Peter Jackson’s Filmic Interpretation of
J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings”
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Filmmaker Peter Jackson’s visualization of J.R.R. Tolkien’s epic fantasy, The Lord of the Rings, is a remarkable filmic achievement. Not only has he redeemed the female character issues that incense some feminist critics, but he has fleshed out the emotional and personal natures of Tolkien’s characters like an artist who paints a panoramic masterpiece based upon only a few lines of poetry. Most readers of Tolkien’s work do exactly as the great scholar and author expected that they should: they engage creatively with the story and see in their minds a highly individual and personal interpretation of the story’s imagery and characters. Most readers would argue passionately that they know the Elves and Hobbits, Dwarves and men in the tale. This sense of certainty comes from the workings of imagination and memory, a subject Tolkien discussed in his famous essay, “On Fairy Stories.”
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Tolkien’s fantasy has received mixed criticism from the literary and scholarly community since it’s original publication. Many of his academic contemporaries expressed a range of reactions, from dismissal to outrage, in response to what they deemed childish meanderings in storytelling or outright nonsense. One critic even dismissed Tolkien altogether when he realized that Tolkien had fashioned Middle-earth and all of her peoples to speak the many languages he had created over the decades. Two of the most noted criticisms of his work relate to the simplistic, one-dimensional design of his characters and the curious lack of all but a small handful of women in the tale. This is not to say that these criticisms represent truth, for many others do not agree – particularly with respect to the lack of character complexity. Peter Jackson’s direction of the films, while making apparent the depth of character that many readers already knew existed, has effectively settled the critical question of dimensionality, as well as introduced an altogether new vision of feminine agency into the story.
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It is clear that Jackson believes the Final Battle for Middle-earth can only be won with the help of strong, determined, wise women. Arwen Evenstar, the daughter of Elrond of Rivendell, Galadriel, the queen of the Elves and grandmother of Arwen, and Eowyn, a human princess of the Rohan, are all part of Tolkien’s literature – but only in Jackson’s film do they become the heroines and catalysts of the story.
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In the same way that Frodo is not the true hero (since Gollum is the one who really destroys the ring after Frodo refuses to do so), none of the heroes in the story are portrayed as complete or able to finish the task without the intervention or aid of the heroines. For instance, without Arwen’s intervention, Frodo would have been lost before the story could even begin after the Nazgul Witch King stabbed him. Without Galadriel’s gifts, most of the nine members of the Fellowship of the Ring would have perished before the Final Battle. Without Eowyn, the least powerful and most frail of the women in the story, the Nazgul Witch King could not have been defeated and would have gone on to destroy Gandalf, or perhaps even regain the One Ring before Frodo could reach Mount Doom.
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Jackson’s direction of the female actors is brilliant and fully in keeping with contemporary feminist values of strong, wise, capable women. In fact, it is interesting to note that Arwen, Galadriel, and Eowyn are by far the most uncompromising, unwavering sources of morality, ethics, and honor in the entire panorama of the filmic cast. By choosing to treat these characters in this way, Jackson brings Tolkien’s story into the present age, making it once again (and even more so) a relevant and important commentary of contemporary worldviews and sociopolitical philosophies, particularly for women.
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The second criticism Jackson deals with, that of Tolkien’s lack of character complexity in the literature, is one that he handles with masterful precision – neither rewriting Tolkien’s intent, nor creating the characters anew. With great integrity Jackson delivers what older readers recognize immediately as a real hobbit, the genuine Gandalf, the true Aragorn with all of his inner conflicts. We are both excited to meet a real Elf and awed by the visual image of their mysterious, powerful, sometimes dark beauty that Tolkien first introduced to us in The Hobbit. Clearly, Jackson’s imaginative, personal engagement with the literature, as well as his incredible directorial vision, worked together to bring us the most inspiring, beautiful fantasy film ever made.
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Everything in the film is on an epic scale, from the architectural detail of Bilbo’s Hobbit hole and the awe-inspiring beauty of Rivendell, to the horrifying brutality and cannibalism of the Uruk Hai warriors and the vast geographic evil of Mordor. A visually stunning trilogy of films, the artistry is surpassed only by the panoramic, epic nature of the battle between good and evil that is played out through a cast of deeply complex, yet oddly defined characters. It is clear that visualizing the story, bringing to the screen every nuance of expression and inner conflict not painstakingly described by Tolkien himself, has resulted in a fresh encounter with Middle-earth that is certain to revive the fanfare of the sixties, when college students traversed their campuses bearing pin tags that read, “Frodo Lives!” What critic, with any integrity, could now say that this story is a simplistic bit of child’s play?
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