James O’Ehley of the
Sci-Fi Movie
Page
writes:
“The bad guys led by Sauron represent modernity
and industrialisation: they hack down forests to make way for factories.
Or maybe they're just Republicans, who knows? But it becomes obvious why
the books were so popular with environmentally minded hippies in the
1960s.”
The eco-friendly allegory assigned to
“The Lord of the
Rings”
books in recent years does not survive into the movies. Sure, the
trees tearing down the blackened factory causes compulsive recyclers like
me to smack our lips in delight. But this theme is effortlessly
overwhelmed by the production’s sheer size and its subsequent
glorification of human technology and what mankind can accomplish when
controlling, shaping, and otherwise making a slave out of his
environment. There may be no technology in Middle-Earth, but it owes
its existence to digital wizardry and the movie constantly reminds us of
that.
Dr. Dave
Clayton puts it like this:
“In his ‘Aesthetic Theory,’
Theodor Adorno sarcastically notes that Stefan George fancied he could
produce a poetic effect by piling up words like ‘gold’ or ‘carnelian’ in a
poem. ‘Fellowship of the Ring’ goes in for the cinematic equivalent of
this procedure on a hitherto unparalleled scale. Nothing like a simple
shot exists anywhere in the film, and every last detail seems to have been
digitally polished to the last degree.”
No one who sees these
movies will seriously want to tone down humanity's excesses, only increase
them. The theme of human beings as mere Hobbit-sized weaklings
beneath the stomp of the heartless technological-industrial complex the
trilogy itself represents is much more potent, however
unintentionally.
It is a theme brought on by the numbing quality of
the digital re-touching done in every single frame of every single shot,
that faint jiggling sheen that comes over everything, the feeling that
computers have invaded the Middle Ages, the feeling that the Hobbits do
not choose their destinies but have them thrust on them by the
machinations of a world that gives them no choices (see
The Moral Quandary of Good vs.
Evil), and are living in a world that reduces them to
two-dimensional archetypes marching to generic conventions. Perhaps
this is part of the unconscious battle between the novels’ pastoral
desires and the films’ ferocious pro-industrialism.
Or perhaps it is
the trilogy’s intention to create the ultimate, most beautiful fantasy of
all, in which nature and mankind’s desire to dominate live in peaceful
coexistence—although it should be noted that our point-of-view is
frequently looking downwards, as if to tell nature that we’ll get along
just fine, as long as she stays in her place. From an artistic
perspective instead of an interpretive one, the computerization of
everything—the jiggle—homogenizes the entire series, and makes us feel as
if we’re looking at just another computer screen instead of something
truly different. The movies are just another voice saying “computers
are great.”
J.R.R. Tolkien vs. The 20th
Century
In his book “J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of
the Century,” Tom Shippey posits that Tolkien’s goal was to renounce the
corruptions of the 20th century: industrial, artistic, political,
and social. Out with capitalism, socialism, and the heartless
mechanized world. Out with the introverted modern novel that has
found favour in that world, and in with the extroversion common to more
archaic styles. We won’t get into whether the novels succeed in this
aim, but in many ways the movies have. The shallowness and
extroversion of Jackson’s (Tolkein’s?) characters is a rebuke of the
psychological depth and self-exploration that characterizes serious 20th
century prose, as is his interest in the movements of kings, countries,
and conquerors, as opposed to their thoughts and motivations.
Certainly this is a justification and perhaps even a rebuttal for many of
my complaints in “‘Lord of the Rings’ as Pure
Adventure,” but what is the cost? I don’t feel for the
characters, I don’t feel for their danger, and as a result all the action
is partly wasted on me. As for a condemnation of a mechanized world,
this theme is sabotaged by Jackson’s treatment, because what could be more
heartlessly industrialized and mechanized than his films, which are recent
memory’s most non-stop attack of “technology, technology,
technology?”
“Lord of the Rings” as Christian
Allegory
Here the films seem to work, in a basic,
perhaps unexamined manner. Frodo is Christ as Redeemer, carrying the
sins of the world, Gandalf is Christ as Prophet, full of warning and
forebodings, and Aragorn is Christ as King. I forgot where I heard
this (sorry!). God chooses everyone (Frodo as the Ring Bearer,
Gandalf is “sent back,” etc.) and He makes major decisions on
mountaintops, just like in the Old Testament.
Those who are willing
to lose their lives gain them: the last of many last battles is a
suicide mission, but one in which the noble soldiers are spared.
This may even justify the eventual boredom that sets in after watching the
death-and-resurrections of Gandalf, Aragorn, Frodo, Sam, Faramir, and one,
if not both, of the Other Two Hobbits. As if all this weren’t
enough, Boromir even gets a kind of resurrection on the extended edition
of “The Two Towers” by appearing in posthumous flashbacks. Tolkien,
a lifelong Catholic, is said (by some, but who really knows?) to have
brought fellow author C.S. Lewis from agnosticism into the Church of
England, which for Tolkien must be kind of like setting out to make a
steak and only coming up with a hamburger. The films’ cheap
portrayal of warfare (see “Lord of the Rings” as War) does not seem worthy
of Christ/Frodo’s sacrifice of throwing sin and death down the
drain. The lack of humanity in Jackson’s Christ and the absence of a
moral dilemma (see
Good vs.
Evil) are also troubling.
Greg Wright of
Hollywood
Jesus
posits, and I paraphrase greatly, that Tolkien’s intent with the novels is
to show the “spiritual impoverishment” of the modern world. We no
longer see God in it, or God has removed Himself, only to watch.
While the forces of good in “LOTR” may have staved off industry for a
time, all the elements of the supernatural eventually climb into their
boats and depart, leaving the world of men on its own, without divine
intervention, to fend off industry’s next attack. That the books
show this departure as a force of nature—“our time has ended”—instead of
one choice leading to another (see
Good vs.
Evil) is consistent with their style of humans not
making real decisions but simply having things done to them. For
instance, there is no train of thought in the “LOTR” universe beginning
with the Renaissance, leading to the Reformation, to the Enlightenment, to
Deism, and eventually onto secularism. This may simply be Tolkien’s
way of illustrating how little we are in the world, with no chance of
understanding it.
Whether or not Jackson sees the departure of God
and the supernatural as a tragic impoverishment or a healthy form of
maturation is up for debate. The movie plays just as well for
professed atheists (The Flick Filosopher) as it does for the
religiously inclined (Hollywood Jesus), which has long been mainstream
film’s modus operandi anyway. Perhaps part of the appeal of Gibson’s
“The
Passion” isn’t what it says, but that it says something
at all. Regardless of whether you agree or disagree, you still take
notice of that “zing” it gets from its own sincerity, which has a
distinctly different flavour than the sometimes dull awkwardness of movies
that strive so hard to be middle-of-the-road and noncommittal.
For
more, visit Hollywood Jesus (www.hollywoodjesus.com) for interpretations of the
movies’ spirituality, or lack thereof.
