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Old 01-21-2006, 12:57 PM   #1
Boromir88
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White Tree Substituting Crying with laughter

I'm making this thread partially because I just watched Finding Neverland for the first time and I'm coming right out to admit it I balled through that movie. Johnny Depp was fantastic. If no one's seen it I won't ruin it, I'll just say I broke out the last 15 minutes of the movie. It was an absolutely wonderful and emotional movie about the life of John Barry.

Anyway, with that out of the way, it got me thinking about the LOTR movies. In the end of FOTR, I wasn't busting out in tears but I definitely got watery-eyed as Boromir makes his last stand. In FOTR Jackson did a nice job of balancing humor with emotion. Putting emotion where things should be emotional and adding in timely humor. I really think FOTR has been the pinnacle of Jackson's work so far.

Now with that aside, I get that feeling in FOTR, that emotional feeling, that I just don't get in the other two movies. Because, I think in the other two movies Jackson just excludes any sense of crying/emotion with laughter. Now I can understand adding humor in the movies, all movies I think need a good laugh. However, would it also be wise not to do what he did in FOTR and add in emotion where it should be in the other two movies? I just didn't sense the same. Either, when there should be crying/tears jokes are being spouted off, or there just is no time for crying.

TTT and ROTK there really is no room for emotion. It's like Jackson went with the laugh over the tear and is that necessarily the right thing to do? Should the movies have been more emotional (I guess I should say the last two). Not as in happy/laughter, but as in sadness/crying. For as I watched Finding Neverland it was just a sad, sad, story, yet that's what makes it good, that's what gets you to watch it. Crying necessarily isn't a bad thing. So why did Jackson shy away from the crying and should he have?

ROTK EE is a little better because Eomer is in anguish over Eowyn, but again there's not really enough time to start getting teary eyed, as quickly later it picks back up with fighting and the gimp.
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Old 01-21-2006, 02:13 PM   #2
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I'm not sure how much the comic relief does inhibit the sad parts of the second two films. I always thought that the reason I didn't get as teary-eyed was simply because the scenes were not done quite as well.

Helm's Deep and Pelennor Fields weren't as grim as I would have liked them to be, and maybe this is because of the humour. I get slightly emotional at Theoden's death. Mount Doom, as well, does it for me only slightly (though I think this is because I found the confrontation at the Black Gate unsatisfying).

Gandalf's fall in Moria and the death of Boromir are more effective on me. I just supposed that these scenes were done better.
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Old 01-21-2006, 02:53 PM   #3
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As much as I hat to argue with you Boro, I'm afraid that I must. I do agree that TTT doesn't have that emotion (sadness/crying) in it like FOTR does, but that's because the Elves weren't supposed to be there in the first place. And there really isn't anything that emotionaly in that movie except for when Haldir died. None the less, I must say that I do still get a little because he was my favorite secondary character, after Eowyn and Faramir.

In ROTK however, I must say that movie does have the emotion in it. I do agree with Mith that Théoden's death wasn't anything to cry over because of all the losses that are happening (supposed death of Eowyn and death of Denethor as well as many others). Mount Doom didn't really have that emotion for me. The reuniting of the Fellowship in Ithilien is what gets me. Probably because of all the horrors that they've all gone through and Frodo wakes up to see Gandalf who he thought was dead. The other part that gets me emotional is the parting at the Grey Havens because it's the last that they will see of Gandalf, Frodo, Bilbo, Elrond and Galadriel, all of whom you grow to love through out the series, even if you don't see them all the time.

As is the case with Eomer, Gandalf falling in Moria and the death of Boromir gets me more than the others, but that's because they spent that entire movie (and book) building their characters and then they are suddenly gone. But I wouldn't say it's because those scenes were done better. I think it's probably because of what I have stated earlier in this paragraph: the character build up and then they die. I will agree with Mith on the fact that PJ decided to concetrate more on the battlescenes in the last two movies and left all the character build up in the FOTR.

Now, I know I'm just repeating what's been said and I'm probably also being very contradictive, but I can't seem to gather my thoughts and place them in and orderly fashion, so please bear with me.
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Old 01-21-2006, 05:40 PM   #4
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It just goes to show, different strokes for different folks.
I wept not a drop in FotR and TTT.
However, I cried furiously and copiously in RotK. It started during Faramir's courageously futile mission to Osgiliath and Pippin's song, but the real killer for me was the moment when Rohan arrived as Gondor was about to fall. I was a complete embarrassment to the children who had the misfortune of accompanying me.
However, said children all broke down sobbing at the end, during Frodo's final farewell to his friends, a scene which did not move me particularly.
I think PJ is much better at 'broad stroke' moments, such as the aforementioned "Rohan had come at last". I find his attempts at the close-up-and-personal a bit cringey and cheesy (eg the reunion of the Fellowship with Frodo in bed in Ithilien).
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Old 01-21-2006, 07:01 PM   #5
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I don't if something is wrong with me as human being, but I didn't shed a drop all 3 movies. Certainly I felt sad at Boromir's death, but not teary.

I would like to point out that in the second and third films, it wasa very large number of people dying, as opposed to just Gandalf and then just Boromir. Well, and a whole lot of orcs, but no one really cares about them.

As they say, one death is a tragedy, a thousand is a statistic.
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Old 01-26-2006, 11:17 AM   #6
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Why then are there so many tear-jerking war films if a huge number of deaths is somehow too much to cry over?

It's just how the Director chose to direct the film. He could have made it a lot more grim, yet still retained the PG certificate. Maybe he just wanted to concentrate on the glory of battle.
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Old 01-21-2006, 02:35 PM   #7
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Always look on the bright side of death ......

I certainly don't shere your feelings about Finding Neverland My sister brought it over Christmas and I only saw it as moving wallpaper while I did other things - boiling a ham appropriately enough - (since Kate Winslet and biopics that are travesties of the truth always annoy me) then my aunt pointed out what huge ears one of the boys had and not even the divine Mr Depp could stop us crying with laughter for the rest of the film.....

As for the lord of the rings trilogy, I think it is natural that there is less emotion in the second and third films and I think that the scene just outside the gates of Moria sounded a slightly false note given that they are far from safe. The first film has no full scale battle scenes. The loss of Gandalf and the death of Boromir particularly are essentially private scenes. I think it is important to remember that British reserve and the stiff upper lip are not myths. Tolkien belonged to a generation that was brought up not to show emotion in public.

The characters do feel deeply but they show it subtly and in realtively intimate environments. It would jar with the book if these warriors who "avenge griefs before they speak of them"
started snivelling in public. The deaths in the later films occor in massive battles with the fate of the world at stake. The devastation is too overwhelming, everyone is suffering. There is no time for "look at me" mourning when survival is still at stake. They just have to get on with it. Laughter is a carthartic substititute for tears (Orwell wrote about the black humour of the tommies in the trenches) and it is also an act of defiance. I thought that Legolas's "you're late "was spot on although I can't say that the plot change that caused it was great). But as Gandalf would say "not all tears are an evil". There is emotion, particularly in the extended version with Eowyn's dream and Gandalf's words to Pippin. I cried during Pippin's song and when Eomer found Eowyn (though the scene in the book when he rides off to avenge her in fell mood and his subsequent discovery of her survival are one of my favourite parts of the book and one I would have loved to see - along with more of the houses of healing). But Jackson chose extended battle scenes over character development and emotional depth so you get the movie shorthand of Eomer and Pippin's battlefield wanderings - they worked in context but it is relatively superficial.

Given that so much was cut, adding more overt emotion to the mix would not be a high priority for me.
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