Film-Writing Techniques and The Lord of the Rings
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13:28 GMT on 25 March 2004
Okay, Will, I'll bite. But you're not going to like it.
Brandywine Books is a fan of J.R.R. Tolkien's book The Lord of the Rings, but has two complaints about the adaptation of The Two Towers:
It has long been old news that the script for The Two Towers introduces a new character as Faramir. [... T]he reason the writers give for introducing this new character is the One Ring's influence, which I believe shows their commitment to certain film-writing ideas or formulas which can work against good storytelling.
In the DVD commentaries, [Philippa] Boyens [who cowrote the scripts with Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh] says they ha[d] built the case for the corruptive power of the Ring throughout the films, so they couldn't have a character show up to say, "I wouldn't take this thing if it lay along the highway." [...] The problem with this reason is the undermining it receives when played out. Sure, Faramir feels the power of the Ring, hauls Frodo and Sam to Osgiliath, only to release them after realizing Boromir died trying to do what he was doing. There's his journey, but what about [his] men? The hobbits and Faramir speak openly about the Ring in front of many soldiers, something Tolkien's Faramir avoided for fear of the Ring tempting them. [...]
I think the desire to depict this moral journey shows a commitment to certain film-writing principles which standardize many stories coming from Hollywood. The writers believe it is more dramatic to have a character choose the wrong course until some revelation turns them around. [...] This idea, I suppose called a 'reversal,' can gut a story's richness. In this film, you see it at its worst in the subplot about the Ents. Treebeard talks a good bit about how Ents are not hasty and take a long time to decide anything. So the Ents gather to discuss Saruman's threat and their role in the war outside Fangorn. They spend a couple days, I think, talking about their responsibilities and gradually decide the war is not their problem. Not hasty at all. But because Pippin asks Treebeard to drop off close to Isengard, the old Ent sees the pillage of the southern forest, regrets the lost lives of the trees, and roars to the other Ents to war against Saruman to avenge this outrage. The Ents, ever faithful, rush to his aid and tear down Isengard's war machine. My goodness, that's hasty.
Both with the hasty Ents and the new Faramir, the reversal concept outweighs good storytelling. How is it more dramatic to contradict Entish nature by having them decide against the war until they are beset with outrage? It strikes me as a subtle anti-war statement, that wise beings will not decide to war out of love for their neighbors or to defend justice. They must act on outrage. They must react to a slap in the face. [...]
So, [...] the writers may misunderstand Faramir's strong virtue, but I think they are more committed to these script-writing ideas than they are to anything else. That commitment lead them to write many wonderful parts in their rest of the three movies, so I doubt those ideas are all bad.
(All square brackets mine.)
Let's get a few big issues out of the way.
The Lord of the Rings is a novel. It is, in fact, a novel whose length surpasses that of Tolstoy's War and Peace — not counting the appendices. Well over 1,200 pages of closely-printed material.
Movie scripts are usually under 120 pages (the rule of thumb is that one page averages to one minute of screen time). And if you look at the format, there is a lot of white space. And the industry standard font is Courier 12 point.
Plus, novels can deal with things unseen, which movies do poorly, and usually not at all. Things like narrating history, explaining what a character is thinking, and filling in detail without showing it (amongst many, many others). In a film, if you cannot see it, then it probably isn't in the film.
So, in the process of adaptation, the first thing that happens is 90 percent of the detail in the book will be lost. Sure, much of it can be implied through set-design, performance, etc., but still the majority of it will not get the treatment it does in the book, if it gets treated at all.
And if you treat the book as holy writ, then chances are that you will miss something that was lost, something you considered important, even essential, to the story. Others will disagree with you and say that it was something else that was missing that was most important. And both of you disagree with the screenwriter, who has a third opinion.
In this case, however, since the writers are fans of the work, I would think other fans would cut them some slack on their decisions, and try to understand how incredibly difficult their task was. Most fans, in fact, seem to have done just that.
The second part of the equation is this: with 90 percent gone, the other 10 percent must make sense without it. And it must also make sense in the transition between two very different media. Which means what does make it to the screen will be changed. Again, for those who hold the book close to their hearts, this can cross over into sacrilege.
Now, let us talk about principles.
Principle the First: Film is a visual medium. Any argument? A corollary of this is that if you want to communicate something through this medium, it must be something you can show, or something you can clearly suggest through what you show. (Exceptions? Sure, we'll get to them.) This is why Sauron makes an appearance in Fellowship, and the power of the Ring is demonstrated in the same prologue. Your characters can talk endlessly about what the ring can do, but then your audience will get bored. If you show the audience what it can do, and then say it can do much more besides, that has a more visceral impact. That is communicating through film.
Principle the Second: Film is a dramatic medium. Drama, in essence, is conflict. Man versus man, man versus nature, man versus himself, and so forth. If there is no conflict in a scene, there is no drama. If no drama, no interest for the audience.
I will state this as the primary reason for both of Brandywine's objections, and explain at length as best I can. When I am done, I hope you understand the writers' reasons, even if you still think they might have found a different, better way of solving the problems they were faced with.
Because they were problems.
In the book, Faramir is far more noble than his brother Boromir, and is never tempted by the ring. He treats Frodo and Sam as friends pretty much from the outset, once they tell him their story and mission. Which means that there is virtually no conflict, except in the larger sense of the Quest. In the novel, that larger danger is alluded to frequently and adds menacing atmosphere to the scenes between Faramir and the hobbits. In a movie, that isn't really enough. The protagonist of a film must always be moving, whether it be in the form of facing a new obstacle, or of overcoming one already established.
And then you see virtually nothing of Frodo and Sam for the rest of the movie except brief clips of them walking, ever closer to Mordor. Since Jackson is a good filmmaker and editor, this would not turn into an endless "rock-climbing" sequence as in Lost Continent. He wouldn't be able to show them walking for very long, because they were just walking. He needed conflict, some kind of obstacle, to keep Frodo and Sam in the latter half of the story.
The writers chose to make Faramir that obstacle.
(The obstacle need not be crude or obvious, either, but it needs to be there, and its effect needs to be seen. An example of a more subtle obstacle is Five Easy Pieces. Bobby DuPea (Jack Nicholson) has no apparent obstacles for at least the first act, but he is quite obviously butting up against something. His conflict is internal, but the evidence of it is all external.)
There is a similar justification for Jackson's portrayal of Galadriel and Lothlorien. In the books, it is a safe haven, and, but for her temptation by the ring, Galadriel is largely benevolent. In the film such a portrayal would have brought the pace to a dead halt. So Jackson portrayed Lothlorien as weird, perhaps menacing, mysterious. And his Galadriel is an intimidating, fearsome figure. The effect is to keep the audience on edge, instead of letting them feel safe and wondering why Frodo and company would ever leave.
Faramir's characterization in the film also solves another storytelling problem Jackson faced in The Two Towers, one he faced because of another decision he made early on. That decision was to cut all of the different threads of the story in "real time," that is, Tolkien spent each part of each book following a single group of characters; at the beginning of the next part, he'd go back in time and fill in what had happened before; Jackson chose to intercut all the separate parts of the story. This is why Shelob's Lair appears more than halfway through Return of the King — because even in the books, it takes place around the time of the battle of Pelennor Fields, if not a little after. But in the books, it is narrated first.
You may, of course, curse Jackson for making this decision. However, I think it was a wise one, else he would have had to create some device to indicate the jumps back and forth in time, which could well have lengthened the latter two films.
And how does Faramir help in this way? He is the obstacle for Frodo and Sam. In the book, Frodo faces Shelob, appears to die, and is taken by orcs where Sam cannot reach him. (That is a great ending, by the way!) Since Jackson didn't have that, he needed something to keep Frodo and Sam in the mind of the audience.
Again, curse him if you will, but I suggest you refrain until after you come up with a viable alternative that is as good as, if not better than, what Jackson did.
(I stipulate that debating the ring in front of Faramir's men is a mistake, but note that it is only one noticed by those who read the books. It is a technical mistake, but the soldiers are spear-carriers, not characters.)
I mean, imagine this on film: Frodo and Sam are discovered by Faramir's patrol. There is suspicion of the hobbits, but they are not treated as prisoners. When Faramir speaks to them alone, it would go something like this:
"We carry the ring of power into the heart of Mordor, for it must be destroyed."
"I agree, and I will not touch it. You must do this deed."
"We agree."
"I agree again."
"Okay then."
Now to the Ents. This is another instance of the "show, don't tell" rule of thumb. That is, Jackson shows us why the Ents go to war. I did not view it as hasty, because my impression of the Entmoot was that the decision was close, and that the devastation of Fangorn tipped the balance. Also, portraying it this way makes Pippin a more active character, so that he doesn't spend the whole movie just being carried around by Treebeard. (Think of it like having Frodo solve the riddle of the entrance to the Mines of Moria.)
This is more dramatic (film is a dramatic medium) and more visual (also a visual medium). As to the Ent's song . . . ask someone not a fan of the books what they thought of all the singing in Return of the King. Most will say they liked Pippin's song, but the rest just seemed . . . weird.
I do have problems with some of the changes Jackson made, most especially in the third film (also in the Extended Edition of the second — I think the theatrical cut is brilliant). For example, the sequences on the Stairs of Cirith Ungol (pardon my spelling from memory, I do not have the book in Shanghai with me) and Shelob's Lair. These scenes had plenty of conflict, there was no reason to divide Sam and Frodo, nor to knock Gollum down a pit to a false death.
And the Eye of Sauron as a lighthouse search beacon? Dumb.
I am reserving judgment of the changes made to Denethor's character because I think it will make more sense in the Extended Edition. In the theatrical cut, I agree with most others, the changes were unfounded and almost offensive. I hope that Jackson had something else in mind that will come out later.
Anyhow, you may certainly claim that the changes Jackson made "hurt the storytelling," but in these two instances I disagree. Perhaps he might have found better solutions, but I do not know what they were, and there were problems to be solved.
The movies are different than the books. As I have tried to indicate, that is inevitable.
If you are interested in examining the art of adaptation, I suggest the following reading and viewing list:
The Maltese Falcon by Dashiell Hammett (no relation), and the film of the same name adapted and directed by John Huston. This is possibly the most literally faithful adaptation ever, largely because Huston basically shot the book. He broke down the physical actions described in the novel, most of the dialogue, and shot it. As the book had little in the way of narration of thoughts, and as it was short, this worked, and the only things I recall not making the transition from book to screen are Gutman's daughter (and wow, did that change the impression of his character!) and the very end, where Brigid O'Shaughnessy's fate is not left open.
Get Shorty and Out of Sight, both by Elmore Leonard, and the films of the same name, both from scripts by Scott Frank. I count these two movies as incredibly faithful to Leonard's style of writing, but Frank changes many, many details in each. He transformed Leonard's free-form jazz improvisation into well-plotted filmic narrative, and did it brilliantly. And the scripts for both Get Shorty and Out of Sight are available online.
John Grisham's The Firm was all suspense with no character, nor theme. Sydney Pollack's adaptation, script by David Rabe, Robert Towne, and David Rayfiel, actually improved the source story
Stephen King's novella Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption, and the film The Shawshank Redemption adapted and directed by Frank Darabont. Like Frank's adaptations, Darabont changes an awful lot between book and screen — he had to invent many incidents, since the novella is narrated as distant memory, most of it vague. And, like The Firm, I believe the film is an improvement over the source novella.
(Two paragraphs have been excised from this post which unfairly characterized the tone of Brandywine Books's posting. I have sent an apology via email.)