Harry here, Months ago when I was in Cannes writing up my report of the footage, I was writing upon having just seeing the reel the first time, with barely any time for thought or consideration going on… Meanwhile, my dang WEBTV connection at Cannes Froze in the middle of my review… meaning I never fully had the chance to compose my thoughts the way I like to. So I’m going to do that on top of John Robie’s review of the same footage…
I’ve seen the Cannes Footage twice now. Upon first viewing, I was with the International Press… On the second viewing with the high profile Television Journalist and the foreign Distributors of the film. On the second showing the droolalicious Miranda Otto was sitting behind me… She was in Cannes for the screenings of HUMAN NATURE, but decided to grab a chance to see this footage for herself.
This time there were no Tolkein Geeks on either side of me… This time I sat with complete strangers on either side. The introduction was held by Rick Porras, an associate producer of the film, but more than that… Rick wound up becoming the man in charge of all the GREEN SCREEN work (just about) and crossed over into full director mode quite a bit. A wonderfully cool chap.
Once again he stated that some of the effects work that we would be seeing was temporary and still being worked on.
Now it has been months since I’ve seen this footage, but I can close my eyes and see it as though it were moments ago. Everyone seems to focus on the Cave Troll sequence, and there’s a good reason. It is like nothing that they’ve seen before. And upon the zillion and two times that I’ve told people about the scene, I think I know the secret to the scene…
There is a rule to BIG MONSTER FILMMAKING, that has been set since the days of Willis O’Brien and it has been kept ever since.
When a Big Monster enters a scene, no matter what was happening prior to that moment… the scene becomes all about… the character’s reacting to and trying to defeat the Big Monster.
Now, even if you had fighting going on between two parties, the rule was… stop your fighting and kill the big monster or flee, because it’s going to kill you. EVERYTIME.
Peter Jackson decides to throw the rule of the Big Monster out the window for this first scene…. Because the classic BIG MONSTER scene would be coming soon with the Balrog, and the previous Big Monster (a scene I haven’t seen yet, the watcher in the lake) is a flee and escape monster scene. So within the Mines of Moria sequence, you would have the classic BIG MONSTER showdown fight (GANDALF and BALROG) and the classic BIG MONSTER flee and escape scene (WATCHER IN THE LAKE), but there is a third scene… And it is smack dab in the middle.
If Jackson were to treat it like the Balrog or the Watcher scene, he’d be being redundant… SO he was forced to do something that has never been done with the Big Monster.
First you have the orcs. They are more intimately dangerous and in your face to start with. They are not afraid of the Cave Troll, because it is their pitbull, albeit elephant size or larger… Now the Cave Troll enters stage center. If our heroes ignore their armed combatants they are dead, so they have to fight through the orcs while being aware of the larger problem, and remaining the hell out of dodge.
This is why, the scene begins more erratic… more SAVING PRIVATE RYAN storming the beach intense… As the number of enemies decreases… the focus begins to intensify for the characters upon the problem that is The Cave Troll. Till then, the Cave Troll is a force of nature… As a result of not focusing on the Cave Troll at the beginning of his entrance… his swings with the mace and chain seem to come out of nowhere… like a violent bolt of lightning… the characters react at the last minute… others don’t… and they die.
In terms of Action Choreography… it is without equal. I’ve never seen it done better. Imagine if on Hoth… We had a ground battle on the intensity of the heaviest hand to hand battle fighting you’ve ever seen, meanwhile seemingly random blasts came from the Walkers wiping out men and StormTroopers.. Upon finishing off the Imperial Ground Troops they then had to knock off the next wave… The Walkers… and then we had that classic Walker battle. Now imagine that that is inbetween a Tentacled Beast, an extra hundred thousand or so orcs, the stairs and then the Balrog…
I’ve never seen this work handled better. By the time Frodo is proclaiming the ring is his and slipping it on his finger from the final montage… exhaustion has set in. Total exasperation. Complete mind-numbing heaven. I turned around to see how Miranda reacted and she was crying… not just a tear, but crying dousing those smiling cheeks with a flood of tears. The person with her was handing her a handkerchef and she began to compose herself.
Personally, I feel the Cave Troll is just an appetizer for the Stairs of Khazadum… which is the greatest action scene I’ve ever seen. Just nothing in my experience as a movie lover for well over 29 years has come close. The scale and majesty and tension and oh sweet Jesus turning water to wine greatness… Nothing compares. And then to cut away as the Balrog appeared… Knowing full well that that will be something intense beyond words still… That counter doesn’t tick fast enough…
Now I hand you over to my good friend, John Robie, who went in with Moriarty to a press screening of footage the other day… He IM-ed me upon getting home with something along the lines of "OH MY FUCKING GOD HARRY, HOLY SHIT!!!" I called him up, and let him geek at me for like an hour… He just couldn’t stop, and admittedly I started too… Nothing like two born-again Tolkienites! Here’s Robie….
I’m scared now. Really scared. Scared that I’ve put my expectations for The Fellowship of the Rings ridiculously high. I don’t know if it’s possible for a two hour and 45 minute film to maintain the incredible, amazing… just wow holy shit my god factor of the footage myself, Moriarty and, in a truncated form, a lucky few at the Lincoln Center saw the other day. I don’t know if I even saw what I saw; I keep finding myself questioning it. "Did I really see that? No no, it couldn’t have been that good. There’s just no possible way that a movie can look like that and feel like that an, in one set piece, invoke emotional reactions like that." A lousy 30 minute presentation and I’m a blithering idiot. At least I’ m not alone.
I’m scared I might over hype it. I’m scared I might sell it as something it’s not. "The next coming of cinema!" "It’s like they filmed God on day six AND seven! You get to see him make a goat!" Well… but you know how you have those ideas about what these kinds of movies should be, how they should look in some perfect world where any effect or performance is possible on film? Seeing the footage it was as if Jackson and Co. had tapped a pipeline into my cerebellum. It’s exactly what I’d always hoped to see and more.
Moriarty did a great job of describing the footage, and the many reports from the Lincoln Center crowd have waxed near poetic about how stunning the imagery is. What impressed me the most, though, and the thing no one seems to have spoken of so far is Jackson’s incredible sense of movement and scope. All the perfect hobbits and fantastical creatures in the world aren’t going to save a movie if the guy behind the camera doesn’t infuse the thing with life. We’ve seen limp fantasy a million times before. Hell, we saw a perfect example of it this year with Tomb Raider.
The Moria sequence in particular blew me away. Jackson structures the thing so smartly, from building the tension to shooting the action. There’s a great sense, before any of the orcs even show up, that the fellowship is in trouble. Once the orcs do show up, though, Jackson does something really interesting; he doesn’t really show them. We get quick glimpses of these ugly, god-awful dark-armored green things swarming around. For a spilt second it’s infuriating. "Dammit show me the good, Jackson!" Then you get a sense of what he’s doing; he’s not only getting your blood pumping to see how the fellowship is going to make it out of the scene, he’s getting your blood pumping to see exactly what these things look like. The shots become more and more revealing but the flow of the thing is never hampered. It’s one big fat kinetic scene, and it’s built masterfully. Add in the fact that everyone’s fighting and/or avoiding a giant cave cg cave troll that, when shooting, wasn’t even there AND the fact that some of this had to be done with forced perspective/CG to make sure that the hobbits stayed hobbit size and Gandalf stayed Gandalf size and man oh man… Willis O’Brien is flipping in his grave. And he’s gotta be smiling. If the muscles and tendons haven’t decomposed yet, that is.
Consider this; Ian McKellen, in every shot, is wearing a doofy robe and pointy hat and walking with a giant stick and he never, NEVER, comes across as campy and you never, NEVER, say to yourself, "My god this is silly." Do you realize how easy it would have been to see this and just loose it? "Oh come on, enough with the hat." But, at least in the scenes we saw, there isn’t a hint (save one bit, check the next paragraph) of camp. That is a major hurdle, and if Jackson and his team have overcome it – and it looks like they have – well, hats off to them. Pointy ones, too.
It’s not all perfect, of course. Hobbiton looks great but Bilbo’s hobbit hole looked a little too perfectly colored, like a cheese shop from Epcot Norway. I’m sure after my 80th viewing of the movie 6 years from now I’ll be eating those words, but first impressions are first impressions. There are two moments that gave me brief pause for worry. One is when Gandalf smacks his head on a chandelier and then the roof of Bilbo’s home, and the second is when Gimli the dwarf shouts to one of the fellowship, "No one tosses a dwarf." Hopefully, when watching the movie in its entirety, the moments won’t play as cheeky, especially the second one. But again, these are merely quick glimpses of the whole shebang; if I had seen "Make my day" or "Get away from her, you bitch" out of context, I’d be pausing for thought too.
Of course, you’re hearing all this from someone whose grandeur bar was set 20 years ago at Condorman, so take it with a grain of salt. A glorious grain of salt forged by the fires of Mount Doom! Sorry…
But really, get ready for something special. Even if the other two hours and fifteen minutes of The Fellowship of the Ring is vomit and shit videos set to The Beach Boy’s "Kokomo," the thing’s still going to be incredible. And I don’t think that’s what Jackson has in store. After all, he got all that out of his system with Bad Taste. Except for The Beach Boys part. Thank God.
John Robie out
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Moriarty Reviews The LOTR Cannes Footage!
