I think
davem is on to something here, something which helps me put into perspective some of his points in the Chapter by Chapter discussion about internal and external battles.
Quote:
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Originally Posted by davem
If there is a difference it seems to me that its that Jackson seems to see evil as an external force more than an internal drive. That's why for me in watching the movies what happens at the cracks of Doom seems wrong - in the book we can see it coming, because we've seen Frodo's inner battle going on & he himself coming more & more under the influence of the desires the Ring symbolises. In the movie, the Ring is simply an external force, so we don't get the sense of Frodo surrendering to something he wants, just of him being overwhelmed by something external to himself. When i read the book, I know that on some level Frodo has said 'Yes!' to what the Ring offers, that some part of him has consented to it. And in the end he is unable to forgive himself for that reason, & exiles himself almost as a punishment (I know other's don't read it that way). In the movie this doesn't come across. Movie Frodo is simply broken by an overwhelming but purely external force, so it makes little sense to me that he feels he has to leave.
Actually, I still don't get why movie Frodo has to leave at all - where's his guilt? What drives him away? The change the writers make in Frodo's words to Sam 'I tried to save the Shire' to We tried to save the Shire' says it all for me. Either they didn't get the point Tolkien was making at all, or they got it & decided it was too un
palatable a thing for a movie hero to say.
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Over and over in the book, we see how the Ring's power is that it can pervert even the best of intentions. This is certainly Gandalf's understanding of the Ring and, I would venture to say, the purpose of showing his temptation. It would appeal to Gandalf's best instincts and desires but still lead him into intolerable tyranny. The book plays out in agonizing detail Frodo's slow decline to the Ring. That is, it is not so much Absolute Evil (nor are Morgoth and Sauron, according to Tolkien's Notes on Auden's review of LotR, #183 in the Letters) which, when destroyed, will mean that people never again need fear the rise of tyranny. For Tolkien, evil is something inherent in mankind's nature--well, maybe that is stating it too strongly. Evil is something we are all susceptible to. And the long defeat means that there is never a final victory but that each Age or each generation must be aware of its own susceptibility to tyranny. Tolkien's astonishing position is to show how his hero, the man--halfling--who enabled events to come to the point where the Ring could be destroyed--was himself overcome by the Ring's appeal to him. When even heroes fail in this way, readers, I think, must consider the psychological or mental or spiritual (whichever word one would personally use) state of mankind to be always and ever temptable.
This sense of our human failing it, for me, missing from the movie, for many reasons.
Son of Numenor attributes it to the voice over.
dave attributes it to the fact that we are not shown Frodo succumbing to the Ring. I don't buy the argument that a movie cannot show tragedy or evil. I can name many movies which do, movies which employ symbolism and not merely realism. This, I think is the point to be considered here on this thread: Does the movie depict evil as some physical force which can through action and battle be removed? Or does the movie depict evil as a condition into which people and cultures can fall? The second perspective of evil will require a very different kind of 'defense' than the first.
Evil for Tolkien was intimtely connected with the human desire for Power, Domination, and control over one's own creation. (Letter #131 in particular discusses this.) This is a psychological appreciation of evil as something we are all capable of feeling or succumbing to. It is not a bad guy or bad object which, when once removed from the scene, will lead to our liberation.
I think I've rambled on long enough. I hope this makes sense.
Oh, and
HI, it is not by accident that I have not named anyone else here. It was deliberate. I know you can have only so much patience for long posts from me.
