Hobbits Go to Hollywood
Sunday Times
13 May 2001
THE secrecy surrounding Hollywood's version of Lord of the Rings has finally been lifted. The first footage of what will be a trilogy of films telling JRR Tolkien's epic fantasy was shown to a select audience at the Cannes film festival last week: it revealed a Middle Earth scarier and stranger than many expected.
In what must be the longest-ever trailer for a movie, three clips
running to about 20 minutes were screened for the cast of the
film and a few others, including a Sunday Times writer.
The scenes opened at the beginning of Tolkien's tale of the battle
between good and evil; the hobbit Bilbo Baggins is at home in
his house built into a hillside. There is a knock on the door
and Bilbo, played by Sir Ian Holm, answers it to find Gandalf,
the wizard.
Sir Ian McKellan, who plays Gandalf, is an imposing figure with
a gruff voice who, thanks to clever camera angles and double-filming
of scenes, appears to tower over Bilbo. "Although I was in
each scene, I could not believe what I was seeing on the screen,"
said McKellan, who saw the results of his efforts only at the
screening.
In the books, Tolkien brilliantly weaves together dangerous adventure
with quirky humour, and on the evidence of the clips the film
achieves the same. Though the film has been made deliberately
to appeal to people who have never read Tolkien, the characterisations
seem to sit well with the original. Holm displays a quaint charm
fitting for Bilbo, while McKellan is majestic as Gandalf.
What will surprise many audiences is how frightening some of the
scenes are. After Bilbo departs, his cousin and adopted heir,
Frodo, played by 20-year-old Elijah Wood, takes over as the central
hobbit character.
Depicted as a small figure, with squinty eyes and bizarre fingernails,
Frodo is entrusted with the Ruling Ring - the only power that
can prevent the total dominion of the wizard Saruman the White,
played by Christopher Lee.
Frodo sets off with a group of friends on a perilous journey to
the Crack of Doom to destroy the ring forever. Trolls, orcs, dwarves
and other fantastic characters crowd the story. The first clip
shown last week ends with a battle against medieval warriors and
other weird figures as the hobbits travel through Middle Earth.
Heads are severed in the fight with swords, and blood flows freely.
Desperate adventures continued in the second clip, which showed
Frodo and his group travelling through the labyrinthine Mines
of Moria. There they encounter a grotesque, octopus-like colossus
called The Watcher, which has one eye. There are attacks by orcs,
which look as if they have been dragged from graves, and a scene
in which a rock staircase collapses above a terrifying fall of
hundreds of feet.
The group also has to flee Balrog, a 40ft-high winged demon whose
skin crackles with fire and smoke.
In the book, Gandalf saves the hobbits but is dragged into the
abyss by Balrog. The makers of the film are keeping most of their
secrets for now: though it is known that Gandalf dies in the film,
it was not revealed how last week. Instead, the hobbits were shown
emerging from the terror of the mines at an elves' city, where
they are attended by Lady Galadriel, played by Cate Blanchett.
The sets are spectacular, and the technical effects are so skilful
it is hard to tell where the real actors end and the computerised
images begin. To press home that no expense has been spared in
making the trilogy, the filmmaker, New Line Cinema, hired a chateau
at Cannes and turned it into a scene from Middle Earth.
It is engaged in a battle almost as epic as those in the story.
The first of the trilogy, The Fellowship of the Ring, will be
released in December, a month after the first film adaptation
of the Harry Potter books reaches cinemas. The other two parts
are expected to be released at one-year intervals.
Filming took place in New Zealand in 1999 and last year with a
cast that included Sean Bean and Liv Tyler.
Some Tolkien purists are concerned that there is more love interest
in the film than in the book. "The book is essentially a
Boy's Own story," said Humphrey Carpenter, the biographer
of Tolkien. "There's minimal love interest. Yet I don't object
to the book's filming."
The Tolkien family, however, is concerned at the effect the films
will have. "When we were growing up these were just stories
we were told," said John Tolkien, the eldest son. "When
you've grown up with something you don't want someone else putting
their finger on it."
Though Tolkien sold the rights to the book before his death, he
appears to have doubted whether such a complex, fantastical story
could be filmed.
"Tolkien himself never thought a film could be made of the
books," said Richard Crawshaw, of the Tolkien Society. "We
feel that no movie could ever capture the full depth and flavour
of the book."
Peter Jackson, the director of the three films - which have been
made as one long story - believes that cinema has now reached
a stage where it can cope with Middle Earth.
"It has taken all the years since Tolkien wrote his book
for film-making technology to catch up with his imagination,"
said Jackson, whose best-known film previously was Heavenly Creatures,
starring Kate Winslet.
Judged by the clips released last week, he may be right. If the
rest of the films live up to the studio's promise, audiences will
be left eager for more. As ever with the Lord of the Rings, hidden
dangers remain. If the Hollywood marketing machine weaves too
clever a spell and the films fail to live up to the hype, it will
take the wizardry of Gandalf for New Line Cinema to recover. The
trilogy is costing at least £200m.
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