-down really takes some doing.
It then struck me that while these are both things that bother me a lot, and intellectually, I believe the omission of the scouring is worse because it's more integral to the main themes and arcs, there is an important difference.
It's this: the LOTR films love the Shire.
Whatever criticisms I might make of how they handle material in the Shire, the way it's filmed and constructed and lingered upon just exudes affection. Even when it's not onscreen, the hobbits' love for the Shire comes back over and over, not only as character detail, but as part of the treatment of the world. This is similar in some respects to the way the films clearly love Rohan—they also linger there, scenes in Rohan are often expanded rather than contracted (and sometimes just invented altogether), there's a ton of attention to detail in costuming and architecture and cinematography and so on in Rohan/Rohirrim scenes. Again, it's not that I'm saying there are no criticisms of the treatment of Rohan that could be made, but that I think we can really feel the affection for Rohan as we feel the affection for the Shire in the cinematic treatment of them.
And I just ... don't feel that the films have that kind of affection for Gondor. There's exactly one character, Boromir, who is shown to care about Gondor in the way the hobbits care about the Shire (and I think this contributes to the sense that the films are more sympathetic to Boromir than the book, despite the incessant foreshadowing of his fall in the films and although he continually brings up Gondor in Tolkien's LOTR). And he's killed off in the first film. His final words, which in the book are about Gondor and its people, are converted into validation of Aragorn in the movie.
I feel like Gondor ultimately matters to the films in terms of Aragorn (and to a much lesser extent Boromir) and the location of the big flashy set piece. But I feel like the narrative in the book cares about Gondor with or without Aragorn—in the event it is with Aragorn, but there are so many details that have nothing to do with him, or where he's used to glorify Gondor/Gondorians as much as the other way around.
And even after Boromir's death in the book, Aragorn as well as Gondorian characters are tightly linked to Gondor and love it deeply—there's Aragorn's song of Gondor, Frodo's respectful realization that the Rangers of Ithilien are Gondorian Dúnedain (something that would have basically no weight in the films), Faramir's love for Minas Tirith's beauty, ancientry, and wisdom, there's an affection for the ordinary people of Gondor that narrows in on Beregond and Bergil and Ioreth, there's a respect for Denethor as a towering figure who is doing everything within his power to protect his people, there's the glowing treatment of Imrahil and the Dúnedain of Belfalas, there are descriptions of the green haze of Lebennin and Legolas's song about it and a description of its people—and that's not getting into other sources like Tolkien's remarks in his letters, which often would frankly be easier to represent visually than textually.
It's not that all these things "needed" to be in the films. But they serve to lend Gondor an affection and stature and reason for investing so much in saving it, where the films don't honestly care about it much independent of its mechanical function as Aragorn's reward/Boromir's motivation/the location for the big battle.
I think some of that is because the films also don't care about Númenor's legacy much at all. Númenor's legacy is essential to how Gondor is represented in the book, and to what its destruction would symbolize as well as the pragmatic consequences of losing Men's main buffer against Mordor. The legacy of Númenor comes back over and over in Tolkien's version, both for Aragorn/the Northern Dúnedain and for Gondor. For instance, I think part of the reason that the movies struggle so much with Faramir and Denethor is that so much of their characterization and significance are caught up with Númenor. I actually think one of the more remarkable aspects of LOTR is how evocative things like the shadow of Númenor are, even though we never see it and few characters in the novel have ever seen it. (This is a sort of brighter version of how Sauron is such a presence in LOTR but never personally appears.)
In the movies, Númenor is only mentioned rarely, typically in some connection with Aragorn, and it would be pretty fair for movie-only audiences to not even realize that most of the onscreen Gondorians are also Númenóreans. But Númenor is as integral to Gondor and its people, and their sense of themselves and their legacy/burden, as it is to Aragorn. It matters independently of him, and it casts a very long shadow.
This is, incidentally, part of why I find Rings of Power much more to my taste, whatever its flaws. Yes, I find many of the condemnations a mixture of racism, misogyny, and poor faith, but even accepting the ones that I think are fair enough, I'm more inclined towards generosity because I feel like the show loves Númenor.
Sometimes I'll see other people who like ROP point out that the show's treatment of Númenor really shows how far Gondor has fallen by the time we see it in the films, and is also successful in that way. And I'm like ... sort of, but also, it's not a prequel to the movies. Movie Gondor is far dwindled from Tolkien's kind of breathless depiction of Gondor, even in its weakened state.
Gondor simply doesn't get this kind of narrative, cinematic care lavished on it—and not because the films were incapable of it, obviously. Look at the Shire and Rohan!
It would also be fair for movie-only audiences to simply not realize what a powerhouse Tolkien's Gondor is. In the book, the arrival of the Rohirrim gives Minas Tirith some breathing room, but the Rohirrim themselves would have been wiped out if Aragorn hadn't been able to bring the armies of highly populated southern Gondor to the Pelennor (not the army of the dead in the book). The catalogue of troops earlier suggests Gondor can raise an army of about 30,000 troops including cavalry. There's far less sense of the scale and power of Gondor in the movies, and even with respect to Aragorn, of the difficulty of being accepted as king of such a place and people. (In the films, Aragorn's main obstacle is his own reluctance rather than anything about Gondor itself, and of course, Denethor is far more easily dismissed in the films.)
And yes, there was never going to be room for all of Tolkien's chatter about Gondor, and also there was no need for all of it. But I think that if ROTK and its narrative had the kind of affection for Gondor that the films have for the Shire and Rohan, that ROP has for Númenor, we would have gotten more of that lingering attention on detail, that sense of narrative affection and richness.
Okay.
I was thinking over the omission of the scouring of the Shire from Jackson's ROTK, which is both easily understood and one of the films' worst decisions IMO in terms of LOTR's treatment of war.
And, of course, I was also thinking of how underwhelming I find film!Gondor, which is largely reduced to Minas Tirith and the fields around it (clearly not farmland in movieverse Gondor), and which even with regard to Minas Tirith is pretty underwhelming to me. I think that taking a country inspired by ancient Egypt, the Byzantine Empire, and Italy more broadly (including some explicit Gondorian analogues to places like Venice and Assisi) and making it that blah and watered-down really takes some doing.
It then struck me that while these are both things that bother me a lot, and intellectually, I believe the omission of the scouring is worse because it's more integral to the main themes and arcs, there is an important difference.
It's this: the LOTR films love the Shire.
Whatever criticisms I might make of how they handle material in the Shire, the way it's filmed and constructed and lingered upon just exudes affection. Even when it's not onscreen, the hobbits' love for the Shire comes back over and over, not only as character detail, but as part of the treatment of the world. This is similar in some respects to the way the films clearly love Rohan—they also linger there, scenes in Rohan are often expanded rather than contracted (and sometimes just invented altogether), there's a ton of attention to detail in costuming and architecture and cinematography and so on in Rohan/Rohirrim scenes. Again, it's not that I'm saying there are no criticisms of the treatment of Rohan that could be made, but that I think we can really feel the affection for Rohan as we feel the affection for the Shire in the cinematic treatment of them.
And I just ... don't feel that the films have that kind of affection for Gondor. There's exactly one character, Boromir, who is shown to care about Gondor in the way the hobbits care about the Shire (and I think this contributes to the sense that the films are more sympathetic to Boromir than the book, despite the incessant foreshadowing of his fall in the films and although he continually brings up Gondor in Tolkien's LOTR). And he's killed off in the first film. His final words, which in the book are about Gondor and its people, are converted into validation of Aragorn in the movie.
I feel like Gondor ultimately matters to the films in terms of Aragorn (and to a much lesser extent Boromir) and the location of the big flashy set piece. But I feel like the narrative in the book cares about Gondor with or without Aragorn—in the event it is with Aragorn, but there are so many details that have nothing to do with him, or where he's used to glorify Gondor/Gondorians as much as the other way around.
And even after Boromir's death in the book, Aragorn as well as Gondorian characters are tightly linked to Gondor and love it deeply—there's Aragorn's song of Gondor, Frodo's respectful realization that the Rangers of Ithilien are Gondorian Dúnedain (something that would have basically no weight in the films), Faramir's love for Minas Tirith's beauty, ancientry, and wisdom, there's an affection for the ordinary people of Gondor that narrows in on Beregond and Bergil and Ioreth, there's a respect for Denethor as a towering figure who is doing everything within his power to protect his people, there's the glowing treatment of Imrahil and the Dúnedain of Belfalas, there are descriptions of the green haze of Lebennin and Legolas's song about it and a description of its people—and that's not getting into other sources like Tolkien's remarks in his letters, which often would frankly be easier to represent visually than textually.
It's not that all these things "needed" to be in the films. But they serve to lend Gondor an affection and stature and reason for investing so much in saving it, where the films don't honestly care about it much independent of its mechanical function as Aragorn's reward/Boromir's motivation/the location for the big battle.
I think some of that is because the films also don't care about Númenor's legacy much at all. Númenor's legacy is essential to how Gondor is represented in the book, and to what its destruction would symbolize as well as the pragmatic consequences of losing Men's main buffer against Mordor. The legacy of Númenor comes back over and over in Tolkien's version, both for Aragorn/the Northern Dúnedain and for Gondor. For instance, I think part of the reason that the movies struggle so much with Faramir and Denethor is that so much of their characterization and significance are caught up with Númenor. I actually think one of the more remarkable aspects of LOTR is how evocative things like the shadow of Númenor are, even though we never see it and few characters in the novel have ever seen it. (This is a sort of brighter version of how Sauron is such a presence in LOTR but never personally appears.)
In the movies, Númenor is only mentioned rarely, typically in some connection with Aragorn, and it would be pretty fair for movie-only audiences to not even realize that most of the onscreen Gondorians are also Númenóreans. But Númenor is as integral to Gondor and its people, and their sense of themselves and their legacy/burden, as it is to Aragorn. It matters independently of him, and it casts a very long shadow.
This is, incidentally, part of why I find Rings of Power much more to my taste, whatever its flaws. Yes, I find many of the condemnations a mixture of racism, misogyny, and poor faith, but even accepting the ones that I think are fair enough, I'm more inclined towards generosity because I feel like the show loves Númenor.
Sometimes I'll see other people who like ROP point out that the show's treatment of Númenor really shows how far Gondor has fallen by the time we see it in the films, and is also successful in that way. And I'm like ... sort of, but also, it's not a prequel to the movies. Movie Gondor is far dwindled from Tolkien's kind of breathless depiction of Gondor, even in its weakened state.
Gondor simply doesn't get this kind of narrative, cinematic care lavished on it—and not because the films were incapable of it, obviously. Look at the Shire and Rohan!
It would also be fair for movie-only audiences to simply not realize what a powerhouse Tolkien's Gondor is. In the book, the arrival of the Rohirrim gives Minas Tirith some breathing room, but the Rohirrim themselves would have been wiped out if Aragorn hadn't been able to bring the armies of highly populated southern Gondor to the Pelennor (not the army of the dead in the book). The catalogue of troops earlier suggests Gondor can raise an army of about 30,000 troops including cavalry. There's far less sense of the scale and power of Gondor in the movies, and even with respect to Aragorn, of the difficulty of being accepted as king of such a place and people. (In the films, Aragorn's main obstacle is his own reluctance rather than anything about Gondor itself, and of course, Denethor is far more easily dismissed in the films.)
And yes, there was never going to be room for all of Tolkien's chatter about Gondor, and also there was no need for all of it. But I think that if ROTK and its narrative had the kind of affection for Gondor that the films have for the Shire and Rohan, that ROP has for Númenor, we would have gotten more of that lingering attention on detail, that sense of narrative affection and richness.
no subject
on 2023-03-03 01:19 am (UTC)no subject
on 2023-03-03 02:23 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2023-03-03 04:41 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2023-03-04 02:38 pm (UTC)/fistbump
The Shire and Rohan are both predominantly well-lit and the music is cheerful and/or uplifting. Rohan is slightly overcast, but there is still plenty of light. Gondor is almost entirely drearily-lit, overcast, and the music is mournful/sonorous.
Yuppp. It's got this desaturated melancholy/pity (when not outright contempt, as with Denethor) to everything. It seems meant to be rather disappointing with glimpses of former glory, where Tolkien's version is more ... whoa, look at this impressive thing! and that one! and it used to be far greater, practically another Númenor!
I know you know this, but Pippin's experience of Gondor in the book is so charming, too—he quickly attaches to this place and its people, he names his son for Faramir, he travels there to die and be buried there. I think if we saw Gondor more as the characters do, and most of all as Pippin does, it would be easier to care as they do.
Gondor is that multiplied by a factor, and all that extends to the costuming.
Oh, yeah. I once saw a comparison of the richness of Théoden's clothes vs Denethor's costuming and it's really glaring—all the more given the RL inspirations for Gondor's culture and aesthetic! And definite agreement on Ithilien in particular, too.
I wonder why PJ didn't spend time developing Gondor as much, *especially* since it's the final film in the trilogy and where everyone ends up together again.
That's the thing I wonder about, too! Like, sure, not everyone is a Gondor stan, but it's one of the main locations of the final film and much of the story builds up to going there and saving it, so it really should be built up rather than the clear unfavorite of the production. Gondor haunts Tolkien's text long before the characters get there, preserving it is a major motivation for numerous characters, and like you say, it's where they all reunite, so building up that stature with care and detail would actually have benefited the films and esp ROTK quite a lot IMO.
no subject
on 2023-05-19 06:11 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2023-05-19 06:12 pm (UTC)no subject
on 2023-05-19 06:39 pm (UTC)And ROP's approach to Númenor is just different from that, IMO. It seems very obvious to me that ROP is at least trying to evoke something grand and vivid with Númenor. Whether that thing is particularly like Tolkien's version is up for debate, even whether the attempt works at all is up for debate, but I don't think there can be much reasonable argument about whether the attempt was made.