Anybody who knows me knows of my obsession with John Ronald Reuel Tolkien’s legendarium. This is not the place to enumerate the reasons for my obsession. My goal is far narrower: to explain why I loved Peter Jackson’s The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
The Critiques
In good Indic fashion, I begin with the pūrvapakṣa, the opponent(s’|’s) view. A number of criticisms have been leveled against Peter Jackson’s Hobbit enterprise. At the root of many of them is his decision to split the original book into three three-hour films, only one of which has been released so far. (His Lord of the Rings runs close to twelve hours, but then it covers nearly a thousand pages of text.) This opened him up to criticism from multiple directions, even before the movie came out:
Now that “Episode I” is out, critics have duly rehashed all these critiques. They claim that the movie plods along interminably; that it should really have been trimmed down to 100 minutes (which would have the added benefit of making it more accessible to children); that a number of changes have been made to the plotline that simply make no sense other than adding screentime (stone giants! Jar-Jar Binks, I mean, Radagast!), and so on. They have also made two additional critiques:
I loved every minute of the movie. There wasn’t a single instant when I was bored. Part of this is certainly because I’m a fanboy, but I also didn’t go in expecting to love it. Frankly, after having all these criticisms, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I loved it because of Jackson’s decisions, because of what he had added, and because of the changes he had come up with. Part of this post is me trying to reason out why these things matter to me, but not to other critics, fans, and critic-fans. I suspect at least part of this is that I explicitly hold the following view, which some of these critics may reject:
Before I proceed, I should deflect criticisms from a whole new universe of irate lovers of Tolkien’s first really successful book. I do not at all mean that Tolkien’s original book is bad; on the contrary, it is a wonderful children’s tale. However, there is a distinction to be drawn between the “actual” story that takes place (which I shall refer to henceforth as the Quest of Erebor) and the particular narrative form it takes in Tolkien’s book for children. After all, he retells the same story in highly compressed form in the prologue to the Lord of the Rings, and in some more detail in its appendices and in “The Quest of Erebor”, published by his son Christopher Tolkien in Unfinished Tales.
Why does this matter? It matters because it reminds us that it’s not just the story that counts but the mode in which it is told. Tolkien’s Hobbit book tells us of the Quest of Erebor in a mode suitable for children—but we ought not to assume that this means the Quest itself is a children’s story. (For those who care about historiography, which this relates to in the sense that the Quest of Erebor is a real historical event within a fictional universe, I was led to this by Hayden White and his Content of the Form. I am definitely overdue a post on him!)
Thus, the critiques that assume the movie is “too long” because the original book was a 300-page children’s tale entirely miss the point. Tolkien intentionally skips over details in the book that would not have considered appropriate for children in the first half of the 20th century; that does not mean they didn’t happen!
To be fair, I too made the same critique of Jackson’s decision (and the fact remains that we still don’t know if his motivations were primarily pecuniary) before I saw the movie. But having seen it, I realize now that Jackson’s Hobbit speaks in a different mode than Tolkien’s. His decision to do so may be critiqued, but to assume that he set out to film Tolkien’s book in a children’s mode and then somehow “failed” to do so because he wanted to stretch the story out is, frankly, stupid.
Indeed, the very manner in which Jackson begins the movie—on Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday—tells us a little bit about who the story is meant for. It’s not a tale meant for children; it’s a story from an old man to a young man that is meant to draw him into adulthood. There is absolutely no reason to assume that Bilbo would have narrated the story the way it is told in Tolkien’s Hobbit if Bilbo were telling a young-adult Frodo the story of the Quest of Erebor. Incidentally, this is also smart considering that Jackson first made the Lord of the Rings; this way he provides an entry into the universe for viewers who may be unfamiliar with The Hobbit.
Another issue, related to the mode of narration, has to do with the character who forms the lens through which we view the action. For Tolkien’s Hobbit, this is clearly, and almost exclusively, Bilbo Baggins. (I don’t have my book on me, so I cannot, erm, “skim” through it to verify this, but I’m quite certain it’s true.) This has its benefits: for one, the reader can identify quite closely with the figure of Bilbo. The fact that it was written as a children’s book, and that Bilbo exhibits a number of “child-like” features, including the obvious one of being in a world that is, literally, too big for him, can only assist in the process. Another benefit is that Tolkien is able to skip over an entire scene that would likely be far too violent and disturbing for a child—the Battle of the Five Armies, in which Thorin, Fíli, and Kíli all die—using the simple expedient of knocking Bilbo unconscious early on.
But once we change the mode of narration to an “older”, more “epic” one, it no longer makes sense to restrict narration to Bilbo’s person. He is still central to the Quest, of course, but now other agents and their motivations begin to emerge from the shadows. Some of these, like the events of the White Council at Rivendell from Gandalf’s perspective, are spoken of in “The Quest for Erebor”; others, like Radagast’s visit to Dol Guldur and Azog seeking revenge on Thorin for cutting off his arm, are additions to the tale. These “story-emes” fill out the story for us, whether or not we know of every detail in the legendarium. They tell us something about the choices individuals made, and about their motivations for these choices. They foreshadow the darkness that will fall over much of Middle-earth by the time of the War of the Ring. And they offer opportunities for “embellishing” the story.
This leads us to a different critique of the movie, one made by those familiar with Tolkien’s Hobbit and perhaps with other books in the legendarium. They hate the fact that Jackson has made a few basic changes that are unnecessary in their opinion and disruptive of the flow of the story. The biggest such critique is made, of course, of the flashback to the Battle of Azanulbizar. Any true fan knows that:
I have little sympathy for those who would critique such reshapings of a story. As Gandalf himself says in the film (but not in the book—the horror! the horror!), “Every good story deserves embellishment.” Stories and legends grow around the telling and retelling of events, although we in our Instagram- and Twitter-driven era are accustomed to a sad, magic-bereft, literal recapturing of events as they occur. Even the chroniclers of medieval Europe had more taste than that—but I digress.
This brings me to the last critique of the movie, that it is too violent. There are two aspects to this, a modal one and a moral one. I shall only take up the former here. Any person with the slightest imagination—even one whose ability to enter into a different realm of the mind has been forever tarnished by exposure to the confining, constricting limits imposed by modernity—should be able to tell that the Quest would have involved considerable violence. It is true that certain choices Jackson made, such as his choice of the mode of narration, his injection of Azog into the story, and his use of flashbacks, certainly made it possible to depict more violence in the film than Tolkien’s Hobbit showed. But as I have endeavored to argue above, there are good reasons for him to have made these choices, and once they were made, they naturally had certain implications that had to play themselves out.
To me, this modal defense of the violence in Jackson’s Hobbit is actually weaker than its moral defense. I shall not, however, tax your patience any further, Gentle Reader, for you must be weary after first reading Tolkien’s Hobbit and then watching Jackson’s Hobbit and finally making it this far. Who would have imagined that I could write at such great length upon a topic that surely could not sustain a long debate? I shall spare you more pain for now, and shall grant my fingertips and eyes the good rest they deserve before embarking on yet another journey to An Unexpected Journey.
The Critiques
In good Indic fashion, I begin with the pūrvapakṣa, the opponent(s’|’s) view. A number of criticisms have been leveled against Peter Jackson’s Hobbit enterprise. At the root of many of them is his decision to split the original book into three three-hour films, only one of which has been released so far. (His Lord of the Rings runs close to twelve hours, but then it covers nearly a thousand pages of text.) This opened him up to criticism from multiple directions, even before the movie came out:
- that his motivation is purely financial; that, since fanboys of Tolkien are going to watch whatever he serves up, why not make three times as much money by making three movies?
- that the original story is far too thin to support nine hours of film, which will force him to draw out some scenes interminably and possibly to add extra plotlines
- that his intended demographic is no longer the demographic that Tolkien targeted with his original book
Now that “Episode I” is out, critics have duly rehashed all these critiques. They claim that the movie plods along interminably; that it should really have been trimmed down to 100 minutes (which would have the added benefit of making it more accessible to children); that a number of changes have been made to the plotline that simply make no sense other than adding screentime (stone giants! Jar-Jar Binks, I mean, Radagast!), and so on. They have also made two additional critiques:
- that the movie is far more violent than the book, and thus violates Tolkien’s vision (among other things)
- that the story has been changed fundamentally, in ways that are completely unnecessary (in particular, referring to the alteration of the Battle of Azanulbizar and the survival of Azog)
I loved every minute of the movie. There wasn’t a single instant when I was bored. Part of this is certainly because I’m a fanboy, but I also didn’t go in expecting to love it. Frankly, after having all these criticisms, I wasn’t sure what to expect. I loved it because of Jackson’s decisions, because of what he had added, and because of the changes he had come up with. Part of this post is me trying to reason out why these things matter to me, but not to other critics, fans, and critic-fans. I suspect at least part of this is that I explicitly hold the following view, which some of these critics may reject:
Peter Jackson’s Hobbit is not Tolkien’s Hobbit. And that is an entirely good thing.
Before I proceed, I should deflect criticisms from a whole new universe of irate lovers of Tolkien’s first really successful book. I do not at all mean that Tolkien’s original book is bad; on the contrary, it is a wonderful children’s tale. However, there is a distinction to be drawn between the “actual” story that takes place (which I shall refer to henceforth as the Quest of Erebor) and the particular narrative form it takes in Tolkien’s book for children. After all, he retells the same story in highly compressed form in the prologue to the Lord of the Rings, and in some more detail in its appendices and in “The Quest of Erebor”, published by his son Christopher Tolkien in Unfinished Tales.
Why does this matter? It matters because it reminds us that it’s not just the story that counts but the mode in which it is told. Tolkien’s Hobbit book tells us of the Quest of Erebor in a mode suitable for children—but we ought not to assume that this means the Quest itself is a children’s story. (For those who care about historiography, which this relates to in the sense that the Quest of Erebor is a real historical event within a fictional universe, I was led to this by Hayden White and his Content of the Form. I am definitely overdue a post on him!)
Thus, the critiques that assume the movie is “too long” because the original book was a 300-page children’s tale entirely miss the point. Tolkien intentionally skips over details in the book that would not have considered appropriate for children in the first half of the 20th century; that does not mean they didn’t happen!
To be fair, I too made the same critique of Jackson’s decision (and the fact remains that we still don’t know if his motivations were primarily pecuniary) before I saw the movie. But having seen it, I realize now that Jackson’s Hobbit speaks in a different mode than Tolkien’s. His decision to do so may be critiqued, but to assume that he set out to film Tolkien’s book in a children’s mode and then somehow “failed” to do so because he wanted to stretch the story out is, frankly, stupid.
Indeed, the very manner in which Jackson begins the movie—on Bilbo’s eleventy-first birthday—tells us a little bit about who the story is meant for. It’s not a tale meant for children; it’s a story from an old man to a young man that is meant to draw him into adulthood. There is absolutely no reason to assume that Bilbo would have narrated the story the way it is told in Tolkien’s Hobbit if Bilbo were telling a young-adult Frodo the story of the Quest of Erebor. Incidentally, this is also smart considering that Jackson first made the Lord of the Rings; this way he provides an entry into the universe for viewers who may be unfamiliar with The Hobbit.
Another issue, related to the mode of narration, has to do with the character who forms the lens through which we view the action. For Tolkien’s Hobbit, this is clearly, and almost exclusively, Bilbo Baggins. (I don’t have my book on me, so I cannot, erm, “skim” through it to verify this, but I’m quite certain it’s true.) This has its benefits: for one, the reader can identify quite closely with the figure of Bilbo. The fact that it was written as a children’s book, and that Bilbo exhibits a number of “child-like” features, including the obvious one of being in a world that is, literally, too big for him, can only assist in the process. Another benefit is that Tolkien is able to skip over an entire scene that would likely be far too violent and disturbing for a child—the Battle of the Five Armies, in which Thorin, Fíli, and Kíli all die—using the simple expedient of knocking Bilbo unconscious early on.
But once we change the mode of narration to an “older”, more “epic” one, it no longer makes sense to restrict narration to Bilbo’s person. He is still central to the Quest, of course, but now other agents and their motivations begin to emerge from the shadows. Some of these, like the events of the White Council at Rivendell from Gandalf’s perspective, are spoken of in “The Quest for Erebor”; others, like Radagast’s visit to Dol Guldur and Azog seeking revenge on Thorin for cutting off his arm, are additions to the tale. These “story-emes” fill out the story for us, whether or not we know of every detail in the legendarium. They tell us something about the choices individuals made, and about their motivations for these choices. They foreshadow the darkness that will fall over much of Middle-earth by the time of the War of the Ring. And they offer opportunities for “embellishing” the story.
This leads us to a different critique of the movie, one made by those familiar with Tolkien’s Hobbit and perhaps with other books in the legendarium. They hate the fact that Jackson has made a few basic changes that are unnecessary in their opinion and disruptive of the flow of the story. The biggest such critique is made, of course, of the flashback to the Battle of Azanulbizar. Any true fan knows that:
- Thrór was killed by Azog well before this Battle—indeed, it was Thrór’s torture and killing and the subsequent desecration of his body by the orcs of Moria that sparked off the War of the Dwarves and Orcs that culminated in the Battle of Azanulbizar on the doorstep of Moria
- At the Battle of Azanulbizar, it is Náin, nephew of Thrór and first cousin once removed to Thorin, who is killed by Azog.
- It is Náin’s son, Dáin Ironfoot, who beheads Azog in revenge. (Yes, Azog dies at the gates of Moria.)
- Thorin does use an oaken branch as a shield at this battle, but he is not near the heart of the action when Dáin kills Azog.
- Thrór is killed by Azog at the Battle of Azanulbizar.
- Thorin gains his nickname during his fight with Azog.
- Thorin cuts off Azog’s arm in the battle, sending the orc fleeing back into Moria.
- Azog survives, and is filled with personal hatred for Thorin.
I have little sympathy for those who would critique such reshapings of a story. As Gandalf himself says in the film (but not in the book—the horror! the horror!), “Every good story deserves embellishment.” Stories and legends grow around the telling and retelling of events, although we in our Instagram- and Twitter-driven era are accustomed to a sad, magic-bereft, literal recapturing of events as they occur. Even the chroniclers of medieval Europe had more taste than that—but I digress.
This brings me to the last critique of the movie, that it is too violent. There are two aspects to this, a modal one and a moral one. I shall only take up the former here. Any person with the slightest imagination—even one whose ability to enter into a different realm of the mind has been forever tarnished by exposure to the confining, constricting limits imposed by modernity—should be able to tell that the Quest would have involved considerable violence. It is true that certain choices Jackson made, such as his choice of the mode of narration, his injection of Azog into the story, and his use of flashbacks, certainly made it possible to depict more violence in the film than Tolkien’s Hobbit showed. But as I have endeavored to argue above, there are good reasons for him to have made these choices, and once they were made, they naturally had certain implications that had to play themselves out.
To me, this modal defense of the violence in Jackson’s Hobbit is actually weaker than its moral defense. I shall not, however, tax your patience any further, Gentle Reader, for you must be weary after first reading Tolkien’s Hobbit and then watching Jackson’s Hobbit and finally making it this far. Who would have imagined that I could write at such great length upon a topic that surely could not sustain a long debate? I shall spare you more pain for now, and shall grant my fingertips and eyes the good rest they deserve before embarking on yet another journey to An Unexpected Journey.
No comments:
Post a Comment