Appendix 4: Journey’s End: about the adventure of “reading” “The Hobbit” after „The Battle of the Five Armies“, part 3 (About how the battle was fought)

Maybe what I even like best about the “Hobbit” films, apart from the fact that they told “my story” so beautifully, is that it finally became necessary, and not “just great”, to have these two superior and really different actors for these two very different jobs. In the case of Martin Freeman the job is what actors probably like best: great epic storytelling, with long scenes that can be “run through” most of the time, and witty, beautiful dialogue. But to make it that perfect and enjoyable you need an actor with a lot of imagination who can think of doing little bits just a little different. And the little bit might even make a big difference. This kind of “fine tuned” acting is delightful to watch but really necessary as well for making you understand all the little angles of the story that will turn out to be important later on. I remember that I thought at first: this is a bit too much, or too big, or doesn’t look natural, but in the end it is EXACTLY as it has to be. It is important to make you notice everything, even if it is only subconsciously, because there is meaning in every little bit, and being able to “read” the story like this is crucial for saving the film from going down the drain towards insignificance. His character is the character through whom the story is told. If we “lose” him the story is lost.

With Thorin it is rather different because his story is mostly done “in bits”. He doesn’t just enter the film but “drops in” like an asteroid, and, from that moment, the tone of the story is changed. And one of the things I liked a lot about how they perceived Thorin is that he doesn’t say much. He always waits until the right moment has come, until it becomes necessary to say something. But you can observe him thinking a lot. You always expect something might happen any time, but you don’t know what. And then, when it comes out, it is often something rather unexpected, or even some surprising “thing of beauty”. It is gratifying to finally see some bigger acting scenes in the third film but the great feat this actor has done is to make every single “bit” come out so very special and unique. The reason for this is probably what one of his fellow actors observed about his method of working: that he is able to focus on the single moment to a degree that other people can hardly imagine. And this is probably not a talent or personal feature somebody can have, at least not to the degree he has developed it. It is a method of working that consists in not leaving anything to chance but to prepare for every single moment of shooting as if it was the only thing that matters. And this kind of attitude regarding his work paid big time, in the end. When you can see the complete picture you are able to appreciate how important every single one of these “high energy” moments has been.

In particular I liked the way the endings of the first and second film are linked by two of these special moments. The one is when they see the Lonely Mountain for the first time, and the way Thorin’s face is just lit up with hope and joy, as if the sun had suddenly pierced the dark clouds. It is the first time we see this “side” of Thorin which is, surprisingly, rather naïve and childlike. (There was one moment in every one of the three films where somebody made me almost cry. In the first film it was this one because, if you have read the book, you know what the future has in store for him.) - Then we have two single moments of this kind at the end of the second film. But then the music is changed. It is the way Thorin reacts to seeing Smaug being submerged by the gold and then seeing him emerge again. They are just “highly charged” moments of emotion, going through the whole body and somehow “exploding” in the face. (And, “originally”, that was just an actor dangling in front of a green-screen, probably staring at a tennis-ball! )  

Of course it is the context into which these moments are set that makes them so significant. There was this long “playstation sequence” about the dwarves turning from pursued to pursuers and finally even getting the upper hand which I rather loathed – until the moment I became aware of the story “behind” it. There is this great sentence Thorin says that I didn’t even notice until it became a song: “If this is to end in fire we will all burn together.” This is the moment he becomes aware that he believes he can defeat Smaug by what Smaug himself is: fire. And this is rather a lunatic – or “dwarvish” – idea, which is probably even the reason why it works, at least to a certain degree. And then there is this moment when Thorin feels he is victorious, looking Smaug in the eye. And, at this moment, he is exactly THE SAME SIZE as Smaug! He has confronted what he feared most, and now he isn’t afraid of anything anymore. From that moment on everything is changed. Because, having looked the dragon in the eye, he has become LIKE the dragon. He isn’t a small dwarf anymore, not even a “great” dwarf, and this is something he has wished for secretly, and which is a central theme of Tolkien as well: the desire to be transformed into that being that wields absolute power. And, just for a single moment maybe, he has arrived there …

I was delighted how these single significant moments make us see where EXACTLY Thorin stands at this stage of his journey. And how they bring into focus other “bits”, charging them with meaning. For example I liked it a lot when, in the first film, the “oakenshield” made an appearance, not seeing the significance completely until the third film when Thorin says to Dwalin that he shouldn’t speak to him as if he was still “Thorin Oakenshield”. Well, this sentence is clearly one intended to make you THINK about the story they wanted to tell! - I was delighted because I had felt that the oakenshield, as a metaphor, has a different meaning than the meaning Thorin - and probably even Richard Armitage, who instisted on having it, even made a design for it himself - attributed to it. For Thorin it is a token of strength and hope: that he has been able to defeat an enemy stronger than himself, and will be. (And in the end he is! But it will be his own death as well.) This is the story that Thorin wants to tell to himself, but the story Tolkien is telling about him, and of which he is subconsciously aware!, is that he always operates from a position of weakness. What is an oaken branch to defend you from the maze of a giant orc? His position has always been desperate, and, to change this, there is probably nothing he WOULDN’T do!

Why Martin Freeman had always been first choice for the hobbit is so obvious that he apparently felt the need to dissociate himself from his character and say: As a person, I am not like Bilbo Baggins at all! Of course he isn’t. He is a great comic actor who studies people, including himself. – As far as I can judge, Richard Armitage is a very different actor, kind of like my long-time favourites Ray Winstone and Mark Addy who always go for the “core” of a character, and always “hit” it. And I don’t understand in the least how they are doing this. Maybe because it is a different thing every time one of them is “putting together” a significant character like this one. A character that is UNLIKE anything I have seen before and doesn’t grow kind of naturally “out of” the actor’s own “material”. The only thing you can see is that there is nothing “natural” and easy about it, and that it requires a lot of work, and skill, and intellect.

And, as I am just watching the “specials” to “The Hobbit” again, I think I have found out something important about this from the documentation about Smaug (– which might be the single most fascinating part of the documentation as such!) It was Benedict Cumberbatch who said that playing Smaug required a “leap of faith”. Being able to convince himself that he could be a dragon. (In his case it was PLAYING him, but, to make that character emerge, there were more than a few “leaps” to be made at practically every “angle”.) That was the moment I suddenly kind of “got it” what he is doing, and why I find his acting so interesting and singularly successful. And I think this is, generally, exactly “the thing” we cannot see or understand when one of these complex, previously unknown characters comes into being. When the actor has achieved THIS, the character is just kind of “there”.

The most obvious example for this in Thorin’s case is the voice. In his interview for the documentation Richard Armitage gives us a clear account of what the initial stage of uncertainty – when you still “have” nothing “on” the character – is like. And I didn’t really get this until I saw the documentation on “The Battle of the Five Armies” where he gives the real reason for hiding from the backstage cameras (which is VERY obvious, especially when you are looking for him!): He didn’t want to be seen on any footage about the shoot, in case he didn’t “work out” as Thorin and might have to leave the production. And I was really kind of shocked when I heard this. But this is what it is like! And I know that it happened at least two times, for example to the actor who was casted for Aragorn in the first place – whoever that was??? Of course I don’t know, and, personally, can live very well without this kind of information, but there isn’t much you can hide from the fans “on the internet” these days. And only then did I understand why on this first press conference – which must have been quite early on – Richard Armitage, who is usually confident and eloquent when giving interviews, appears to be the only person at this long table who is obviously feeling VERY uncomfortable.  

The first time I became aware of this “part” of the acting process was about Ray Winstone playing Henry VIII. Compared to Richard Armitage he is not very explicit when talking about his work. And he answered the question what had been his worst experience about playing Henry VIII with: “The first fifteen days”. By which, I think, he must have meant the first fifteen days of SHOOTING! And, even though he got slightly more loquacious answering further questions, this was the most helpful piece of information for me for kind of “measuring” what he has achieved there. – In the case of Richard Armitage the main problem was probably that he knew that he was kind of too young to play Thorin. And this is a problem for these films which wasn’t really “solved”, not “aesthetically” anyway, because being youngish (and kind of “classically” good-)looking is certainly great, just not for “being” a dwarf!

I must admit that for the first time AT ALL I noticed make-up in a film. And this is of course kind of unjust because it can be as much of an art as everything else that is done there: making faces look exactly the way you want them to look. But you notice their art only when something is wrong. I mean, how often have I thought: this costume is gorgeous, and all these totally amazing sets, and, of course, the animation, and even, sometimes: this is a great stunt! Of course very seldom because you are not supposed to realize that it is a stunt. But make-up as such – though in these films you certainly become aware of prosthetics and hair all the time - I never noticed the hundreds of times it works great, only when it doesn’t work. And Thorin, as I never really wanted to admit but can now, kind of didn’t really work. But there is something interesting I “retrieved” from this experience about what happens when I “read” films. Because, having seen the films so often, I noticed that I kind of “extrapolate” the moments where Thorin looks great – as a dwarf - to the moments when he somehow doesn’t look “right”. (Which is - what I didn’t want to admit but can now – like most of the time) But I wouldn’t have been able to extrapolate if the acting hadn’t been SO RIGHT! There is probably no such thing as perfection, but some things are certainly close, and there is certainly a great need in “us” for SEEING it! Maybe Thorin is even my best proof for what I realized about film adaptations of books, watching the Tolkien-films: that, for me, it doesn’t matter if this character LOOKS like the character “from” the book. Of course it is great when he does, and it even makes sense to say that Martin Freeman’s Bilbo looks like Bilbo “in the book”. But the most important thing is that the actor convinces me that this IS the character from the book – in Thorin’s case not exactly the grumpy old dwarf from “The Hobbit”, but more like what is suggested about him in the appendices to “The Lord of the Rings”. Of course, for me, being so particular about the dwarves, he HAD TO BE one of my favourite characters from these films, probably my favourite anyway, and I would notice and value everything about him. So I certainly WANTED to be convinced, but Richard Armitage still had to ACHIEVE that!

Anyway, I think he knew very well that there was something not right as it was and that it was his job to deal with it. And something like the first and decisive step for this character, apart from moving and fighting “like a dwarf”, appears to have been to create this special voice for Thorin. And there was this “leap of faith” already when he imagined where this voice should “come from”. Which was obviously Shakespeare. I don’t remember where I have this quote from, but the voice was partly “taken from” Lear, which is rather “far out” for an actor his age. In any case it is a big “leap” from his “natural” voice – though I noticed then that he always changes his voice, if only slightly, for any character he is playing to a point that it is impossible to say, if you know him only as an actor, what his natural voice is. Another indication for this kind of acting is that I have never quite seen him “doing” his natural smile, which is rather a great feature, on camera. Being rather unassuming and direct as a “public” person, with a great sense of humour, his most interesting characters are arrogant and gloomy, and always kind of mysterious. I think that this rather complex feature is for what he is commonly chosen as an actor: He is especially good at being an enigma. This is what John Thornton in “North and South” is about. In this case we know that he will turn out “good”, but in other cases they used him to play with the expectations of the audience in a rather nasty way. As in the “Spooks”, where people actually DIDN’T buy the 9^th series on dvd because they knew then what was going to happen with Lucas North and didn’t want to see it. Or people who bought this horrible “Robin Hood” series to see if Guy of Guisborne would turn out good, in the end. (Idiots! Well, I didn’t buy the 3^rd series at least!) And then there is this rather beautiful episode of “Moving on” where he is playing a guy who seduces a woman for the purpose of using her for drug trafficking – but, of course, we don’t know that. If I had consciously noticed the first time I saw it that they had changed his eye-colour to muddy brown there would have been no suspense about the outcome at all. Eye-colour is certainly a feature we never take into account, but we always notice it subconsciously, and it may in fact be an important feature for what kind of characters an actor gets to play. If you have blue eyes there certainly is a chance that you might not turn out completely bad! - But, even though there are certainly physical features that make somebody perfect for being an enigma, as a “special” kind of beauty and even eye-colour, the most important thing is probably what somebody likes to do best, as an actor, and what, because of that, he is especially good at. In an interview Richard Armitage gave on the occasion of the premiere of “The Desolation of Smaug” he gave away something about the third film that made me worry at first. He said that he had especially liked it to be able to do something he hadn’t done “on camera” before: looking for things that are “discontinuous and irrational” to show the “workings of a breaking mind”, which is quite unlike what you usually do. Well, I was worried about the “breaking mind” and the madness which is something that actors appear to like, and which, in my opinion, always turns out rather disappointing. And, in this case, might have destroyed the character and what the rest of his story was meant to be. But I should have had the greatness to believe him if he had been so convinced that what they had done would turn out great. I should have trusted his judgment, because: how much more prove do you need? But I couldn’t help being worried because exactly this part of the story meant so much to me.

Now, having made my final assessment of the three films, I can even admit that it was ME who has been right about this. At least that my fears were certainly not unfounded. And, of course, I had so wished NOT to be right! Yeah, and IN THE END, I wasn’t, but this thing really teetered on a knife’s edge – and I will take this up again in my “report” about the last part of the “battle”.

Something that has deepened my “reading” of the “Hobbit” films a lot is that, at the time I saw the extended cut of “The Desolation of Smaug”, followed by seeing “The Battle of the Five Armies”, I was rather “into” another text: Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”. And I felt that, the better I knew the text, the less I understood it. Until I accidentally used my “method” of looking at a small, marginal bit. I had stumbled upon the word “equivocation” in the porter’s scene, which I had never heeded before, although I had noted that, still, about three people are laughing at any performance of “Macbeth” at the porter’s joke that drink is an equivocator with lechery. The meaning of the joke is obvious, but I noticed that I didn’t know what exactly “equivocation” means. The next thing I noticed was that it appears more than once in the porter’s monologue, and then, near the end, is used by Macbeth himself. When he sees Birnam wood come towards Dunsinane he begins “to doubt the equivocation of the fiend” who told him about it. (To “doubt” here meaning: “to suspect”.) After having got the meaning I suddenly saw it “everywhere”: in single expressions and images (like: “from that spring where comfort seemed to come discomfort swells”), the “weird sisters” of course, who “give out” meaning which is, as Macbeth himself is unable to see, always equivocal: “Fair is foul and foul is fair …” And, most important, in the character of Macbeth itself – which is at the centre of what I still don’t understand. Maybe there is nothing to “understand”, but it is interesting that, even though there are so many great, beautiful, and really bad “versions” of Macbeth on dvd, I have never seen an actor play Macbeth even REMOTELY in the way I see this character. – My biggest surprise at reading Shakespeare again was that I suddenly found him to be such a great “naturalist”. Which probably means that he represents the world the way I see it myself. If I presuppose that there is some kind of meaning to people’s lifes at all. But, in my book, it is always equivocal, and I am never “taken in” by anything “one-dimensional”, with easy questions and totally satisfying answers and the kind of happy ending you see in major feature films. In “Macbeth” I am probably always missing that first part of the “equivocation”: where you can somehow see some “good” in that character – before the whole thing tilts and the spiral movement towards disaster is set in motion. I might be wrong about this where Macbeth is concerned, but we can see that kind of thing I was looking for the way Richard Armitage is playing Thorin: perfectly “equivocal”. And there is reason to assume, from what he himself said about playing Thorin, that a lot of it actually “came from” Shakespeare.