[The Saucepan Man]

<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> I am also thinking of a couple of fellow Downers in particular who are no doubt going to visit this thread and stick an axe through it. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Hmm, I wonder which Downers you had in mind, Eomer? Well, I am certainly wielding no axe, but I will add a few thoughts.<P>Books and films are entirely different media. In a book, the author has the luxury of being able to leave his main characters for a chapter or more and return to them later. A film director has no such luxury. The audience needs to be kept in touch with all of the main characters throughout the film, otherwise they will lose track of (and most probably interest in) what is happening to who and when.<P>A film also needs to work towards a main climax. Rightly or wrongly (rightly in my view, given its visual and dramatic scope), Jackson chose Helm's Deep as the main climax of his film. It is in any case a pretty climactic event and, had it taken place halfway through the film, it would have conveyed to the audience the impression that the film was drawing towards its conclusion. The likelihood is that most people would then have sat pretty uncomfortably throughout the rest of the film, thus devaluing the ensuing journey of Frodo, Sam and Gollum. A film, if it is to stand alone, must have a beginning, a middle and an end, not one beginning, middle and end followed by another beginning, middle and end. Given that TTT is in any event the "middle" of the overall story, I think that it is to Jackson's great credit that he made it work in the way that he did, and that he received such critical acclaim for it.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> As I write this I am thinking of Tarantino's Pulp Fiction, which I think is a great film and a sublime example of chopping up the chronology. <HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>Tarantino was telling three separate stories that take place at the same time, whereas Jackson was telling one story with three interdependant threads occuring simultaneously.<P> <BLOCKQUOTE>quote:<HR> I realise that it was a compromise which nearly every director would have taken ...<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>I would go so far as to say that it was a decision which every director worth his salt in Jackson's situation would have taken. To have done otherwise would have been box office suicide.<p>[ October 12, 2003: Message edited by: The Saucepan Man ]