![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
~*~
~*~
Screencaps from the fullscreen version*:
*These caps have not only been adjusted for focus and brightness, but the colour has been adjusted, too.
Most recent entries:
Other Tables of Links:
~ Mechtild
Below are two poems by jan-u-wine set in the time before Frodo comes to live with Bilbo at Bag End. I had already posted a splendid poem for the fullscreen version of this scene last year (links below), but these two poems inspired me to cap the "Ride to the Grey Havens" scene again, but in widescreen.
Juxtaposing the poems with the caps opens up new possibilities for me, imagining what their thoughts might have been as they rode along. It was a long ride. There would have been much time to think. They would have had their private memories to mull over, of course, but also their shared past, even if they did not speak much about it.
The first poem, A Visit to Hobbiton, is written from Frodo's point of view. It opens with him taking a wagon ride, but a very different one from the ride depicted in the film. The second poem, The Portrait, was inspired by a pencil drawing of Frodo by Alan Lee. In the poem, Bilbo comes to a decision after reflecting on such an image. (To see Lee's drawing, click here.)
Since there is no wagon ride to the Havens in Tolkien, I am only providing the film text, which is posted below.~*~ Film scene:
A wagon, its cover twined by Elvish runes, arrives in Hobbiton. The driver, Gandalf, smiles at the hobbits who are waiting. The wagon travels through green countryside. Inside, Bilbo is resting his head upon Frodo's shoulder. He looks very, very old.
Frodo (voiceover): Bilbo once told me, his part in this tale would end. That each of us must come and go in the telling. Bilbo's story was now over. There would be no more journeys for him…save one.
Bilbo: Tell me again, lad...where are we going?
Frodo: To the harbour, Uncle. The elves have accorded you a special honor. A place on the last ship to leave Middle-earth.
Bilbo: Frodo... any chance of seeing that old Ring of mine again... the one I gave you?
Frodo: I'm sorry, Uncle... I'm afraid I lost it.
Bilbo: Oh... pity. I should like to have held it one last time.
The two rest their heads against each other and close their eyes.~*~
A Visit to Hobbiton
~ by jan-u-wine
When I am older,
I shall have my own pony.
Already, I know
which one he will be:
black as ink'd night
with a star-blaze
upon his forehead,
mane like moon-silvered
wheat.
He is the one who runs
wild
in the deep grasses of the summer field,
he
is the one whose soft nose nudges
apple bits from my hands....
Silmë shall be his name.
and
we shall come here,
riding slow upon the road.
Uncle
(though, really, he
IS my cousin),
will think me quite grown.
But for now,
I sit beside him,
cart-robes piled over,
under,
around us,
the Road unrolling
like a dark ribbon
under the autumn night-sky.
As if they were silver, pouring from his purse,
he counts the stars for me:
Eärendil.
I know him:
The mariner,
gem'd prow
dancing upon the face of night.
Borgil:
fire-eyed,
flaring and winking,
Luinil:
blue-crystal shadows
flickering
like ice crafted of rimed flame.
All these he names for me,
and tells me how they came
to be set within the great
expanse of the sky....
And
I think on them,
'til sleep takes me,
the little frogs
and cricket-fiddles
leading me to dremes....
When I wake,
it is not to my bed,
all carved about with moon and stars,
or mumma's soft voice and kiss upon my brow.
It is to Uncle's eyes,
and griddle-cakes with bright yellow butter….
it is to tales of gold and adventures,
of dragons and dwarves….
It is to a tree whose very roots
burrow and shine like welcoming arms
above my head.
I can scarce breathe for the wonder of it all.
Tomorrow is my birthday.
Uncle has a surprise:
it is his birthday, too.
He wonders aloud
how we should spend
our day.
And I wonder
(within the small frame of my thoughts),
how I might tell him
I love him.
The Portrait
~ by jan-u-wine
‘Tis many a year since I’ve seen the lad.
Many a year,
Winter’s harsh hand opening to Spring,
Spring nodding tender acceptance
of Summer,
Summer finding its heated path to Harvest-fall.
Harvest-fall:
Fields near burnt by swift-dying Sun,
rich burden of green-gold crop
flayed
beneath Her heavy gaze;
bonfires,
high-clouded nights,
lit day-bright by full-weighted moon.
Dancing and drinking,
tithing -
wiving……
In the midst of all,
‘tween crop and capers,
fierce Sun and lemon-eyed Moon,
a
birthday.
Mine.
His.
Ours.
Happenstance.
Mere happenstance,
I suppose,
my heart
caught
by a forthright gaze
pressed within an oval frame.
(happenstance, I am sure,
that it should arrive in the Post
from the Great Hall upon the very morning
of
our birthday)
It is as if we stand within the same room.
Clever eyes look back to mine,
clever and curious
and not a little sad.
I shouldn’t wonder at that,
of course,
nor at the mouth which determinedly
does not
quite
smile.
There are words there, I deem,
words of humour,
questioning words,
answering words,
words of bright gold,
words of moonlit
silver.
My constant lad.
Spirited, he is,
bold as his midnight pony
and twice as eager.
Lively and industrious,
resolute,
keen.
Why, all of those.
Brittle, too,
brittle and like to break
beneath the weal of too-long held sorrow.
None know better than I this sorrow,
none know better the sad folly with counts
grief as wisdom within a shadow’d heart.
I know him, this lad,
understand
the ways he has that others count as
strange.
It is no happenstance,
no mistake,
the words which spill from pen to parchment.
He shall come and live beneath the Hill with me.
Next year, and every harvest-tide thereafter,
we shall celebrate our birthdays (comfortably)
together.
I touch the face of the portrait,
and wonder
at
happy
happenstance.~*~
Screencaps from the fullscreen version*:
~ Ride to the Grey Havens, Pt. I.
~ Ride to the Grey Havens, Pt. II and jan-u-wine's "Now Far Ahead the Road Has Gone".
*These caps have not only been adjusted for focus and brightness, but the colour has been adjusted, too.
Most recent entries:
~ EE Party Tent Scene, plus jan-u-wine’s ‘Dremes and Dragons’.
~ ‘An Extra Ordinary Life’: a retrospective poem by jan-u-wine, with screencaps from the three films."
Other Tables of Links:
~ Entries with jan-u-wine's poems.
~ Frodo & Elijah Wood screencap entries
~ Mechtild
Tags:
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
I was actually hoping you'd see these poems, since I know you have a fondness for portrayals of Frodo (and others) as a child.
Me, I am *sure* they found joy and healing in the West. And that's not being Pollyannish. I just think it's so, that it was the wish of JRRT, even if he wrote "may" and "might have" in his Letters. That was part of his piety, not to explicitly express assurances. But I know in my heart, and even my mind--if I bothered to make a case from his writings--that he believed it would come to pass, that Frodo would pass from the Circles of the World thoroughly ready and prepared after his soujourn in Aman.
From:
no subject
*happy/sad sigh*
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
May I ask what software you use to do your screen caps?
Thank you, again, for all you do and give.
*hugs*
From:
no subject
To make the screencaps I use the screencapping feature included in our Intervideo WinDVD program.
After I make the caps and select the ones I want, I edit them with ACDSee 7.0 program, typically bringing up the lighting and contrast and sharpening the focus. This is entirely unnecessary for actually watching the frames as the DVD is played on the computer. But once caps are made, perhaps because they are smaller, and because the resolution is not as good, they always look dark, and not very crisp. So I tweak them.
If the caps are from the widescreen version, I trim the sides down to 800 pixels wide, then cut the black bars off the tops and bottoms of the frames.
If the caps really need work I use another of our image-related programs, Microsoft Digital Image Suite 2006 Editor. I use this program to make the Frodo Art Travesties. It's much easier to use, I think, for doing more advanced fine-tuning, but it is a bore to go from cap to cap with it, since each cap has to be loaded into the prospective project in order to simply browse them, one after another, making the process time-consuming. So I always do my selecting first on ACDSee, even if I end up doing the real editing work on the Microsoft Digital Image program.
From:
no subject
I'll miss you while you're gone, but hope you have a marvelous time.
*hugs*
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Love..
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Ah, those eyes! In this case it's not because they're so blue, but so expressive.
Thanks for commenting, Mews!
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Jan's poems hurt so beautifully, they are simply gorgeous.
You ladies are incredible ...
Thank you for this lovingly post, sweetheart!
Another time you both took my breath away ...
*hugs you gently*
From:
no subject
*hugs you back*
From:
no subject
and how can he express so much.. with his eyes closed?
*sigh*
From:
no subject
Especially those eyes. Open or closed, they hold their viewers in their spell. Thanks for commenting, Cat. :)
From:
no subject
Lucky Bilbo! Who would not be happy to be related to this beautiful gentlehobbit!
Thank you both. And (((HUGS))) to both of you!
From:
no subject
I love that portrait, too, and still am looking to find a print of it, a real one, not just a copy made from the rather poor images available on the Internet or made as screencaps from the DVD.
"The Portrait" took quite a bit of mulling over, if I recall. Jan and I both loved the drawing, but it kept calling to her, to write something to it. Although the drawing is clearly based on the film character (when compared to Lee's drawings of Frodo before beginning to work on the films), it departs from film-Frodo in subtle ways, much more than the drawing that appears in the end credits, making it all the more evocative (in my opinion).
One of the things that inspired Jan to imagine Frodo younger per the Lee portrait is the slimness of his neck, as if he hasn't finished growing into his collar. Film-Frodo's neck is the neck of a grown man, even if his face is that of a youth.
In any case, it inspired a poem that speaks to the reader beautifully of both Frodo and Bilbo.
From:
no subject
Thank you both, Ladies.
***********************************************
I would like to point out that I am, sometimes, a little slow on the uptake. Explanation follows:
Due to the Alan Lee illustration I was reminded of the End Credits from the ‘Return of the King’. It has only just struck me *face-palm* that the gorgeous drawing of Estë the Gentle, (see my lovely icon) by Whiteling, is similar in colour and texture. Please forgive me, Whiteling, for not noticing this sooner.
--Estë
P.S. Enjoy your trip, Mechling.
From:
no subject
Just because you like art and art talk, here's what I told Whiteling her "Estë the Gentle" called to mind for me, Da Vinci's study of a head for his "Leda and the Swan":
But Whiteling wrote back, if I am not mistaken, telling me that she thought her drawing resembled more the women's faces in the work of 16th cent. Italian painter Bernadina Luini. I looked his paintings up and it was an "Ah ha!" moment. Here are crops from his paintings of the Virgin (first two), St. Catherine, and Salome:
The serenity of their expressions, and the light that seems to illuminate them from within is very, very beautiful. I wish he'd painted Frodo! :) I was so grateful to Whiteling for pointing me towards this painter.
~ Mechtild
From:
no subject
--Estë
From:
no subject
http://www.wga.hu/index1.html
Bye for now!
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
I’m not sure if you also receive notice of a comment I made to Mechtild’s LJ-entry.
This is to let you know I have just commented, and written about something it has taken me a few years to see.
See comment below.
--Estë
From:
no subject
You may read my reply to Mechtild, in which I added just one little thing to her erudite comments.
Thanks again for your warm words and for your appreciation of the drawing! *draws you a heart*
From:
no subject
From:
no subject
Mechtild, I'm probably too late in wishing you a Bon Voyage in time (have a great time with your dear Mom!), as I just came back from work and saw what you and Estë were talking about. Oh goodness, to be named with Alan Lee in one breath! That's a helluva of compliment which I take with delight and pride. Thank you!! Of course, Master Lee is far more experienced and skilled than me, I will add. :-) I agree with all what you said, and will just endorse that I think Master Lee and I may have a comparable "tentative" way of bringing our subjects into shape and being. It's like searching for the soul of the things (and in the best works, a draughtsperson is successful in this striving).
Thanks again!
From:
no subject
Nope, there's still another hour before I go. :)
"Searching for the soul of things" -- oh, Whiteling, I really see that in your work, and I see it in all the work I love best. And, yes, the best usually is "tentative", by which I mean approaching the subject indirectly (I don't mean the drawing style, which can be bold or delicate, modern or classical, but the approach to the subject: the soul of what is being depicted), or in some way that points to or gives the "scent" of or "suggests" the inner life of the subject, since that inner life, the soul, is not tangible and cannot really be rendered directly.
Thanks for the Bon Voyage!
From:
no subject
Thank you!
From:
no subject
You are really ploughing through these! :)
From:
no subject