Mechtild's

As you who looked at last week's Galadriel's Glade post know, Pt. 5 was the last entry in the ongoing Frodo screencapping project I've been working on since 2005. I started out just sharing images I'd made to use for Frodo manips ("Frodo Art Travesties"), but the entries became the impetus for thinking further about the scenes, book and film, and, eventually, showcasing poems by jan-u-wine. It's been informative and has increased my appreciation of both book and film. Thanks again to all of you who have visited over the years of the project.

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Note: There were so many caps for this scene I had to divide it into two parts. The first half of this post contains the introductory comments, the book scene, the film text and half the screencaps. The second half, Galadriel's Glade Pt. 4b, contains the rest of the screencaps and the poem jan-u-wine has written inspired by both sections. At the bottom of this half's screencaps is a link to the second part.


In my opinion, Galadriel’s big transformation scene ("In place of a dark lord, you will have a queen") does not do well by Tolkien, nor by the films.
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If the scene works for me at all (and it does, barely), it is because of the acting of Elijah Wood. ( Read more... )

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The following quote from "The Mirror of Galadriel" (fuller excerpt below), is a passage etched indelibly on my mind's eye:

She lifted up her white arms, and spread out her hands towards the East in a gesture of rejection and denial. Eärendil, the Evening Star, most beloved of the Elves, shone clear above. So bright was it that the figure of the Elven-lady cast a dim shadow on the ground. Its rays glanced upon a ring about her finger; it glittered like polished gold overlaid with silver light, and a white stone in it twinkled as if the Elven-star had come down to rest upon her hand. Frodo gazed at the ring with awe; for suddenly it seemed to him that he understood.

None of my favourite Tolkien illustrators have been able to capture this moment for me in visual art. I wondered what the filmmakers would do with it, considering the iconic nature of the vision invoked. ( Read more... )

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I love the caps for this scene. Except for "Nuclear Gladys" (as it was called on the messageboard I frequented while the films were coming out), the scene is uninterrupted cinematic gorgeousness. It's a different animal from the book's Lothlórien scenes, but as cinema it really works. The book's Lórien, with its images of jewel-fresh nature sparkling with "poignant freshness" under a golden sun, becomes a world of shadows , cold and luminous as if lit by a winter moon. Instead of a sense of safe haven, the Fellowship enters a realm pulsing with a feeling of foreboding and danger. Their Elven hosts warn rather than welcome. My book-reading self says, "this is wrong, wrong, wrong!" but my film-going self is mesmerised. Why does it work, and why does it seem faithful, even though it is so wide of the original? I think it's because it strongly evokes what Tolkien elsewhere said about Faerie.

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To go with jan-u-wine's poem are screencaps, and passages from The Return of the King. They include Frodo and Sam's scenes, from the entry into the Sammath Naur to their rescue by the Eagles. A selection of caps made from the widescreen version of RotK is followed by the featured poem.

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Note: Contains extended reflection on scene, not really a rant, but expressing complaints. Also has nice caps, book excerpt and great poem.

I don't like the turn the scene takes in its second half and that's a fact. It's not that the scene doesn't work well as drama. It does. But I don't like how it affects the "character arcs" of the two hobbits, and I don't like how it alters a favourite feature in Tolkien's story.

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Winter is flying, as if to put the lie to my complaints that it is never-ending. I had hoped to post this series before Christmas, when the Fellowship is still in Rivendell, but here we are in February. Well, I will pretend it is yet December.

Bilbo's Gifts Pt. 1
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The final part of the film scene comes from material at the end of The Council of Elrond, but also from the beginning of the chapter that follows.
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I’ve mentioned regularly during this Rivendell series how much reading the chapters again has reminded me of Bilbo’s importance as a character in the story, in spite of not actually being in it very much, and of the warmth of his relationship with Frodo. ( Read more... )

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Note: Long opening post with lots of pictures and text. My apologies to dial-up users.


Here begins a five-part presentation of the Council of Elrond. The filmmakers said they worked long and hard trying to make the extended historical accounts that fill this chapter into an interesting film scene. I think they succeeded. ( Read more... )

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