In related news, I finally saw the Atlas Shrugged movie – twice (once in San Diego during the APA, and once here in Auburn where it surprisingly showed up after all). I disliked it less on the second viewing than on the first, but it still left me mostly cold.
This is actually one of the most successfully Randian-looking images from the film
Admittedly any film of Atlas was going to have a hard time satisfying me; after all, Atlas was the book that introduced me to philosophy in general and to Aristoteleanism and libertarianism in particular, so it’s a pretty important book in my life.
All the same, Lord of the Rings, Dune, and Chronicles of Narnia were pretty important books in my life too, but despite various gripes I enjoyed the film versions of those a lot more than I enjoyed Atlas. (Re LOTR and Dune I’m referring to the Peter Jackson and John Harrison versions respectively; I didn’t much enjoy the Ralph Bakshi and David Lynch versions.)
I could give a long list of particular things that bugged me about the Atlas movie, but in a way that would be beside the point. After all, I could probably produce an equally long list of things that bugged me about Jackson’s LOTR, but those complaints don’t add up to anything like the same sense of overall dissatisfaction. And after all, the Atlas film was relatively faithful to the plot, and the casting was mostly sensible.
The difference is that, despite my many many gripes about Jackson’s LOTR, I nevertheless felt transported into Tolkien’s universe. And in watching Atlas I never felt transported into Rand’s universe. I’m not talking about the decision to set the story in the present day, in a real-world timeline; given the budgetary limitations, the alternative, though preferable, wasn’t feasible. But a skillful director and screenwriter could have captured Rand’s stylised universe despite that constraint. Essentially, what I was worried about here turned out to be exactly right.
The irony is that Rand, presumably in part because of her Hollywood training, wrote very cinematically. It takes a real effort to de-cinematise her scenes; but Johansson, O’Toole, and Aglialoro have unfortunately pulled it off.
I loathed what Peter Jackson did to LOTR, especially in the Two Towers and Return of the King. An army of elves at Helm’s Deep? Pshah! That whole sequence was altered for the worse. The Army of the Dead, while visually well done, was an abomination. What were they doing at the Pellanor Fields? And what were they doing killing orcs? And why did Jackson kill all of the depth behind the relationship between elves and men, and who Aragorn was? And what was with the Eye of Sauron, I never recall Tolkien presenting Barad Dur as having a Giant Eye floating above it. Grumble grumble!
The first job of a movie is to be as great an entertainment as possible. To do so, it doesn’t necessarily have to be faithful to the source material, if there is any. I don’t hear any complaining that the De Palma/Mamet “Untouchables” flick is historically inaccurate, although it is extremely so, because it’s a great flick. That movie took liberties with historical fact for drama’s sake — for example, Ness throwing Frank Nitti off the court house building. Also, I thought the Watchmen movie’s alteration of the conspiracy was quite ingenious, although it subtracted important symbolic imagery that the GN has.
If the changes Jackson made to LOTR helped move the story along more economically, as the Watchmen changes did, or added drama, like Mamet’s Untouchables script, then I’d say they are justified. I did not think any of the awful changes made to the Fantastic Four material were justified in any way, whether for drama, or lack of adequate screen time to show everyone’s origins.
Brandon:
Sure. But that “if” is the big “if.” I’m sure there are people who will gripe about any difference just because it is a difference. And those people would be wrong. But that’s not the only reason why someone might gripe about a change that was made.
There are plenty of changes made to make the story work better in film — creating the prologue, rewriting quite a bit of dialogue, massively compressing the timeline in the Shire, etc. But I can certainly think of a lot of changes that ruined the pacing (e.g. the Dead suddenly aborting the rest of the Battle of Pelennor Fields) or added cheap “drama” at the expense of tone (e.g. making Denethor and Gandalf have a fight at the pyre, then having Denethor fall from the White Tower, because, what, burning to death isn’t “dramatic” enough?) or trashed characterization without any clear gain (e.g. the effort to make the Ents out as foolish and initially unwilling to confront Saruman; or the effort to make Theoden out as pigheaded and as pointlessly endangering the Rohirrim). The problem here is not that the movie “changed” something relative to the text, but that the changes were changes for the worse — and often changes for the worse that seemed to indicate a failure to understand the dramatic or aesthetic or characterological reasons that Tolkien had for doing things the way he did them.
(And I say this as someone who loved the Jackson films, both as adaptations and simply as films, and as someone who considers them to be, for the most part, one of the best screen adaptations of a big text that’s ever been done.)
As for the Silmarillion: I think that Peter Jackson should do a film version of the Fall of Gondolin. Because, really, he is very good at big, fateful battles, there is no way that you could possibly go too far over the top in portraying the climactic battle or the escape of the refugees.
The plum role in such a film would be Maeglin.
Well, if you’re all into the villainy and such. It is definitely the role (of the major interesting roles) that would be the most accessible to a good contemporary script-writer and a good contemporary actor. (There’s a lot going on with Maeglin, but not much that would really be beyond their ken.)
In an ideal production of the Fall of Gondolin, I think that the real plum role would actually be that of Turgon. He is a great character (awesome in the classic sense), but also in many ways a sort of Denethor-figure,(*) who would call for some subtle writing and real acting chops. But having seen the botch they already made of Denethor in ROTK, no matter how much I may enjoy and admire their virtues, I would have to realistically expect something less than the ideal from Jackson, Walsh and Boyens on that particular point. (**)
(*) I mean Denethor as he is before the wounding of Faramir and his final madness.
(**) But probably not in the same way that they botched Denethor. What would be more likely is that they’d simply fail to see the likeness in motives and position–and portray him as much less complicated in his goodness than he actually is. Maybe they’d manage to toss in a bit of flashback-angst over the Kinslaying.
As for the Silmarillion: I think that Peter Jackson should do a film version of the Fall of Gondolin. Because, really, he is very good at big, fateful battles, there is no way that you could possibly go too far over the top in portraying the climactic battle or the escape of the refugees.
What do you think about a film about the story of Turin Turambar? I find it to be a great tragedy, like a Greek one.
That said I would love to see a well done cable miniseries based on the First and Second Ages, combining the Silmarillion, The Book of Unfinished Tales, and the Children of Hurin.
Yeah, the story of Turin is one of Tolkien’s best.
But I’d like to see the Silmaterial animated rather than live-action — not typical animation, though, but something more artistic.
Interesting piece on the Atlas film in the Socialist Worker. (CHT Dan Clore.)
“The Socialist Worker”? I can’t even make up joke names for commie rags that are as funny as the real ones.
Why is that funny?
Oh, I dunno, why is anything funny?
They should call it “The New Commie Worker Drone”.
Underneath that, in smaller type: “You Will Be Assimilated; Resistance is Futile”.
A few years back HBO did Shakespeare as an animated series. Their version of the Tempest was pretty cool (like a Rankin Bass stop motion, but better) I thought something like that could work. That would make Morgoth seem a lot more terrifying than if it were some cheesy CGI animation interaction with a live Hurin.
Have you ever seen the 1998 animated Beowulf narrated by Derek Jacobi?
No, I’ve seen some clips I think. Is that what you would have in mind for a hypothetical 1st age series or movie of the Turin story?
It’s not the only way to go, but I think it would work well.