Is all the "magic" gone?

[Lalaith]

Bethberry, I think Eomer's got it right. Galadriel is an elf, fair beyond the measure of men. Blanchett is a human - a human more beautiful than most, but a human none the less.
Yes, you could have cast a beautiful older woman - Sarandon, as you suggest, or even more venerable: Catherine Deneuve, say, or Jeanne Moreau - but that still wouldn't have matched Tolkien's vision of the beauty of the Firstborn.

Incidentally while the chronology before the years of the moon and sun is a little hazy, I think that Cirdan is considerably older than Galadriel. She was born long after the elves arrived in Aman (given that her mother was of Alqualonde and the Teleri did not settle there for 'a long age') while Cirdan was an elf of the Great Journey.

[Bêthberry]

Lalaith, I must admit I had forgotten Eomer's post when I was replying to Lobelia. His point is a good idea and well spoken. However, ultimately I would reject it on the grounds that such an argument represents a defeatist attitude about art.

The differences between human and elf are far indeed, yet to my mind, a great artist can transcend such differences and provide us with a vision or imagination enough to repair the difference. To say that it cannot be done is to deny the possibility that art can transcend and make us see newly.

Sir Ian absolutely assumed or consumed my image of Gandalf the Grey, an Istari. Somewhere I hold out the possibility that an actress exists who could bridge that gap. I have faith in art, in artists, and in actresses. I think the problem, if problem it is, lies in the fact that Jackson did not try to do that. He went for something else.

And,yes, I grant the possibility that Cirdan was older than Galadriel, but still that does not negate my point that Galadriel is herself very old, older than Shelob. The elves are fading because their time is passed and they are awash with nostalgia and regret for what was and what will be lost. It is that poignancy I would have liked to have seen and which for me Blanchett did not capture.

[Lhunardawen]

Cate Blanchett did a good job of being Galadriel in the movie, but for me it was only as far as LotR. I mean, I didn't see the Galadriel I have read in the Sil...she was only Galadriel in LotR, nothing more.

The movies helped me picture the geography of Middle-Earth, since those things I had difficulty imagining while reading the books. However, I tend to look back on the characters' past (quite unconciously) while reading the books, and for me that adds more to my wonder. The characters I see in the silverscreen seem to be bound by what the movie says of them.

[Lobelia]

Bethberry, your post is fascinating, and you make some good points - and everyone has their own image of the characters. I suppose I have a bias for Blanchett because the first time I saw her she was playing Elizabeth I and I thought her a younger Glenda Jackson. She is obviously not 7000 years old, but in my opinion, she is in her prime, old enough to play the role with maturity and dignity. I am old enough to remember when Judi Dench was young and beautiful and she too has played Elizabeth I with grace and dignity. However, I wouldn't give her the role of Galadriel now! Would you?

It could be a lot worse. Did you know that Kylie Minogue applied for the role? I kid you not! Fortunately, PJ told her kindly that she was too short for an Elf. Short, yeah.

For what it's worth, a friend of mine decribed CB as a kind of Elle McPherson, which I thought rude of her, but hey, she's entitled!


Personally, I think Elves age or don't age according to what Tolkien wanted to say at the time he was creating a character.

[Essex]

Sorry Bethberry, I don’t agree that Galadriel should ‘look’ old. My evidence comes from the lotr itself.

On two chairs beneath the bole of the tree and canopied by a living bough there sat, side by side, Celeborn and Galadriel. They stood up to greet their guests, after the manner of Elves, even those who were accounted mighty kings. Very tall they were, and the Lady no less tall than the Lord; and they were grave and beautiful. They were clad wholly in white; and the hair of the Lady was of deep gold, and the hair of the Lord Celeborn was of silver long and bright; but no sign of age was upon them, unless it were in the depths of their eyes; for these were keen as lances in the starlight, and yet profound, the wells of deep memory.

Looking at the ee of lotr, it was explained how the technical guys spent a lot of time working on the reflection in Blanchett’s eyes, and to me this works very well. Miss Blanchett does not look ‘young’ neither does she look old, a perfect rendition of the description above.

[Bêthberry]

Indeed, Essex, I have no quarrel if you are happy with Galadriel's presentation in the movie. Beauty, it is said, and interpretations too, are in the eye of the beholder and I do not write here to persuade others to take my view.

Your quotation is well taken, and I suppose too one could point to the passage in the Lothlorien chapter that in Rivendell there was the memory of ancient things but that in Lothlorien the ancient things still lived on; the last remnant of the elven world was Lothlorien alone and that this was Galadriel's power and doing, so it is fitting that Elrond appear older than she. Perhaps. But I read your quotation in the context of all that Tolkien has to say about Lothlorien in LOTR.

I did not wish to see her a wizened old crone but I had hoped for some of the authority and wisdom in her that Gandalf made me feel. Her perilous terror was missing, too, relegated to the pyrotechnics of the special effects, which said to me "modern movie special effect" rather than "power of the character." When reading of Galadriel, I had a vision of great sense of loss, of the passing of the elven life, which for me Blanchett did not catch. That quotation does indeed say that Galadriel and Celeborn are immune to the passage of time. (To be honest, that line has always reminded me of Dorien Grey's pact--at totally irrelevant remembrance I admit). But the depth of the eyes and the profundity of deep meaning is what I wanted to see and, despite the technical details you mention, that exists not for me.

I don't wish to belabour this point, but to me the aching beauty in the chapters on Lothlorien is the poignancy that this is something soon to be gone from this world, lost, a place of rest and restorative powers which is to be savoured in part because it is not like the rest of Middle-earth. Tolkien gives to Galadriel that line about "the long defeat." For me, the movie lacks the redeemable sense of fairy or sub-created world which hovers over Lothlorien and Galadriel. There is still too much hopeful potential of life still to be, unlived, in Blanchett's performance. She is not "a living vision of that which has already been left far behind by the flowing streams of Time." The seeming contradiction of Tolkien's "present and yet remote" was missing; Blanchett and Jackson's Galadriel was merely very lovely.

In this I likely remain in the minority.

[Son of Númenor]

I could not agree more, Bêthberry. Although I may be a member of the minority on this, I felt the same way about the Grey Havens. When I read the book, I pictured a grey, misty harbour, the voices of Elves lamenting the end of their stay in Middle-earth in a solemn dirge, & the ship setting sail into a misty horizon. What we got (or at least I personally got - I definitely do not mean to try & speak for everyone) in the movie was a bright, shiny harbour, with everyone smiling sadly- bittersweet, to be sure, but a more 'Disney' ending than the melancholy aura of the book. Though there were tears, they did not feel as deep or meaningful as they did in the books. Like the movie scenes in Lothlórien, I did not really feel what it meant for the Elves to be departing like I did in the books, & like you said Bêth, I did not get the feeling of Galadriel's beauty & 'distance'. I would not say it was a disappointment - I am a big fan of the film trilogy as a whole - but it definitely lost something going from paper to film reel. It lost some of that sense of 'enchantment' that has been so fervently discussed in the 'Canonicity' thread. Luckily for me, I can still find it in the books!