LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS Review

I once was on a film criticism panel with Harlan Ellison and someone from the audience in Atlanta asked us which we preferred writing… A positive review or a negative review. Harlan said that he loved writing negative reviews because after you say you love a movie, what else is there to say, whereas with a negative review you can make those bastards pay for every execrable moment that they made you suffer.

I took Harlan to task for that statement. I told him that if you love a movie, there’s a thousand things you can say about it, because if you love a film, there are reflections of your dreams, loves and soul. That you can spill everything in your heart that you’ve recognized in this work to paper and make others understand not only the film better, but what makes you tick. And if you can’t do that, then you’re a soulless son of a bitch!

Harlan deferred to me saying, “He’s right.”

I love these films. Not in that idle sort of, “Oh, I just loved it,” kind of way, but in that deep marrow of the bones type of love. Aching love, needy love, that roll around with a smile on your face, can’t wait to see it, be near it, just be close to it kind of obsessive love. I love FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING and THE TWO TOWERS the way you can’t think of anything, but that object of your affection. It’s just sick how much I love these films. It is dangerous, it scares me, because I get the genuine sense of worry that I’ll never find films that I’ll love this intensely again.

You see, it isn’t that I love a part of, a piece of, moments of or segments of… I love the whole. Tuesday night, from 9pm till 3:30am Wednesday morning I was in Middle Earth loving the back to back joy of FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING and THE TWO TOWERS. It was heaven. Two gorgeous prints, a packed audience there to love the films and no worries. No responsibilities, no need to entertain anyone, no concerns or distractions… Just LORD OF THE RINGS.

As a child I was brought up in an indulgent realm of cinema love. I was brought up with the utmost reverence for Forrest Ackerman, Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen. The first books I was drawn to were stories about THE CRUSADES, Robin Hood, King Arthur, Ivanhoe and of course The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. In the pre-video world – the films on demand I would see would be 16mm, and they were the collections of my father and his friends… So I saw their favorite films over and over again. KING KONG, THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, TREASURE OF SIERRE MADRE, EL CID, BEN HUR, FANTASIA, JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS, SEVENTH VOYAGE OF SINBAD, BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, TARZAN AND HIS MATE and so on. These films are my cinema DNA. The films that created the odd quirks in me, that birthed my fetishes and passions for cinema. THE LORD OF THE RINGS has key aspects of all of those. You can feel those films’ influences in Peter Jackson’s epic if you know where to look.

Take Gollum. He has the sadness of Karloff’s Frankenstein Monster. That pitiable wash of sadness and melancholy of the living dead. Also look at Humphrey Bogart’s Fred C Dobbs. The maddening self-craze that he goes into regarding his own ‘preciousss’ – that same sweet/evil twist. Concern for what is right versus what is necessary versus what he needs. Also there’s that bit of Lugosi’s Ygor, the way he talks about himself in the third person, that evil twitch in the eye, the mad insane looks of mania. However… and this is the part that kills me… Gollum tops them all for me. Here’s this character that’s lived in the back of my head for 20 years as words on a page. I can see all these influences, but this is the superior character. The better story. The more iconic part. It is no wonder that I see these vintage influences to the way Gollum moves… aside from all the assertion that this is a 100% Andy Serkis performance… I know enough about hype to know that that is about AWARD positioning and not about reality. I’ve had long conversations with animators that were working on Gollum, their influences and when I see Peter Lorre or Humphrey Bogart or Charles Laughton or Bela Lugosi shining through in that performance, I know that isn’t just Andy Serkis up there… but a team of the finest artists in the world breathing life into something that is not any one person’s creation. What needs to happen with Gollum is a special award at this year’s Academy Awards. It is a milestone achievement in cinema. A marriage of special effects and performance that is so much more important than just a supporting actor award. There’s seven years of work in that character and an entire history of cinema behind that. This goes back to Lon Chaney and Gertie the Dinosaur. This isn’t just a highlight of 2002, this is history. Motion picture history.

Film history. It is something lost on many people. This grand epic – this is the first film of the modern age that dares to dream a DeMille dream… a D.W. Griffith dream… a Kurosawa dream. This is film ripped straight out of the biggest sorts of dreams, the ones grander than any reality we could ever hope to offer in the mediocre age of modern man, this is ancient grandeur and splendor. These are stories being told for this age and beyond. Plucked straight from the crazed wonderful mind of a Kiwi that didn’t know better than to try to tell the impossible on the screen. And I love it. Love it through and through. I see it, I recognize it for what it is. I know these films will live far beyond any award race we see today. Past the cynicism of the naysayers. These movies will permeate tomorrow’s consciousness and become a part of the best history of cinema, the films that live forever.

Last year at Butt-Numb-A-Thon a little person by the name of Clarence Swenson came at my request to talk about his part in the making of THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN, a movie cast entirely of small folks playing out a story of the old west. Clarence had been a part of 3 films. THE TERROR OF TINY TOWN, TARZAN ESCAPES and THE WIZARD OF OZ. In regards to the OZ he was asked what it was like to be a part of cinema history. He told us that he is in his eighties, that he will die. His children will die, their children will die. His name will be forgotten, but the WIZARD OF OZ will live for all times. It is something bigger than the individuals that made it. And that being a part of it, is to be immortal.

That’s what is awaiting those that made THE LORD OF THE RINGS… immortality. These are films that will be revisited time and time again. Are they the best films of all time? Yes, No, Maybe - that’s for each of us to weigh and say, but for me it is enough that they are amongst my favorites.

That this new film has given me such wondrous dreams since I’ve seen it. That I’ve seen Frazetta’s primal majesty given motion in the wonder of Weta’s Uruk Hais and the charge of the Rohan. That I’ve seen Yakima Kanut’s Running W given new digital life without the death or dismemberment of a single horse or warg is comforting.

In terms of adaptation, I’ve begun to notice something very similar to what Peter Jackson was doing in his KING KONG adaptation… He’s choosing to take a couple of left turns instead of rights, before getting back to the path we know. In breathing cinematic life to a story that is known and cherished chapter and verse in many homes, there’s a danger of just going through the motions. I love the Warg battle – to me, it is exactly like the brontosaurus stampede in Peter’s unfilmed KING KONG – one of those “Oh Bloody Hell, What if this had happened!” moments. The Aragorn fall… I love it because it gives rise to those moments with Gimli and Legolas. To Gimli’s “luck” assertion. I love it because it strengthened the bond between the three even further than being the three hunters, the remainder of the Fellowship.

I love the arrival of the Elves profoundly. I don’t know why, but their arrival produces tears… I think it was out of relief, the reprieve. But then in the realization of the battle, all the Elves did was buy them the dawn. That horse charge of Theoden and Aragorn – desperate, determined and hopeless… It reminded me of “the ride into legend” from EL CID… and when Eomer pulls his sword and the rest of the Rohan join him and Gandalf and they begin riding down that pass… as the sun rises against their backs blinding the Uruk Hai before them and they ride straight into the belly of hell – It was like some living Renaissancian fresco about the Arch Angel slaying demons. I was just blown asunder.

The pacing of the three stories – the fact that while the Fellowship is parted, their fates are intertwined. That the despair is shared, the losses felt and the triumphs conjoined. Their fates are linked, as is the future of these people as a whole.

The best character work going on in TWO TOWERS circles about the Hobbits. Their stories may not have the showy grandeur that Aragorn, Gimli and Legolas’ have, but they are growing the most. The 3 warriors are in their element, they are born native to the battle, but these Hobbits… They’re a different breed. In this film they take great leaps in character. Pippin finally realizes what is at stake – his path in the next film will become epic. Sam is beginning to take center stage and I’m delighted. Sam and Smeagol’s discussion about the preparation of dead rabbits for consumption is perhaps my favorite scene I’ve seen this year. I just adore it.

Last film, I went into what it is like to see scenes that I was there for the filming, come to life on such a grand scale and I can say again… it is the greatest waking dream of a life once lived that I’ve ever had. There’s a bit of Dorothy Gale to it all… it was a really true place, honest and he was there and you and you, but it was different, wonderful. I saw Gandalf die and be reborn. I walked in Fangorn Forrest and came to meet Treebeard. I walked amongst the shards of the broken door of Helm’s Deep and I was there in the cave with Frodo and Sam as ‘guests’ of Faramir. How does that affect my viewing? It means if I get drunk or take drugs and watch this film, my ability to separate reality from fantasy is highly confused. Otherwise, it just makes pieces more familiar than others. The interesting thing is that Fangorn Forrest was 12 feet from the snow that Gandalf died in. Interesting, eh?

I’m going to wrap this up for now… I’ve still only seen it once, and I must see it many more times. I find it difficult to talk about TWO TOWERS without FELLOWSHIP, because truthfully I saw them together and they are still but two thirds of the grandest movie ever shot, to be completed next December.

Hopefully, I’ll be able to see the film again this weekend… if seats permit.