A Worthy “Hobbit”
Peter Jackson’s first of three Hobbit films took a thrashing from the critics, who disliked the effect produced the new 48-frames-per-second projection system. This makes everything a bit too clear, a bit too smooth, such that sets and costumes seemed artificial to some. It is off-putting at first. Halfway through the film, though, I suddenly thought, “This is the way I saw the world when I was a child!” There are many wonderful things about Jackson’s film, of which the choice of Martin Freeman as Bilbo Baggins stands at the top of my list; unlike the listless Elijah Wood, a boy playing the role of the middle-aged Frodo in the “Ring” trilogy, Freeman is a grown-up. He is a master of English understatement but also an actor of great range, and he carries the film brilliantly. As in the Rings trilogy the sets and settings are marvelous. Especially gratifying was the inclusion of many of Tolkien’s poems with affecting settings by Howard Shore.
J.R.R. Tolkien’s enduring popularity is cause for hope in popular culture. He did not write fantasy so much as roman à clef about the past and future of the West. His Hobbits are the English standing against totalitarian aggression — the two towers of Berlin and Moscow — with decency and courage. “Alone among 20th century novelists, J.R.R. Tolkien concerned himself with the mortality not of individuals but of peoples. The young soldier-scholar of World War I viewed the uncertain fate of European nations through the mirror of the Dark Ages, when the life of small peoples hung by a thread. In the midst of today’s Great Extinction of cultures, and at the onset of civilizational war, Tolkien evokes an uncanny resonance among today’s readers,” I wrote when the first of the Ring films appeared. I am no maven where Christian literature is concerned, but Tolkien’s theological depth impressed me:
Tolkien is a writer of greater theological depth than his Oxford colleague C S Lewis, in my judgment. Lewis is a felicitous writer and a diligent apologist, but mere allegory along the lines of the Narnia series can do no more than restate Christian doctrine; it cannot really expand our experience of it. Tolkien takes us to the dark frontier of a world that is not yet Christian, and therefore is tragic, but has the capacity to become Christian. It is the world of the Dark Ages, in which barbarians first encounter the light. It is not fantasy, but rather a distillation of the spiritual history of the West. Whereas C S Lewis tries to make us comfortable in what we already believe by dressing up the story as a children’s masquerade, Tolkien makes us profoundly uncomfortable. Our people, our culture, our language, our toehold upon this shifting and uncertain Earth are no more secure than those of a thousand extinct tribes of the Dark Ages; and a greater hope than that of the work of our hands and the hone of our swords must avail us.
Mr. Spengler,
Wonderful review of the Hobbit, which I am looking forward to seeing. And your comments contextualizing the depth of the material, especially viz Wagner, is terrific. Anyone intrigued by the comments here will be rewarded by following the links to the earlier reviews.
Many thanks, a comfort indeed.
JM
I read all four books in high school as an aspirant hippie. It was the thing to do in that set at the time to be culturally atuned. I admit that I thought them all preposterous and complete them only out of a desire to stay current with the times and my peers.
Why was that? Had hippies and New Agers completely misread the series? For kids who wanted to change the world, how do we reconcile Spengler’s reading with the Age of Aquarius?
David,
IMHO, your writing on Tolkien is some of your most entertaining and interesting work. Your first LOTR essay in AT actually convinced me to read the books and become a bit of a devotee. I continue to enjoy the occasions when you return to Tolkien so I thank you for this column.
Regarding your view of LOTR as a ‘roman à clef’ with Hobbits as “the English standing against totalitarian aggression — the two towers of Berlin and Moscow — with decency and courage”, what do you make of Tolkien’s explicit rejection of a WWII allegory (much less ‘roman à clef’) in the forward to LOTRs? It seems an obvious match, but Tolkien was very clear on the matter.
It surely is more than allegory. The allegorical elements, moreover, extend far beyond WWII. The “White City” holding off the orcs might be Consta tinople or Belgrade vs. the Turks.
My impression too was that that the works of Tolkein were something like an anti wagner. Tolkein in the viewing worked as a blessing whereas Wagner in the viewing –worked as a curse.
My impression too was that that the works of Tolkein were something like an anti wagner. Tolkein in the viewing worked as a blessing whereas Wagner in the viewing –worked as a curse.
My greatest desire after witnessing a Wagner work was to get it out of my mind whereas Tolkein’s work invited one to remember.
For all the continuous Wagner bashing, here and elsewhere, no one ever recommends a superior substitute with the same purity of ideals. Tolkien is in the same category. It’s a shame the English have no knack for music.
JRR Tolkien deserves more praise than you could possibly give… And Peter Jackson deserves more of a thrashing than his critics could possibly give…
I have read the complete “Lord of the Rings” more times than I can count; more than any other book, fact or fiction. I consider JRR Tolkien the greatest fiction writer of the “Great Epic of Morality;” the classic battle between Good and Evil, that has possibly ever lived. He is certainly on par with Shakespeare.
And therefore, I am dreading Peter Jackson’s “Hobbit.” I will eventually watch it because I must but, I would rather not. Making a trilogy of “The Hobbit” already seems a terribly overblown “pot boiling” way to cash in on his LOTR fame. “The Hobbit” is a wonderful novel, but it is not a three part epic.
However, the reason that I am dreading Jackson’s new venture is the way that he butchered the morality tale of Good and Evil in the last two movies of “Lord of the Rings.”
In Jackson’s bizarre view of Tolkien’s worlds, there is no such thing as “Good and Evil.”
Why?
In brief – Jackson made almost every one of his characters betray Tolkien’s moral principles in a manner which was totally unnecessary.
This man who is making a trilogy of “The Hobbit” left out the final chapter of LOTR,”The Scouring of the Shire.” Jackson made the fatuous explanation that he thought it was too much of a letdown. Great epics didn’t end that way…
I would humbly suggest that Jackson never read a Great Epic in his life, which almost universally end exactly that way.
“This is how the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper…” – - – TS Eliot
However, that was merely Jackson’s unhappy cherry on his twisted cake.
To wit, in Jackson’s world of shades of Gray:
Elrond doesn’t want Aragorn to marry Arwen – it never happened in Tolkien’s LOTR.
The Elves are leaving Middle Earth because they have no part in this battle against Sauron – never happened…
Aragorn never proclaims: “I am Aragorn son of Arathorn, and am called Elessar, the Elfstone, Dúnadan, the heir of Isildur Elendil’s son of Gondor. Here is the sword that was broken and is forged again! Will you aid me or thwart me? Choose swiftly!”
The Ents initially refuse to fight Saruman – never happened…
Faramir captures Frodo, Sam, and the Ring AND takes them to his father Denethor – never happened…
Sam leaves Frodo because his feelings are hurt – never happened…
And, the denouement, which would have changed not an iota of the plot; the action; the dialogue; or anything else in the movie – When Theoden King is asked by Gandalf to ride to Minas Tirith to the aid of Gondor – Theoden says: “No.”
No! He said Yes!
These are merely the most egregious of Jackson’s moral turpitude.
I shudder to think what he has most likely done to poor Bilbo…
I think our host argued in previous reviews that Jackson’s first LOTR film was a fine adaptation, but the 2d and 3d were mostly a mess. That’s a fair enough summary.
“I have read the complete “Lord of the Rings” more times than I can count; more than any other book, fact or fiction…”. Really? It’s more worthy of study than Genesis and its commentaries? I’m a devoted JRRT reader, but he acknowledged that he was only a “sub-creator”?
All right. I was incorrect. I have, indeed, read the Torah and attendant commentaries far more than LOTR. I placed Torah in a different category than “fact or fiction.” I’m not sure what that category is but whatever it is, I miswrote…
And, truth be told, I probably only read LOTR somewhere between 15 or 20 times in the last 50 years, which is certainly more than any other novel or normal non fiction book…
Jackson’s betrayal of Tolkien still really annoys me…
20 times over 50 years is not too bad for LOTR. I’m also happy to report multiple readings.
Still, I think your take on the first film was a bit strong. What did you think of the portrayal of the Bilbo’s birthday party or the fall and redemption of Boromir?
Both Bilbo’s birthday and the fall and redemption of Boromir were both done very well. (Not sure I would have made Boromir so “cranky” but then again, I am not a director or producer…)
However, overall the first movie; “Fellowship..,” was quite fine. I believe mainly because there were no moral conflicts as such involved.
And, Boromir was THE moral conflict in the trilogy. I don’t think that Jackson could have gotten away with NOT letting Boromir defend Merry and Pippin and dying in the process. But – I’ll bet that the thought crossed his mind.
I sincerely believe that Jackson deliberately blurred the lines between Good and Evil because he sincerely wanted to give Tolkien’s characters more “realism” and drama… It really did tick me off, especially as the first movie was done so well and, of course, the overall cinematography was fantastically incredible.
(My only real gripe with the production values of the movie was that I thought the “Praise him with great praise” of Frodo and Sam was not up to par… More schmaltz would have been nice; more like the “Star Wars” victory ending. Then again, I’m not a director or producer; then again, it could just have been that I don’t think whatshisname who played Aragorn was up to being King…)
The origin of Middle Earth in the mind of Tolkien is quite fascinating. He was perhaps the greatest linguistic scholar of ancient languages ever to live. He wrote definitive textbooks on the subject that remain standards. He was a complete master of the ancient roots of Europe.
So what does such a man do in his spare time? He invents languages. I believe he invented five distinct, unique, languages (it may have been only three, my memory isn’t perfect), and he invented an alphabet for each one. What does a fellow do with newly created written languages? Why, he invents a people to speak them. Then, he creates a vastly older origin they descended from, and finally, a place and time for them to live in.
In other words, he wrote his fantasy story exactly the opposite way one might expect.
Tolkien’s brilliance lies in the completeness of his vision, and how it is informed by his mastery of the ancient roots of the West. His brilliance was not in great novel-writing. It’s a great story, even if he’s a flawed literary stylist.
As for the new movie, I consider it the best of the four. The trouble with the first three can be found in the time constraints Jackson had to face. All three were unusually long, even after he had stripped the story down to its barest plot line. What he ended up with contained little of the lyrical, wonderful experience of the book, and pretty much just a string of action sequences. Sure, it LOOKED just like Middle Earth must look like, but much of the fun of the place is to do with relaxing inside of it. No time for any of that.
Each of the three volumes is in fact two distinct books, and if he had made a long film out of all six books, he could have left much of the wonder in the movie. Of course, the three films cost something like a billion dollars to produce, an extraordinary commitment for a studio to hand a “who he?” director proposing to hire a largely nameless cast. I’m amazed it ever happened. At the outset, no one could have known if this was going to be Heaven’s Gate. If he had proposed TWO billon for six films, he’d have been laughed out of the studio office.
The Hobbit is wonderful, because Jackson is not racing against the clock, as he had to do with the first three. At almost three hours, there’s plenty of time for hime to let the thing unfold at just the easy pace we experience when we read the book. It’s whimsical, and human-paced. There’s none of that sense of hurry-up-we’ve -got-to-get-to-the-next-scene we agonized through in the first three installments, and none of the sadness concerning all the fantastic stuff he left out. As Spengler mentioned, Jackson even included the silly songs!
It would be utterly wrong to compare Herman Van Rompuy with Gollum, of course it would. But if Gollum had somehow become the first full-time President of the European Council, you can just see him craftily manoeuvering behind the scenes to grab more and more power.
And, by the way, Brussels has some fabulous fish restaurants!
This English writer remind me of the heart of Tolkien , Carl Houselander , from the blog of Dawn Eden excerpt from the novel Dry wood , javing in mind and heart the children of Newtown
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/feastofeden/2012/12/caryll-houselander-sin-tried-to-batter-life-out-of-the-innocent-son-of-god-just-as-it-has-done-to-the-bodies-of-innocence-ever-since/
Wow ! Gift from this great beauty Dawn Eden
For the record, I believe there was in fact a goblin in the book — the Great Goblin of the Misty Mountains — who harbored a grudge against the dwarves.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Middle-earth_Orcs#The_Great_Goblin
Yes, and the Great Goblin is marvelously portrayed in Jackson’s film. But there’s yet another “Pale Orc” supervillain.
And, we saw “The Hobbit” last night.
And, I agree with Mr. Goldman. I think the absolute best and most redeeming factor of the Hobbit was casting Martin Freeman as Bilbo.
It was a good movie (Nonetheless – I still do not forgive Mr. Jackson for his moral equivalence in LOTR.)
Tolkien-fan Professor Bruce G Charlton had this to say:
“In sum: The Hobbit movie reminds me, here and there, of a book by JRR Tolkien I have read scores of times. But it feels nothing like the book – except in a handful of scenes.
That is because the movie contains a very low proportion of the book – and a very high proportion of made-up stuff.
The Baggins-centred plot of the book has been partly-framed and partly-replaced by a new, overarching plot about The Wise defeating the emergent Sauron/ Necromancer. What is left of The Hobbit has been seriously mutilated and distorted by the operation; the result made even more disfiguring by a great deal of additionl plastic surgery on the fine detail of the remaining scenes and especially the character motivations.
All this to the extent that the Hobbit movie is mostly made-up stuff, and its very essence is made-up stuff. It is not really an adaptation at all; but more one of those mainstream Hollywood ‘from the book by’ movies, where similarity is just a matter of the title and a few character names.
Naturally, I tried to approach the movie as a movie – and let myself take the movie on its own terms.
But what was surprising is what an inept example of narrative movie-making the Hobbit turned out to be: they have actually managed to make The Hobbit drag, I mean, the movie is actually rather tedious in several points and feels distinctly padded-out.
There are many set-piece scenes (of various types: peril, battle, discussion) which go on for about twice, or three times, as long as they ought to.
This serves to emphasize the unbelievable level of improbability of the escapes and victories as depicted: almost every such change evoked incredulity (the escape from the underground goblin kingdom was ridiculously improbable).
In principle, in a magical movie for kids, strict probability ought not to apply – but that only works if you establish a magical atmosphere – whereas the hyper-realism of the movie Hobbit inevitably enforces a realistic mode of evaluation – which is thwarted. ”
Read it all:
http://charltonteaching.blogspot.nl/2012/12/hobbit-movie-review.html
I haven’t read the book. Do you think he has a point Mr. Goldman?
Prof. Carlton sees the same glass, and declares it half-poisoned. His objections are the same as mine, but I have a different overall response. Popular culture has been poisoned by Richard Wagner for the past century and a half. Luke Skywalker is a cheap comic-book knockoff of Siegfried (down to and including the confrontation with his father, Darth Vader/Wotan). Harry Potter is more of a melange but is a closer kin to Siegfried. The cultural import of Tolkien’s Hobbits comes through in the film for all its flaws. Tolkien is all we have to set against the septic tide, and Peter Jackson et. al. have kept him at the forefront of popular culture. That is a good, and enormously important thing.
Mr. Goldman — If the “cultural import” of Bilbo and Frodo is that they are anti-Siegfried figures, their disinterest in worldly power is most validated by the dying speeches of Thorin and Boromir who cannot resist the temptation. Both asserted a tribal self-interest to restore or save their homeland by the most direct and violent means, and Tolkien has them pay with their lives, depicting their choices as acts of tragic folly.
What do you make then of Peter Jackson committing Bilbo to the dwarves’ quest so they can enjoy a homeland such as he enjoys? (For those who have not seen it, this is a Jackson invention toward the end of the film when Bilbo declares his solidarity with the dwarves.) If the film follows the book this quest will end in death and disillusionment, with Bilbo-Bacevitch and Gandalf-Chomsky giving the sad benediction over a “war of civilizations” that was not necessary.