The Capturing of Myth

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by davem

I think this is why I agree with Tolkien's view that fantasy cannot be dramatised - its not about the script, the direction, the effects (Tolkien makes the point that it has nothing to do with how well those things are done), or the money, its simply the lack of creative input on the part of the audience. With literature we are involved. we participate in the sub creation, giving form to the places & people, so we became a part of it, with dramatisation we watch it happening 'out there'. Its the difference between being a player on the team & a spectator.

I do agree that, because the audience is less actively involved in them, the films will never be able to capture the "magic" of the books . This point was raised in the following thread, and is one which, I think, has much merit: Is all the "magic" gone? Because the films visualise everything for us, we lose that element of active imaginative participation in the story.

I do not agree however that the audience will, in consequence, necessarily find the characters and events portrayed in the films any less believable than those in the books. I will admit to a slight feeling of detachment, especially during my first viewing of the TTT film, as a result of the changes. This was because, as someone who had read read and loved the book many times before, the changes grated with me at first. But, once I got used to them, I was able to immerse myself completely in the films while watching them. This was especially the case with the film of RotK. They may have been telling a slightly different story to that told in the book, but it was nevertheless for me a totally engrossing one.

Ultimately I do agree with you davem. The full mythic quality conveyed in the book, particularly as a part of the whole (the Legendarium) can never be captured on film. The films don't form a part of the Legendarium, nor do they have the potential to add to our "mythic" experience. But I don't see this as a reason not to make them, or to regard them as failures. After all, this was not what they were aimed at achieving.

[Lalwendë]

A few people have said that they felt somewhat 'detached' from the films and this got me thinking that by and large, watching a film is a passive experience whereas reading is an active experience. Films present us with information in many forms, visually, verbally, from the landscape and setting, and the body language and facial expressions of the actors. Books on the other hand are simply text and it is up to us to make the effort to visualise what the text says. This is perhaps why there are those peculiar people who "can't be bothered" with reading, or find it "boring"; reading takes effort. Obviously, there are exceptions to this; Donnie Darko is a good example of a film where we are made to participate more actively, as the meaning is deliberately made obscure.

I have also been thinking about how I was able to engage fully with the films, and I think one of the reasons was that the visual scope was beyond my own experience as a reader. Not being very well-travelled, my 'pictures' of Middle Earth were a lot more provincial; more on the scale of Scotland (which is the ultimate in 'awesome' to me), as opposed to Mount Cook. So the films did offer a different sense of scale to me, not always a welcome one, as some of the magic in the books for me is in my personal images of an intimate, almost fairy-like quality to some of the landscapes. For me, the film was more 'epic' whereas my own images are more 'folklore'. Hmmm, if you see what I mean.

[davem]

Originally Posted by Lalwende

Not being very well-travelled, my 'pictures' of Middle Earth were a lot more provincial; more on the scale of Scotland (which is the ultimate in 'awesome' to me), as opposed to Mount Cook. So the films did offer a different sense of scale to me, not always a welcome one, as some of the magic in the books for me is in my personal images of an intimate, almost fairy-like quality to some of the landscapes.

I think this is kind of the point - its not how much you bring to the esperience, how good you are at visualising. Its the fact that you bring something, play some part - that makes the experience personal, give you a connection. This has nothing to do with the morality or values you 'contribute', which I feel get in the way more often than not, but rather with the images & memories you bring:

However good in themselves, illustrations do little good to fairy-stories. The radical distinction between all art (including drama) that offers a visible presentation & true literature is that it imposes one visible form. Literature works from mind to mind & is thus more progenitive. It is at once more universal & more poignantly particular. If it speaks of bread or wine or stone or tree, it appeals to the whole of these things, to their ideas; yet each hearer will give to them a peculiar personal embodiment in his imagination. Should the story say 'he ate bread', the dramatic producder or painter can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general & picture it in some form of his own. If a story says 'he climbed a hill & saw a river in the valley below', the illustrator may catch, or nearly catch, his own vision of such a scene; but every hearer of the words will have his own picture, & it will be made out of all the hills & rivers & dales he has ever seen, but specially out of The Hill, The River, The Valley which were for him the first embodiment of the word.

On Fairy Stories

So I think Tolkien would have felt that your experience:

So the films did offer a different sense of scale to me, not always a welcome one, as some of the magic in the books for me is in my personal images of an intimate, almost fairy-like quality to some of the landscapes. For me, the film was more 'epic' whereas my own images are more 'folklore'.

was the right one for you, & that the reason you felt the movie's 'scale' to be 'not always a welcome one' was that at those moments the story was actually being taken away from you & replaced by something else, imposed by the director & designers. Your 'folkoric' LotR is your unique co-creation with Tolkien, so its special, & in a sense its your 'tribute' to him. Its certainly a kind of artistic 'conversation' between the two of you. This is the source of power of myth & fairy story, & its what cannot be reproduced in drama.

Originally Posted by SpM

But I don't see this as a reason not to make them, or to regard them as failures. After all, this was not what they were aimed at achieving.

But i still don't know what they were aimed at achieving - entertainment, homage, an introduction to Tolkien's works, so I suppose it is a bit unfair of me to judge them as 'failures'. I can only say that, they failed for me to communicate the spirit, the numinosity, which comes through the books (but which did come through the Radio series - but that is really a dramatic reading, & its the images which are important, specifically the source of the images).

If the movies don't 'have the potential to add to our "mythic" experience.' as you put it, then the answer to Imladris' question:

So do you guys think that Jackson did a good job capturing the general mythic feel, or did he fail abysmally?

must be the latter (well, it must if we have to choose one extreme or the other).

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by davem (quoting Tolkien)

However good in themselves, illustrations do little good to fairy-stories. The radical distinction between all art (including drama) that offers a visible presentation & true literature is that it imposes one visible form.

True, although Tolkien's works have been so enthusiastically adopted as a subject by illustrators throughout the years that we have numerous interpretations, rather than one visible form. Of course, they are still presented according to the artist's particular "taste or fancy". But I am sure that I am not alone in finding that certain illustrations capture perfectly (or almost perfectly) my own pre-conceived images. Other illustrations don't work for me at all.

And so it is with the films. There is much in them which captures my own pre-conceived ideas, particularly in the imagery but also in some of the dramatic moments. And, I am sure that others will feel the same, although the precise moments may differ. They are, therefore, clearly tapping into something. The question is whether, in these moments, they are simply tapping accurately into Tolkien's works, or whether they are tapping into something deeper. I suspect that it is the former.

[Essex]

I'm dumbing down this thread by giving my quick views on imladris's 6 points

1/ the film shows 'common man' winning an impossible fight: to 'commen men'
this is always moving - 1 point

2/ how many times have we watched the films?: countless times. We are drawn
back to them time and time again. we can see new nuances almost every time
we look at the films - 1 point

3/ ok, so film wise I believe we get to know most of the characters well.
my wife, who has not read the books, was moved greatly by some of the
characters pain, so probably got to know the characters well. 0 points

4/ hey let's make someone invisible. now what would I give for that!!! - 1 point

5/ there is joy (and yes some misplaced 'comedy') - but the story IS ultimately
grave. I still feel melancholy every time I hear Frodo's narration as he
arrives back home in Bag End. - 1 point

6/ how many times did you look at the screen and go WOW! hundreds of examples,
but an easy example - the ride of the rohirrim.

So, out of a maximum score of 6, PJ's films score 5.

Jackson has captured the myth to me.

Dumbing down finished. Intellectual discussion can now resume.

[Lord of Angmar]

I am in agreement with others that the Arda myth - or, specifically, the parts of said myth contained in L.o.t.R - can never be captured in a non-textual medium in a way that Tolkien would have wanted it - or, indeed, in a way that he would have thought acceptable. Myth is the passing on of tales - and, with the tales, wisdom and ancient 'visions' and 'truths'. Film is different; it forces itself on its viewer and demands that the latter accept a specific interpretation and rendition of the story.

[Bêthberry]

I am going to stick my neck out and question a major premise here that davem has taken from Tolkien.

Fantasy, even of the simplest kind, hardly ever succeeds in Drama, when that is presented as it should be, visibly & audibly acted. Fantastic forms are not to be counterfeited. Men dressed up as talking animals may achieve buffoonery or mimicry, but they do not achieve fantasy....

Drama has, of its nature, already attempted a kind of bogus, or shall I say at least substitute, magic: the visible & audible presentation of imaginary men in a story . That is in itself an attempt to counterfeit the magician's wand. To introduce, even with mechanical success, , into this quasi-magical secondary world a further fantasy or magic is to demand, as it were, an inner or tertiary world. It is a world too much.
On Fairy Stories

However good in themselves, illustrations do little good to fairy-stories. The radical distinction between all art (including drama) that offers a visible presentation & true literature is that it imposes one visible form. Literature works from mind to mind & is thus more progenitive. It is at once more universal & more poignantly particular. If it speaks of bread or wine or stone or tree, it appeals to the whole of these things, to their ideas; yet each hearer will give to them a peculiar personal embodiment in his imagination. Should the story say 'he ate bread', the dramatic producder or painter can only show 'a piece of bread' according to his taste or fancy, but the hearer of the story will think of bread in general & picture it in some form of his own. If a story says 'he climbed a hill & saw a river in the valley below', the illustrator may catch, or nearly catch, his own vision of such a scene; but every hearer of the words will have his own picture, & it will be made out of all the hills & rivers & dales he has ever seen, but specially out of The Hill, The River, The Valley which were for him the first embodiment of the word.
On Fairy Stories

I don't think this necessarily has to be the case at all. To tell you the truth, it even raises my hackles just a little. I profoundly respect a great deal which Tolkien argues in On Fairy Stories, but that does not mean I think every statement he makes there is carved in stone. Any time I see a theoretic statement about art that claims something cannot be done, I want immediately to go out and find examples where it has been done. I stick my feet in the ground and refuse to be dragged along.

I wonder if in part this attitude derives from a long-standing prejudice against drama--a fear of representation as well as a misunderstanding of drama and visual arts. (Just why did the Puritans close the theatres and why are there religious injunctions against depicting the deity and even people?) It suggests that literature is purely imaginary and therefore somehow better or more pure than other arts which rely on other forms of human senses. It is part and parcel of a major western tradition which denigrates the body (the physical aspect) while giving priority to the mind (the intellectual) aspect. Reading is a profoundly creative, interactive activity, but to hold it supreme among the arts is, to me at least, a rejection of art which requires physical or bodily participation.

There are other ways of experiencing art than just through our minds. We can use our ears. We can use our eyes. We can use our bodies as we sway and stomp and dance to music. The physical experience of the concert hall or theatre reaches out to other aspects of our human nature. Just as teachers in classrooms now must plan lessons to accommodate all the different learning styles, so I think we need to be more careful that we not laud one form of knowing over any others.

Where, after all, did Greek drama originate? It originated in the stories of Greek mythology. And what is the role of ritual in religion or mythology? There are strong links between ritual and theatre. I can think of several other examples where mythologies are represented in art and in the physical form of dance and drama: I have seen Canadian First Nations myths enacted in dance and song and story. And I have seen West Coast mythologies carved on totem poles, represented in masks, and shaped into canoes and boats. And I know the brutal story of how aboriginal culture and mythology was nearly wiped out by a mainstream culture which feared a cosmology that did not denigrate the body.

I am not of course attributing all of these points directly to Tolkien. What I mean to question is the idea that drama, in being a physical presence, cannot be a symbolic art. I am amazed actually that Tolkien uses the examples of bread and wine in his essay, for he certainly knew the ritual of transubstantiation.

This is leading far away from Imladris's first points. But I did want to suggest that it is possible to question this first premise that fantasy cannot be represented in the theatre or on the screen because somehow it escapes physical form.

Oh, and, just as an aside. I have said this elsewhere, but I will repeat it here. I have seen an actor portray Gollem on stage and he was in every way more wonderful than our CGI Gollem. I can understand the desire to want to explore the new technology to its finest extent. But I also know that when I felt the floor boards shake when Gollem jumped, when my body jumped at the appearance of the dragon, when my eyes went large with wonder at the non-realistic images projected onto the screens/backdrops of the stage, I was experiencing The Hobbit in a different way, a very sensuous way. And that isn't to be confused with sensual. And it does not rob my reading of The Hobbiti in any way. It is simply a different experience of it.

EDIT: A very long telphone call interrupted my posting, so I have cross posted with Essex and Lord of Angmar.

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Bêthberry

Where, after all, did Greek drama originate? It originated in the stories of Greek mythology. And what is the role of ritual in religion or mythology? There are strong links between ritual and theatre. I can think of several other examples where mythologies are represented in art and in the physical form of dance and drama: I have seen Canadian First Nations myths enacted in dance and song and story. And I have seen West Coast mythologies carved on totem poles, represented in masks, and shaped into canoes and boats. And I know the brutal story of how aboriginal culture and mythology was nearly wiped out by a mainstream culture which feared a cosmology that did not denigrate the body.

I think that you are right to question Tolkien's premise, Bêthberry. But it seems to me that an important distinction between drama and cinema is that drama will often, due to the constraints of the medium, use symbolism to convey ideas, wheras cinema (mainstream cinema at least) leaves little to the imagination. There are, of course, films that work on a symbolic level. Perhaps LotR could be done successfully in that way, but it would be unlikely to have mass appeal.

As I said, the LotR films get about as close as a film can while still having that (important, to investors at least) mass appeal element.

[davem]

I don't think Tolkien was condemning drama per se, or even illustration - he illustrated his own myths many times. I think he was merely pointing out that the more we are given the less we participate, the less we contribute.

What drama does is to effectively take away our participation in the experience - particularly so with fantasy. An actor performing a dramatic reading of a fairy story is different to a full cast movie, with sfx & close ups, where the actors effectively take over. Faerie is, simply, different. I don't think we can accuse a 'bells & smells', high church catholic of puritanism. Dramatisation of myth - which is by its nature impersonal - as far from the everyday as possible - requires as much participation from the individual as possible if it is to work.

We have to keep in mind that Tolkien is speaking specifically of fantasy in the essay. Some things can be dramatised, some can't. It is fantasy, for Tolkien which cannot be dramatised. Tolkien is also putting forward a defence of literature as an artform in its own right. There is now almost an assumption that books are effectively, as I said, 'first draft screenplays' Tolkien saw it differently. Some literary works are not dramatisable - by their nature. Its not a matter of how much money, or how good the effects or the director/writers are. And in a work like LotR, where so much of the power of the work is due to the language (It began with language, after all) that is especially the case.

How can one dramatically reproduce the effect of the 'drums in the deep', with their onomatopoeic 'boom- doom, doom-boom', or adequately reproduce a creature of 'shadow & flame'?

Presenting realistic drama is one thing - especially if the piece was written as a drama to be performed - but to attempt to present something written to be read as a drama, especially if the piece is a fantasy, is, as Tolkien states, asking too much.

LotR was never intended to be dramatised - one of the most powerful & affecting things about it is the use of language (of which Tolkien was a master), & that is all lost when the story, stripped to its bare bones, is presented as drama in any form other than a dramatised reading (which, lets face it, is effectively what Greek drama, as originally performed, was). How many times have we heard the filmmakers say that 'x' would not have worked on screen? This is an admission that the material they were working with is not suited to such adaptation.

Of course, drama & illustration can give us images, but that's the whole point - we are given the images, we don't participate in their construction, so that world is not our world. I didn't see my Middle earth on screen at any point, though at times I was vaguely reminded of it - mostly by my feelings about how they'd got it 'wrong'. I could watch it as a 'drama' & be affected by moments in it - Eowyn singing Theodred's funeral dirge made the hairs stand on the back of my neck - but it was not 'Lord of the Rings' to me, for the very reasons Tolkien gives in the essay.