In The Lord of the Rings films, there is a fine balance struck between the seriousness (within the context of the fictional world created) of the unfolding narrative and the particular responses and stories (often incorporating humour) of the main characters. The main focus is on a state-of-the-universe narrative but the potential portentousness of this big story is leavened and humanised by the humour and humility of the central characters and the parts they play within this meta-narrative.
The Hobbit was originally written by J.R.R. Tolkien as a children's story complete in it's own right and it only later became a prelude to The Lord of the Rings. Having reached The Hobbit by the opposite route seems to have meant that Peter Jackson is unable to tell the earlier story in its own right and for what it is in and of itself. The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is the first of a three part series which can only tell this the slighter of Tolkien's originally published tales of Middle Earth at this length because of the decision to also tell the story as an explicit prelude to The Lord of the Rings.
This has two implications. First, that The Hobbit films will only make sense to those who already know The Lord of the Rings films as the additional material doesn't progress the story which is actually told in The Hobbit but does fit that story into the bigger story of The Lord of the Rings. Second, the balance between seriousness and humour/humanity found in The Lord of the Rings films is lost here because of the decision to tell both the story of The Hobbit and the story of The Hobbit as a prelude to The Lord of the Rings. The story told in The Hobbit is a lighter, slighter tale which is well told in this film with humour (except when Radagast's distraction of a hunting party of Orcs is turned into the equivalent of a Benny Hill-style sketch) but this is then set against the seriousness of the storyline which explains how the events of The Hobbit fit into the state-of-this-universe narrative that is The Lord of the Rings. Instead of the leavening of seriousness with humour and humanity that is found in The Lord of the Rings films here we get a jarring shuttling back and forth between these two separated styles and stories.
This results, I think, from a lack of trust on the part of the makers in the ability of the story of The Hobbit to communicate in its own right and its own form. Jackson, essentially, does not trust that the seriousness of the tale and its links to The Lord of the Rings would emerge simply by dramatising the tale as told by Tolkien. In the story, as told by Tolkien, these aspects emerges from the lighter, humourous form of the story. It is the reverse of what is achieved in The Lord of the Rings films and it is ironic that Jackson having found for himself a balance between seriousness and humour for The Lord of the Rings films (as this balance is not in the book as written by Tolkien) has then been unable to trust the reverse balance which is naturally found in the original tale as told by Tolkien.
There is much to enjoy in the film and I'll be there with the many who will see all three over the next 18 months and then will watch all three all over again on DVD but, on a first viewing at least, my view is that the story would have been better told by reflecting and respecting the lighter, slighter nature of its form instead of this attempt to inflate it with the expansiveness and seriousness of The Lord of the Rings.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Howard Shore - The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
Showing posts with label seriousness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label seriousness. Show all posts
Wednesday, 26 December 2012
Saturday, 3 November 2012
The New Serious vs the Old Shallow
David Cox wrote recently in The Guardian about the emergence of the new serious. He argued that while 'Cinema still plays host to gross-out, farce and facetiousness; yet it is darkness, deliberation and doom that are doing some of the best business.' The Daniel Craig James Bond films and the Christopher Nolan Batman series are among the examples he gives.
He continues: 'Art galleries and museums attract record crowds. Uncompromising lectures on recondite topics have made TED a surprise internet hit. Some sports writers have taken a heuristic turn. Weighty public debates sell out, while people queue all night in the rain for tickets to literary festivals.
The Institute of Ideas has had to move its annual Battle of Ideas festival to bigger premises to accommodate growing demand, with more than half of those attending in their teens and early 20s ...
Phenomena such as these get less attention than complaints about low educational attainment, the preoccupation with celebrity or the supposedly mind-rotting effects of social networking. Yet alongside apparently relentless dumbing down, a new hankering for seriousness seems also to be emerging.'
Similarly, in the Visual Arts, some critics are beginning to react against the way in which 'Money talks loudly and easily drowns out other meanings.' Sarah Thornton - the “Seven Days in the Art World” author - recently announced she was no longer covering the art business with a "rousing list of reasons" and the influential American art critic Dave Hickey told the ... Observer ... that he’s had it with art criticism and the current state of contemporary art.
Thornton concludes that the subject is too corrupt to report on and Hickey states:
'Money and celebrity has cast a shadow over the art world which is prohibiting ideas and debate from coming to the fore," he said yesterday, adding that the current system of collectors, galleries, museums and art dealers colluding to maintain the value and status of artists quashed open debate on art.
I hope this is the start of something that breaks the system. At the moment it feels like the Paris salon of the 19th century, where bureaucrats and conservatives combined to stifle the field of work. It was the Impressionists who forced a new system, led by the artists themselves. It created modern art and a whole new way of looking at things.
Lord knows we need that now more than anything. We need artists to work outside the establishment and start looking at the world in a different way – to start challenging preconceptions instead of reinforcing them.'
Cox, however, concludes: 'In the real world ... our newfound seriousness has not cut very deep. The long-awaited crisis of capitalism has produced plenty of attitudinising, but profound discussion of how we might change our world has hardly been to the fore.'
Like Cox I'm unsure whether the new serious is a significance paradigm shift but, for what it's worth, here is my take on the old shallowness:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adele - Skyfall.
He continues: 'Art galleries and museums attract record crowds. Uncompromising lectures on recondite topics have made TED a surprise internet hit. Some sports writers have taken a heuristic turn. Weighty public debates sell out, while people queue all night in the rain for tickets to literary festivals.
The Institute of Ideas has had to move its annual Battle of Ideas festival to bigger premises to accommodate growing demand, with more than half of those attending in their teens and early 20s ...
Phenomena such as these get less attention than complaints about low educational attainment, the preoccupation with celebrity or the supposedly mind-rotting effects of social networking. Yet alongside apparently relentless dumbing down, a new hankering for seriousness seems also to be emerging.'
Similarly, in the Visual Arts, some critics are beginning to react against the way in which 'Money talks loudly and easily drowns out other meanings.' Sarah Thornton - the “Seven Days in the Art World” author - recently announced she was no longer covering the art business with a "rousing list of reasons" and the influential American art critic Dave Hickey told the ... Observer ... that he’s had it with art criticism and the current state of contemporary art.
Thornton concludes that the subject is too corrupt to report on and Hickey states:
'Money and celebrity has cast a shadow over the art world which is prohibiting ideas and debate from coming to the fore," he said yesterday, adding that the current system of collectors, galleries, museums and art dealers colluding to maintain the value and status of artists quashed open debate on art.
I hope this is the start of something that breaks the system. At the moment it feels like the Paris salon of the 19th century, where bureaucrats and conservatives combined to stifle the field of work. It was the Impressionists who forced a new system, led by the artists themselves. It created modern art and a whole new way of looking at things.
Lord knows we need that now more than anything. We need artists to work outside the establishment and start looking at the world in a different way – to start challenging preconceptions instead of reinforcing them.'
Cox, however, concludes: 'In the real world ... our newfound seriousness has not cut very deep. The long-awaited crisis of capitalism has produced plenty of attitudinising, but profound discussion of how we might change our world has hardly been to the fore.'
Like Cox I'm unsure whether the new serious is a significance paradigm shift but, for what it's worth, here is my take on the old shallowness:
Hello! We are the shallow people,
reflections of our fitness ratings,
shining the surface of our existence,
selling our lives to seek significance.
OK! we are on heat, on fire,
hyper cool, yet full of desire.
Bad and wicked are terms of approval.
Bums and tums are there for removal.
Narcissus is our role model;
made in Chelsea
lightly tanned and with a wicked four pack,
we know that he is Essex !
We are pissed off, falling over,
stumbling in the dark.
Drunk on celebrity chardonnay,
technology sated, intoxicated.
We think we are such foxy ladies
sexy, sultry sods.
We are hung over, hearing voices,
kissing the porcelain god.
We are off our heads,
out of our skulls,
out of our minds,
we decline.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Adele - Skyfall.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)