The Capturing of Myth

[The Saucepan Man]

Originally Posted by Lalwendë

I prefer the word 'film', being an old so and so

Amen to that!

Originally Posted by davem

They are not a successful translation of book into film, because that's impossible.

Well, quite clearly Jackson wasn't attempting to translate the book into film. I am sure that he recognised the impossibility of doing so. What he (and the production team in general) set out to achieve, I think, was to adapt the book to the big screen in a way that would appeal to as wide a section of the film-going public as possible. And in that, I think that they succeeded massively.

And I remain of the view that there are many parts where the films do capture the "spirit" of Tolkien. Admittedly this occurs mostly where they stick to his original words and directions, but Boromir's death scene is an example, I think, where they achieve it on their own (or, perhaps more correctly, through inference from the events of the book). And it certainly helped that Lee and Howe were responsible for artistic design and that there were so many fans of the book on the production team.

All in all, as I have indicated, I think that they get about as close as a film can get to capturing the mythic elements of the book and still retain mass appeal.