(... and definitly the last "bit" on "The Hobbit"!)
When I wrote my finishing lines on “The Hobbit”,
stating that there certainly would be “something”, I didn’t have the least idea
not only of what this could be but probably if I believed what I had written or
not. I probably wrote it because it sounded good, and I wanted to end it on a
hopeful note. Not that there was any real reason for hope anywhere to be seen
because, for me, “The Hobbit” just wasn’t the last “hot shit” before “Star
Wars”. And I didn’t even seriously believe that something else would “turn up”
… Well, I couldn’t possibly have imagined how true this sentence would turn out
to be.
I probably still don’t know how much this experience –
which was actually a lot more complex than what I described – has changed my
life. The part I described was probably the biggest part, which was about
reading. And I still like it a lot that it was the FAILURE to read “The
Desolation of Smaug” which made me understand for the first time what actually
happens when I read films. That is, when I have decided that the film is worth
reading I start to actually write my own text about it. To write what I think
the film, and/or certain characters, are about, and which implies a description
of my personal reactions to them, emotionally, or thoughts about them which
struck me as interesting. And I believe that this is, basically, what we all do
when we read. But I didn’t know this - as you can easily study literature at a
German university without ever hearing anything about reading! - until I became
so pissed off I couldn’t read a film I SO
WANTED to read and couldn’t before I had kind of anticipated the complete
context that was intended for the three films.
You might say that there is not much point in knowing
this – as we are able to do it without ever thinking about it, like breathing.
But this is exactly the point. Because I benefited so much from the experience
of actually understanding and “developing” this that I will never be able to explain
it completely, although that is what half of this blog has been about. (And
this is the reason I am so grateful for the “fucked up” cinematic version even
though the experience was REALLY disagreeable, but showed me as well, of
course, how much I cared about the first film.)
This was probably the biggest, and fundamental, part
of the experience, but there were other parts that “grew into” something which
became important. And some of it I have only come to know quite recently. The
next thing that happened, (partly) in the “real world”, was that I saw Richard
Armitage in “The Crucible”. And this was JUST CHANCE because I would never have
seen it if I hadn’t seen him in “The Hobbit” - and if I hadn’t been in the
cinema by accident the week before they showed it. And, “for all this”, I
wouldn’t have known that I HAD TO see it if my friend hadn’t told me that she
had seen it in London. AND I still got a ticket … In a way it was more than “just
chance”, maybe closer to a miracle, that I didn’t miss my only chance of seeing
it. But, speaking of miracles: I have actually seen a few of them these last
years. Maybe they depend on you knowing how to expect the “right” things …
Of course I had become very fast very fond of him as
an actor – I’d say it happened the moment I saw Thorin enter Bag End for the
first time and heard him say: “So, this is the hobbit!” in this incredible
voice. As this was probably the moment I was “back” – after about ten years - with
the dwarves in Middle-earth. And I couldn’t help becoming very fond of him as a
person as well when I read this interview about “The Desolation of Smaug”,
which is something I still cannot really believe because it is kind of “too
good to be true”. (I have seen more of this as well since then …) And since I
read this, expecially the part about how playing Thorin made him reconnect with
what he had wanted from his carrier after EIGHT YEARS, I had wished for it not
to become eight years again in a way that, if I prayed, it would have become
part of my prayers every night. FOR ME, because I didn’t want to wait eight
years, but FOR HIM as well. If you know how to wish for the RIGHT THING to
happen, and, of course, work so hard for it, in an ideal world it should come
true. But in the real world it is very seldom like this, and you need a
tremendous amount of luck. As, in this case, it wasn’t just a great opportunity
of doing “something different”, like “The Hobbit”, but a part he had very much wanted
to play since he had been in acting school. I didn’t know anything about it when
I went to the cinema, but was prepared for something special. And still he
surprised me. So much that I was actually shocked at what I saw because it is
impossible to imagine something SO MUCH MORE powerful than what you have seen. So
now - quite like the last time! - I cannot imagine how this experience might be
surpassed in the future. Nonetheless I am very confident that it will be, less
confident though that I will live to see it … But at least I had THIS!
The next time I realized that “it” wasn’t over yet -
as I have written at the beginning of the first appendix about “The Hobbit” – was
immediately after Christmas last year when I watched the three extended cuts in
a row. But the experience of reading the “Hobbit” films anew wasn’t finished
then. It might be finished now – though I should have learned not to say
something like this EVER AGAIN … I was extremely pleased to notice that
“Middle-earth” was still “going on” kind of unnoticed, and by the way I found
out about it. Which was through my choice of what, from the endless list of
dvds I still want to see, I ACTUALLY BOUGHT.
Because I finally ordered three of them, and two of these were “The Office”
and “Fargo”. And only after I had bought them I thought about why obviously
Martin Freeman had made top of the list. Apart from the fact that I came to
appreciate him more and more as a really interesting actor, but there has been
a lot of competition lately. And thinking about this made me realize something
about Tolkien’s world, and the way I entered it, and the way I went through it,
and “where” I came out.
I’ll introduce it with a quote from my nephew Felix,
who was then six or seven years old. (Now he is almost nineteen! Unbelievable
…) I used to tell him the story of “The Lord of the Rings” - because, at the
age of five, he was probably too young to have it read to him – over a period
of at least two years. That was because I didn’t see him that often. But I know
he was very much looking forward to these visits because of “The Lord of the
Rings” - as I was myself because I have never seen anybody so keen on hearing a
story – so much so that actually NOTHING could distract him from it. And I
think the special attraction was that EXACTLY the same thing happened to both
of us. That is, we both entered Tolkien’s world in exactly the same place.
(Which is something that never happened to me before or since, and maybe I shouldn’t
be proud to have had the same reading experience as a five year old? In fact I
was tremendously pleased about it and still am. Not least because I think it
was something that happened to lots of people and might contain an explanation
of why this book is so great.) For both of us it was the RING METAPHOR which
opened the door to Tolkien’s world. That was what I “took home” from seeing the
“Fellowship” for the first time. I remember that I was impressed to find that
FINALLY somebody had said something MEANINGFUL about the subject of good and
evil which I hadn’t heard before. (And this might be exactly BECAUSE it is a
metaphor. As it provides this freedom to think, maybe differently?, about a
well-known issue.) In any case, this was what got me hooked on Tolkien’s world
in the first place. And somehow I got the idea that even a five year old would
understand it, and I was right. In fact I have never seen anybody getting
interested in a story like this – THE MOMENT I told him about the ring! - The
experience that followed this “initiation” he expressed as follows:
“I feel as if
I was in this world FOR REAL, together with the elf, and the dwarf, and the
hobbit.”
Which, until recently, has been the greatest thing I
have ever heard somebody say about a fictional experience – though it is
certainly a very common one. Every reader COULD have said that, at some point, I
suppose. I could have said it but certainly wouldn’t have done. We just have
this great tradition of not talking “directly” (and truthfully!) about our
feelings. Which I become more and more aware I have always tried to get away
from. And I have certainly found one great role model for this in the meantime.
But the six year old had in fact been my first! (I suppose that is why he is
one of the very few people I would now automatically not stand too close to,
out of respect.)
So this was the “place” where I entered Tolkien’s
universe. And, like so many others, I wanted to stay. But, metaphorically,
falling in love is easy – you don’t have to do anything. Staying “in there” is
the tricky part because you have to find a reason, and a “way” of staying. My
reason for staying became the dwarves. They became the people I wanted to stay
with and investigate, which I wanted to know everything about. This is strange
because, in my experience, most people “settle down” somewhere with other
humans – which are, for me, the least attractive and most questionable race of
Middle-earth (- as there is certainly nobody who wants to “stay” with the orcs!).
There might be a reason why it “dies off” quietly after they have taken over. But
there are certainly a lot of great stories about them, whereas about the elves
there are few. Nonetheless many readers fancy them, especially Legolas – even
BEFORE Orlando Bloom played him. I personally dislike the elves because they
are boring and condescending. But I liked Legolas – in the “Rings” films. (In
“The Hobbit” I find him rather boring.) And there must be a lot of people who
really like hobbits. Well, until recently I wasn’t one of them.
I remember when I “settled in” with the dwarves. Not the
exact moment, but that it was “somewhere” on the journey through Moria. It
might have been when Gimli suddenly stands up, in these vast halls, and begins
to sing his song about Durin’s folk. I know I must have been impressed because
I memorized the long poem (which, for me, was like real work!). And there is an
interesting parallel to the film “An Unexpected Journey” where the dwarves
begin to sing their song about the Lonely Mountain. Because, I think, you
understand then intuitively who they are, and where they came from. As I said,
this is probably the moment when Bilbo is getting interested. So much so that
he wouldn’t have forgiven himself if he had stayed. And maybe, despite himself,
he has even begun to like them …
It is probably the moment when everybody in the audience
begins to like them a little bit at least, but it certainly works still better
when you have already had “a history” with them. And I had. For about elven
years I had waited for them, and that “love-story” goes even further back, in a
way, than my relationship with “The Lord of the Rings” and Tolkien’s world. It probably
began when I read my first “saga of the Icelanders”, the tale about Gísli Surs
son who became an outlaw. (In fact it goes way back still to a time when I was about
fourteen to sixteen and read a novel called “The Grey Man”, which was a Scandinavian
story about the Vikings of which I remember nothing but the title and the deep
impression it made on me.) I was instantly taken by this strange world that
must have been, at the same time, kind of familiar. In the same way the dwarves
became suddenly quite familiar when I read this song. And there are in fact a
lot of parallels because the dwarves, as far as they are rooted in the “real
world”, came from the same historical context as my Icelanders, which is
pre-medieval, heathen Scandinavia. A cruel world where people are telling the
truth most of the time, where humour is a kind of weapon, and a weapon just
another kind of argument. But there is also a great longing for order and
structure and law, and a great awareness of what lies in good relationships
between people to keep disorder and bloodshed at bay. And, for whatever reason,
this must be where my “roots” lie as well. (If I believed in reincarnation it
would be easier to explain. I’d even bet on it, then, that, in my last life, I
was male – and certainly heathen!)
So, this must have been how I “settled in” - but what
I remember EXACTLY is the moment I lost my heart. And it was in an unlikely
place as well. A long time “before” the “Lord of the Rings” and “The Hobbit”,
even a long time before Durin’s folk makes an appearance in the annals of
Middle-earth. And I was never able to make anybody understand, so my blog might
just be the perfect place for it. It was in the “Silmarillion”, during one of
these battles with an unutterable name, which “in the common tongue” is called
the “Battle of the Unnumbered Tears”. As this was the first time, historically
speaking, that we actually hear something “good” about the dwarves. Here they
are all of a sudden - sprung from one of their secret hoards and deep places
where they allegedly guard their gold and make beautiful things - and reveal themselves
as heroes. Because, for once, they “win renown” by doing what the heroes of
this age in Middle-earth do: sacrificing themselves to save the elves. Because
of their toughness and fire-proof armour the dwarves from Belegost (= one of
their ancient kingdoms in the Blue Mountains) are able to pin down the dragon
Glaurung and prevent him from incinerating the rest of the Noldor. The elves
retire from the battlefield, Glaurung kills the dwarf-king who, in death,
pricks him with his long knife which instantly spoils his appetite for battle.
Glaurung retires, the dwarves pick up their dead king and leave the
battle-field as well, singing a dirge. End of story. And I know I shall never
be able to account for the impression this little scene made on me. From the
unnumbered tears shed on that battle-field mine were certainly for the dwarves
…
Of course I realized this only much later and wasn’t
in the least aware of how much preparation I had had for finally seeing them. And
especially for this moment when Thorin comes through the door of Bag End, and
suddenly “all of this” was there. (Well, “all of this” cannot have been in this
little scene. As I said, I came prepared, and there is more than a little
preparation in the film before that. But this is probably a really good example
of how you come to see “the future in the instant”.) Anyway, this encounter
made for an extremely fast burn, in fact it was more like being struck by
lightning. And, at first, I didn’t take kindly to being distracted from it. Or
to find reason to worry about how his story would “play out”. But the second
film - where I suddenly couldn’t see “it” anymore and thought they had probably
“fucked up”, or at least tried really hard NOT to think that – was an extremely
healthy experience. And I am pleased to find that it has been going on until
now. And has transformed and enlarged Tolkien’s world for me, making it more
colourful, and perhaps brighter. I already started on it, I think, in my last
blog, when I began to take a closer look at Bilbo’s story.
I am extremely pleased with the fact that, in at least
two cases, it was the great acting that convinced me to take these characters
more seriously and to care for them. I don’t even think I ever really liked
Tauriel, but it was Evangeline Lily who MADE ME look into the elves a great
deal more. And, of course, my attitude towards them had mainly been informed by
prejudices. I knew that, probably, but didn’t care. And she made me care! - And
Bilbo is an even greater example of this because, regrettable as this might be,
the dwarves are not the centre of Tolkien’s world. The hobbits are. And without
him I would never HAVE MET a hobbit. And, in the end, I think this would have
been a pity! Of course Bilbo Baggins is the character that should make this
happen, IF it does, but Martin Freeman is the actor who could make it happen. And
it took time because – like the dwarves!
– I didn’t really take hobbits seriously. Now I think that this was Martin
Freeman’s contribution to these films (and to world literature!): That he made “us”
take Bilbo Baggins seriously. And I remember one thing he said about his
character which might appear as a joke. He said that he could never make up his
mind about the issue if Bilbo had had sex or not. Well, it was partly a joke, I
reckon, but it was as well the moment I “got” it. That is, how seriously he
took his character - because sex is a very serious matter for people IN REAL
LIFE, which is WHY we make jokes about it. From this moment I could consciously
“evaluate” what he did, and see why it was so significant. Compared to Thorin,
it was an extremely slow burn, but the small flame is still burning brighter
and brighter …
And there is a reason for becoming fond of Bilbo
“beyond” the great acting. As there is certainly some fundamental truth about
evil in these books there is some about its opposite as well. There is a lot of
boring, “conventional” truth, by the way, like the information that the desire
for wealth makes people evil. And Bilbo doesn’t care for gold, only for what
really constitutes a better life. But this is not what makes him so special as
a character. What makes him special is that he is one of the rare breed of “genuinely
good” people. Which are NOT people who
are struggling to be good out of moral concern, or because they want to repair
some damage their lives or the world has suffered, or because they love their
children – which everybody does. They are in fact a rare breed – even more so,
I think, in fiction than in real life. At least I might know more of them in
real life than in a fictional context, where I have come upon exactly one of
these characters before I “met” Bilbo. But this might be because I don’t pay
attention to them, not unlike most people probably do. In any case, they are certainly
a much rarer breed in films than genuinely bad people and the kind of good
people I just tried to describe. They are people who recognize the good
qualities in others, and expect them to act accordingly, because they
themselves have nothing “bad” in them, no motivation at all for spite or
revenge. I think we usually perceive these people as dull because they cannot
see other people as what they “really” are. But this is not true. At least not
always. It is just what WE THINK they are, noticing their bad or strange
features in the first place. I saw then – in a way “distorted” by fiction - what
I should have been able to see in real life: why genuinely good people are something
infinitely valuable. And this is because they recognize and can “bring out” the
good features IN OTHER PEOPLE. And Bilbo has this great quality of finding the
good in other people, instead of the bad, and to act upon it. Like everything
“good”, it might turn out wrong. But very often it doesn’t. It might even be
the one thing that, in real life, makes the world “a better place” most of the
time.
And, when I just did my final editing on appendix
four, I might have suddenly found out what my real “quest” might have been.
And, with that, in which way exactly Tolkien redefined the meaning of the
medieval “queste” which must have held such fascination for him. For one thing,
of course, he used it to “invent” “fantasy literature”. Which was certainly not
his intention but of course he did! He is not only “the father” of hundreds of
questionable feats of literature, full of elves, dragons, and wizards, but of
hundreds of playstation games as well which are, in my opinion, the worst of
the litter – not as such, but because of the impact they have had on popular
culture, especially films. The benefit of which we get in abundance in the
“Lord of the Rings” and “Hobbit” films. - But what we get as well, due to the
outstanding achievements of the writers and actors on these films, is the
“deeper” meaning of Tolkien’s “queste”, which was probably what took me in in
the first place. It is something deeply rooted in people’s lives and
experience, and this is probably why Tolkien’s books are so special and still
“speak” to us. The deeper wisdom contained in Tolkien’s version of the
“queste”, which we find both in Bilbo’s and Thorin’s story – but especially in
Bilbo’s because he survives it and gets the benefit of its meaning – is that
what we will find, going on a quest, will be a different experience than the
one for which we set out. It is about the REAL meaning of hope, and change!,
which is why it is always partly a sad experience. If things are good we don’t
want them to change. Or we don’t think we do. And we all have the chance of
staying home, as Bilbo does. As we all would, I suppose, if we already knew
what the quest entails. But we don’t “stay home”, and exactly THIS is life. And
it might even take us a long time to see what has happened to us “on the way” –
having shed our prejudices, our fears and our pettiness, getting a different
look at the world and the people we thought we already knew.
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