Drama (was What I didn't like about TTT)

[bluesqueak <pipdowns@etchells0.demon.co.uk>]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Amy Z <lupinesque at y...>" 
<lupinesque at y...> wrote:
> Pip wrote:
>  
> > "Waiting for Godot" (Samuel Beckett)is quite a successful play; 
> > despite it being so (deliberately) boring that a good production 
> > is signalled by less than a third of the audience leaving at the 
> > interval [theatre joke]. 
> > 
> > But even Godot has dramatic tension and conflict at its heart. 
> 
> Exactly.  Conflict, dramatically speaking, doesn't have to involve 
> battles or rivalries or even outright arguments.  It can be as 
> subtle a matter as a single human heart trying to assimilate a 
> painful belief.  So we might travel up this thread a couple of 
> steps and wonder how we got to the pronouncement that The Lord of  
> the Rings,as written, has insufficient conflict to sustain a film.
> 
> Amy
> who loved My Dinner with Andre

Because while LOTR has dramatic moments, it's not dramatic 
throughout.

Going back to Aragorn and Arwen again: Arwen's canonical part in the 
FIRST film, as written by Tolkein would consist of:

INT SCENE: THE HALL AT RIVENDELL. A FEAST IS IN PROGRESS. ELROND IS 
AT THE HEAD OF THE TABLE, ARWEN BESIDE HIM. 

You can't even add:
ARWEN GLANCES AT AN EMPTY CHAIR [ARAGORN'S]

which would convey volumes in film terms, because Tolkien, IIRC, 
doesn't have her doing anything like that.

In the second film, with a bit of extrapolation you could include:

INT SCENE: ARWEN'S ROOM AT RIVENDELL. SHE IS SEWING. AS THE CAMERA 
MOVES IN WE SEE THAT SHE IS WORKING ON ARAGORN'S BANNER. SHE 
EMBROIDERS THE SILVER TREE.

INT SCENE: ARWEN'S ROOM AT RIVENDELL. SHE IS STILL SEWING. AS THE 
CAMERA MOVES IN WE SEE THAT SHE IS EMBROIDERING A GOLDEN CROWN.

INT SCENE: ARWEN'S ROOM AT RIVENDELL. SHE IS STILL SEWING. AS THE 
CAMERA MOVES IN WE SEE SHE HAS REACHED THE STARS ABOVE THE CROWN.

I'm sure Jackson could have made this look absolutely beautiful, but 
even the most lyrical of 'arthouse' style film directors would stamp 
his or her foot at this point, and demand to be able to include 
something non-canonical, but deeply symbolic of the underlying 
dramatic tension, such as:

SCENE: ARWEN'S ROOM AT RIVENDELL. SHE IS EMBROIDERING THE CROWN 
ABOVE THE TREE. SUDDENLY THE THREAD SNAPS. ARWEN LOOKS AT THE BROKEN 
THREAD. HER FACE CRUMPLES, AND WE SEE THAT SHE IS TRYING NOT TO CRY. 

(Oh, and there's the ARWEN STANDS AT WINDOW GAZING INTO THE 
DISTANCE. A SINGLE TEAR TRICKLES DOWN HER CHEEK scene, which is 
another good one.)

Do you see my point? Even if you go for the lyrical 'Arwen sits 
sadly at home wondering if Aragorn will ever return' approach you 
will *still* have to break away from what is actually in the books - 
because otherwise all you get is shot after shot of the poor girl 
sitting sadly sewing [but luckily not shirts for soldiers].

If you leave Arwen out entirely then you have the problem that while 
you and I know that Aragorn is engaged to Arwen, a strictly faithful 
approach to the books means that the filmmakers can't actually 
mention this little fact. 

IIRC, Aragorn [and all other characters] never actually *mentions* 
the engagement until Arwen turns up to marry him. [Though it is 
referred to obliquely on many occasions].

Again, unless you put a line on the poster saying "Warning: you must 
read the books before you see this film",  you will have to break 
away from strict faithfulness to the books - otherwise the audience 
is going to have great difficulty realising that Aragorn *has* got a 
girl back home.

Meanwhile the scriptwriters (and the actors) are hopping up and down 
in the frustrated knowledge that Tolkein did write a dramatic story 
for Aragorn and Arwen which would come across on film very well - 
but they can't use it, because it happened fifty (or so) years 
previously to the events of the War of the Rings, and it only gets 
mentioned in an Appendix.

[and you wonder why I think Tolkein isn't a dramatist ? ;-)]

Pip