From: "Miller, Jeffrey" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Reply-To: Killer Bs Discussion <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subject: RE: Return of the King Review Re: my mini review Date: Mon, 5 Jan 2004 11:50:24 -0800
> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Travis Edmunds > Sent: Monday, January 05, 2004 08:18 AM > To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: RE: Return of the King Review Re: my mini review > > > You make some good points. And I tend to agree in a > generalized way. However > my argument lies not in movies as movies, but in books as > movies. For > example, a film that is NOT based on a book (for our purposes > we shall call > it a stand-alone film) can indeed be judged by your gereral criteria. > However, a film that is based on a book must, I repeat must > be scrutinized in relation to that book itself.
Why?
Why you ask? How perfectly sanguine. I could now attempt to roll over your wave with a large one of my own, but it's downright defeatist, and most assuredly impossible. Allow me instead to answer your question with a question of my own:
Do you deny that the story of The Lord Of The Rings is contained in the books themselves?
Coming from an educated art background, there's very little basis for insisting that any single >source is a "true receptacle" of the art, nor any real consensus that derivitave or reinterpretive art >needs to reflect anything other than the secondary artists interpretations of their experience of >the art.
I cannot claim to know as much about art in general as you do. As for art specific, I will meet you eye to eye. Here we are, both sitting at a table with a concept smack dab in the middle of that table staring us down. Like it or not the concept is there. Yet you deny it's existence, whilst viewing it with your own eyes. The artistry of The Lord Of The Rings is undoubtedly open to interpretations from many angles. In fact it is open to an infinite number of interpretations in regard to the reader-writer relationship involved with literature. But that is not of what I speak. I speak simply of the adaptation of a book to a film. It is in that adaptation that of course no real consensus of derivitave or reinterpretive art needs to reflect anything other than the secondary artists interpretations of their experience of the art. However the fact remains that in interpreting this art one must also be faithful to the story. Is this not so? To do otherwise would be impetuously irresponsible. Moreover if the books themselves aren't the true receptacle of the story, and the story is of what I speak, then what is?
<SNIP>
>So, who's right?
-j-
You evade the true essence of this debate. It's not about who's right. It's about what's right. Do not misinterpret me however. I recognize of course that in adapting a book to film, the filmmaker makes his own interpretations, and that in and of itself causes the film to reflect his ideas as well as Tolkiens'. But don't you see? I'm groping for middle ground here, whereas you are taking the side of impossibility. No, there is no master consensus of artistic interpretation, but the story is still the story. If this were not so, then to say that "the movie deviated from the book" would be a falsehood, an impossibility. Whereas we know that it is in fact a truthful possibility.
-Travis "direct yourself at the core of an idea as opposed to the flashy words accompanying it" Edmunds
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