On PJ's LOTR and the nature of storytelling.

[serai]

In this post, annwyn55 takes issue with this article about Peter Jackson's version of LOTR. The author of the article talks about interpretation vs. definition, and how PJ's version may be a great interpretation, but is not the definitive version, thus leaving room for other films of the book. Annwyn's views got me thinking about this, and here's my take on the issue.



I'm afraid I have to disagree with annwyn55, quite strongly. I've been a storyteller for several years now, and I can say with some assurance that there is no definitive version of any story. Every telling changes the tale, sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better. Every teller brings his or her own viewpoint, history, morals, virtues, vices, and voice to the telling, and each teller has his or her own unique vision to add to it.

When we point to a particular version of a story and say, "This is the definitive version", we lock ourselves away from the possibilities inherent in storytelling, the potential for any version to surpass our expectations. PJ's LOTR is far, far more beautiful, impassioned and detailed, more lovingly realized, than I had any right to hope for (especially after The Bakshi Horror...shudder). But that doesn't mean that another filmmaker, with a different vision, cast and crew, couldn't make a different version that was equally beautiful, impassioned and detailed. I personally look forward to any version of LOTR that gets made. I'd love to see a romantic version that plays up the love stories, or a dark dramatic film-noir that focuses on just how ignorant the characters are of the dangers they're walking into, photographed in far more idiosyncratic styling. I'd love to see a wild stylized whack job (Baz Luhrmann, are you listening?). How about a musical? Let's have a pure character piece where we never see any of the battles, a grim war tale with a tragic ending (Sam's return to Bag End could easily be played as terribly sad), a surrealistic reverie - any number of interesting possibilities await inside that massive book.

Take, for a small instance, the issue of casting in a film. Ian McKellen is a lovely, brilliant Gandalf. He is warm, focused, strong, intricate. However, he is not the definitive Gandalf. I remember being rather surprised on first viewing at how gentle and kind a Gandalf he was in FOTR, because Tolkien didn't write him that way. The Gandalf in the book, while not being very different from the film's wizard, was not as tender or avuncular as Sir Ian's. He was a bit more prickly, easier to irritate, not as sweet. Had I been casting the movie (and had the film been made about 10 years earlier), my perfect choice would have been Peter O'Toole, who has both the innate authority to carry off the strengths of the role as well as a wonderful sardonic sparkle that would have brought that touch of acidic humor that I found native to Gandalf in the books. I would not re-cast Gandalf in PJ's version for any money, because McKellan fits so gorgeously and did such a glorious job, but that's not to say that another actor in another version coudn't do as well or better, given a context right for him.

Some time ago, my friend Cat and I put together a piece which I called The Lord of the Rings - The Cast From Hell (which you can take a look at here). It was meant as a sarcastic take on the possibilities had LOTR been made within the bowels of the Hollywood money machine. But although it will curl your hair and make you scream (or at least, that was the intention), I have to say that I'd be very interested to see any one of those actors take on the role we playfully assigned them (well, maybe not Adam Sandler, but that's just me). Each of these people is talented in his or her own way, and would bring something to the character that I might not anticipate. Ashton Kutcher has a sweet innocence, Tom Cruise has a laserlike focus and determination, Matt and Ben have a natural camaraderie, Bruce Willis has a casual strength and very surprising dramatic ability, Jim Carrey has a physical plasticity and a shocking talent for pathos. Each of them would create a character perhaps different from my imagining, but which would include details, attitudes and beats that I couldn't have anticipated, just like the actors in PJ's version.

And lest we forget, were any of us to be magically transported to Middle-Earth and actually see these people in the flesh, none of them would be as we had envisioned them. They would have their own faces, bodies, mannerisms, quirks, voices. They would do things we hadn't anticipated, say things we hadn't imagined, because just like actors interpreting their characters and just like real people anywhere, Frodo and Sam and all the rest of them would have lived whole lives filled with moments that never made it into the book, and which would influence every nuance of their beings. It's not possible to create a definitive version of a character because it's never possible to wholly contain a person in a dramatic performance.

By the same token, every aspect of the story and film could have been re-imagined in a different way, because that's always true of any story. There are a thousand ways to say any line ("I love you" can be said with murderous rage, while "Fuck you!" can be a laughing declaration of affection), a thousand ways to play any character (Frodo could be played as sweet and easily moved, a la Elijah, or shy and introverted, or eagerly adventurous, or sad and reluctant, etc.), and locations and art design can be interpreted in a thousand different styles. (Witness Ian's comments about the look of Gandalf - Tolkien said he had a tall hat and a long beard. That's all very nice, but...how tall? How long? Every detail of the book has to be dealt with in this manner.) All of these aspects are part of the artist's interpretation, and make up the whole of the storyteller's vision.

The guy who wrote that article could have been nicer about it, sure. But then, he isn't paid to be nice, but to give his opinion. But his main point is absolutely valid - every filmmaker focuses on different things, as all artists should, and any one of them would make an LOTR that would bring different aspects of the story to the surface. For instance, wouldn't it be interesting to see what Joel Schumacher, an openly gay filmmaker, would do with this hunk-o-rama of a book? (Yeah, yeah, I know he's made schlock, but he's also made good films - go rent Tigerland if you don't believe me.)

Some of those other versions might not be to my taste, but I'd definitely see them. My love for this book is such that I'm willing to give any filmmaker who takes on the task a chance because, as much as I love PJ's version, I know he did not tell the whole story. I don't think any filmmaker could ever tell the whole story that's in that book, and I'm rather happy about that. It means there will be other voices telling the tale, and that's all to the good.

In order for a story to truly live on, it must be told over and over again. That's the nature of a true mythology, and that's how I know Tolkien really did manage to create one - by the recurring impulse of artists to interpret and re-interpret the canon. After all, isn't that what all of us are doing when we write fanfic on LOTR? If it's possible for us to keep re-interpreting these characters, sometimes coming up with wildly wonderful takes that can be nearly as good as the original, who's to say another filmmaker couldn't surpass PJ someday? Who can say for certain that another filmmaker couldn't come up with original moments as achingly lovely as our first glimpse of Frodo reading his book under the oak tree, or Elrond's mythical telling of his daughter's love and loss, or Merry relating his nightmare of the world's death to Pippin, or Gandalf's vision of the shores of Valinor?

Art is always an interpretation. There's no way around that. I may not give a hoot about the latest Mortal Kombat movie, but when the source is as densely layered, as mythically complex, and as gorgeously detailed as The Lord of the Rings, I will never stop hoping for another version, or wishing I could see every one that will ever be made.

Comments

[serai1.livejournal.com]

Hm. Authorial ownership is an odd and sticky question. On the one hand, I can sympathize with someone who has spent a great deal of time creating a book or other work of art. But I feel even more strongly that stories, ideas, images, etc., are not things, in the way that cars and tables and shoes are. They are living essences that run through humanity like water through a channel. Does the riverbed own the river that runs through it? Can the river be said to be a river without the bed it runs through? It's a symbiotic relationship, and yet the water is water, and would be water whether it ran through that channel or an entirely different one. Such is the nature, I believe, of stories. They run through us and out of us, but have their own life that has little to do with the conduit they use.

That article you mentioned sounds very interesting. Can you let me have the link to it?

[vshendria.livejournal.com]

Sure thing! Here it is:
http://www.refractory.unimelb.edu.au/journalissues/vol5/pugh.htm
(assuming this link thing worked, I will check)