{"id":1981,"date":"2012-12-19T01:40:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-19T01:40:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/2012\/12\/losing-the-poetry-in-the-hobbit.html\/"},"modified":"2016-10-11T19:10:31","modified_gmt":"2016-10-11T19:10:31","slug":"losing-the-poetry-in-the-hobbit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/2012\/12\/losing-the-poetry-in-the-hobbit.html\/","title":{"rendered":"Losing the Poetry in ‘The Hobbit’"},"content":{"rendered":"The Judge takes a break from the series on poetry criticism to write something of an extemporary feature article – one which, be ye warned, contains a few spoilers. (The series will be finished, worry not, probably after Christmas).<\/i><\/span>

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Consider this poem by JRR Tolkien:<\/o:p><\/div>

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Where now are the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the harp on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the deadwood burning,
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?<\/o:p><\/i><\/span><\/div>
It is marked by a rending sense of melancholy and nostalgia for that which is past, and this nostalgia is expressed on many levels. Firstly, it is literally stated, as the speaker rhetorically suggests that nobody shall \u2018behold the flowing years from the Sea returning\u2019. Secondly, it is rendered in the naturalist imagery that takes over from the classical one in line three (nicely synthesised in the transition from the harp to the fire), and which stands in contrast to the industrial world in which Tolkien lived. Finally, it is implied in the choice of form and diction. Phrases like \u2018Where now are the horse and the rider?\u2019 or \u2018Who shall gather the smoke\u2019 are constructions which come straight out of classical poetry, much like the alliterative style (helm \u2013 hauberk, harp \u2013 harpstring, days \u2013 down, etc.) derives from poetry in Old English, from Beowulf onwards. Tolkien is invoking, among other past ages, the past ages of poetry.<\/o:p><\/div>

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The poem comes from theLord of the Rings<\/i>, and it encapsulates not only one of the book\u2019s central themes, but also one of its literary merits. Central to the enduring success of Tolkien\u2019s masterwork is the grace with which it brings together his differing interests in lyric poetry, in epic poetry (the latter expressed in his famous essay \u2018The Monster and the Critics<\/a>\u2019 and, apparently, in an upcoming epic poem of his own<\/a>), in philology, and of course in the novel, a form which he first touched in The Hobbit<\/i>.<\/o:p><\/div>

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Peter Jackson\u2019s An Unexpected Journey<\/i>, released less than a week ago and already leading all of the charts<\/a>, is the latest attempt to transpose Tolkien\u2019s work to the big screen. Like the Lord of the Rings<\/i> trilogy, it is a rather dreadful effort. Jackson\u2019s passion for the text is unquestionable \u2013 he\u2019s certainly researched the source material. It\u2019s his understanding of what makes the books work, in particular their textual subtlety, or his ability to translate that into a new medium, that is lacking.<\/o:p><\/div>

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An Unexpected Journey<\/i>is not as faithful to the book as the previous trilogy was. Indeed, Jackson has taken the opportunity to make an out-and-out prequel, and the differences between book and film have already been lamented<\/a>. What none of the reviews I\u2019ve read have pointed out, for some reason, is the gulf between Tolkien\u2019s use of language and Jackson\u2019s use of images \u2013 and this is a problem that was already sharply on display in the original filmic trilogy.<\/o:p><\/div>

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The primary difference between poetry and film is that one is linguistic whereas the other is visual. But nothing prevents these media from using words and image to produce the same effect<\/a>. Jackson\u2019s greatest failure lies precisely in reading the novels with a purely literal eye. As a consequence, he is unable to reproduce levels of subtlety such as we find in the above poem, even though he follows the diegetic rails quite accurately.<\/div>

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Tolkien\u2019s prose owes much to the Gothic novel, for the good and for the bad. It is extensively descriptive, especially when it comes to the journeying, and the diction is archaic \u2013 even a bit highfalutin. While it is not always successful, the understanding that it belies remains one of beauty \u2013 and it is a type of beauty that is delicate, subtle and transient. Jackson\u2019s imagery is entirely lacking in all of these qualities. His films are defined by blazing dawns and sunsets, shots of intricate baroque cities framed in their gigantomaniac entirety, crashing silver waterfalls with rainbows spearing through them, and endless swoops over forests, rivers and mountains. When important characters must be introduced, the image blares: the elf queen Galadriel appears in this latest film with a blinding, golden rising sun behind her as she turns in slow motion. When a dialogue is important, the visual trumpets blow again (maybe that\u2019s where that horn is blowing after all, John): the final reconciliation between Bilbo and Thorin takes place during a sunset, and all the characters are bathed in a refulgent light. Jackson in fact has much more in common with the silver-maned George Lucas<\/a> than he does with Tolkien, in style and talent both.<\/o:p><\/div>

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Is this really a failure inherent in the category \u2013 be that film, fantasy or blockbuster? Exactly thirty years ago another movie was filmed in the very same genre. It too was a fantasy epic blockbuster, though there was nothing epic about its budget. It was entitled Conan the Barbarian<\/i>, and it was a film dominated by the titanic physical presence of Arnold Schwarzenegger in his prime. It wasn\u2019t nearly as silly as people usually remember it to be<\/a>, and more importantly, it had exactly what Jackson\u2019s films are lacking: a visual style that is frequently and essentially poetic, if in a bleak and barren way. Director John Milius opens the scene of Conan\u2019s crucifixion on the \u2018tree of woe\u2019 (see it for yourself at minute 3:57 of this video<\/a>) with a wide angle, giving us a clear view not only of the tree but of the desert that surrounds it. The wide angle implies the epic breadth and scope of the story, while the monochrome desert reflects its crude simplicity; the solitary, leafless tree mirrors Conan\u2019s sense of spiritual isolation. The frame fades out into the desert, then pans onto the hero\u2019s ravaged physique, reinforcing the thematic connection between the two. The scene has tremendous suggestive power, and not a single word is spoken.<\/o:p><\/div>

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Compare the tree of woe with the moment in The Hobbit<\/i> when Thorin rises from his own tree, the one where he has been pinned down by his enemies\u2019 hounds. As he goes to fight his rival, he is hit and he falls. As he falls, events start rolling in slow motion. Then a track of violins starts playing. When Thorin hits the ground, the frame cuts to a close-up of a dwarf shouting \u2018Nooo\u2019, and then back to Thorin. It is such a standard form that it is almost scholastic; there is no space for imagination, sentiment or suggestion. It is as though Jackson automatically assumed that his audience was comprised of idiots, so he does not trust them with feeling or understanding anything on their own. Instead, he gives them small cues to indicate them when to feel sad, when to feel relieved, when to feel worried. Imagine Tolkien being that explicit in his poem.<\/o:p><\/div>

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There are many other flaws in Jackson\u2019s films. The action scenes are terribly choreographed, there is an over-reliance on CGI which only Lucas is able to match and which is not very competently used (I was unable to find a single creature which looked alive<\/i>, not even the simple ones like hedgehogs and birds), and the characters are mostly quite flat, including the inescapable, odious comic relief \u2013 in this case an obese dwarf, because as we all know fat people are funny. But the one thing that really crumbles the connection between these films and the original texts is simply the vulgarity of Jackson\u2019s direction. Even when inserting the poem at the top of this article in one of his character\u2019s monologues (one of the few fine moments in the films), the use of light is almost blinding<\/a>.<\/o:p><\/div>

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For Tolkien, like for the great epic poets, the golden age is a thing of the past, necessarily and inherently irretrievable. For Jackson, the golden age is right now \u2013 and it\u2019s getting more and more golden as the increased powers of CGI allow for brighter dawns and sunsets in higher definitions and frame-rates<\/a>. Jackson certainly appreciates Tolkien\u2019s poetry. The problem, judging by this film and the ones that came before, is that he doesn\u2019t understand it.<\/o:p><\/div>

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<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Judge takes a break from the series on poetry criticism to write something of an extemporary feature article – one which, be ye warned, contains a few spoilers. (The series will be finished, worry not, probably after Christmas).Consider this poem by JRR Tolkien:Where now are the horse and the rider? Where is the horn … Continue reading “Losing the Poetry in ‘The Hobbit’”<\/span><\/a>","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[507,617,615,614,608,610,606,609,613,618,616,396,611,607,612],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cinema","category-fantasy","category-film","category-hobbit","category-horse","category-jackson","category-jrr","category-literature","category-lord-of-the-rings","category-peter","category-poem","category-poetry","category-rider","category-tolkien","category-where"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1981"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2212,"href":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1981\/revisions\/2212"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sidekickbooks.com\/booklab\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}