The Hobbit - A Tolkien Midrash

 

A hot dwarf?

My passion for Tolkien is pretty well known to my parishioners - I'm bound to get a chuckle whenever I mention his works. So it's pretty natural for them to ask me my opinion on the first of Three films to adapt The Hobbit.

I'm gonna keep it short and sweet, ignoring the new film technology (which is interesting) and the score (which was awesome) and concentrate on the adaptation of the story.

First of all, the choice to take such a short book and spread it over three movies is interesting. What this indicates is that the studios are so convinced Jackson is going to make buku bucks that they are giving him creative reign to do whatever he wants to tell the story. This is good news. Jackson and his team are excellent story tellers, so it should be a good ride over the three movies.

Second, The text of The Hobbit was one in flux during Tolkien's lifetime. It was his first book written as a children's story, and he revised it after the publication of The Lord of the Rings to bring it into better sync with the rest of his legendarium. In addition, there are additional writings, most notably an appendix in LOTR, that show that Tolkien was constantly re-thinking the material.

While being somewhat lighter in tone than Jackson's LOTR trilogy, it is notably darker than the book, and deserves its PG-13 rating. Instead of being a stand-alone adaptation of the book, it impresses the esthetic of the film trilogy on the text, making it more of a prequel. Jackson and his writing team freely adapt Tolkien's additional materials and come up with text of their own, weaving a meta-story around the original text. In effect, they manage to create one vision of what Tolkien might have done had he continued to revise the text to bring it into line with his mythology. It's simultaneously very different from the text, but seems very true to Tolkien's intentions (with some notable exceptions.)

I find this similar to the Jewish tradition of midrash, a method of scriptural interpretation that uses story to explore difficult passages of scripture. Jesus' parables are a prime example of this. If one is looking for an exact adaptation of The Hobbit, you won't find it here. But if you are looking for one that is true to Tolkien's themes and maintains consistency with LOTR, you've found your movie.

Overall, I was extremely happy with this first movie. I'll give my biggest gripe and my biggest cheer (Can't decide which category Radagast would be in, so I'll leave him out).

Biggest gripe: OK people, Pipeweed is TOBACCO! It's stated explicitly in both The Hobbit and LOTR. The continued portrayal of Pipeweed as marijuana is a holdover from the "Frodo Lives" movement from the 60s. Hey people, Tolkien was not a hippy - he was an uber-conservative Roman Catholic with an ecological bent. More of a Teddy Roosevelt than a Timothy Leary.

Biggest cheer: How in the name of Aulë did they manage to make Thorin hot? Dwarves in the book are sometimes comical, sometimes dangerous, but never attractive. But here we have a capable and worthy leader of a nation that makes feminine hearts go a patter. I think Richard Armitage's portrayal is amazing, and his character should give hope to shorter men around the world.

All in all, I really liked this movie. I'll be taking Brendan to see it, and I can't wait to see how much rich depth Jackson and his team pull out in the remaining two movies.

 

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Comments

[Abidinginhope.blogspot.com]

I too was very happy with the film, and also was concerned that they would take such a brief book and possibly somehow bend it all out of shape in the name of commerce. But it was great-- and I was also surprised with the direction they went with the dwarves. Best of all, my son may be the only one of my children who will actually read these books, and I think he liked the film quite a bit.

[Jack Horner]

Just found your blog, I'm liking it.

I'd be interested on you doing a meditation on Radagast, I to was not sure what to think of him.

From a positive spin, They did a great job of accentuating that he was Maiar, and had different concerns than would a man. (A tip toward Tom Bombadil?) Although, I could have happily dispensed with the bird poop.

Also a note on pipeweed = pot, I think that's less "Frodo lives" and more Peter Jackson's personal proclivities.