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lotesseI've been watching LotR movie documentaries, and I’m sorry, but I just can’t get with their rationale that what they did to Faramir was in any way necessary. I've tried to see their point, read around, tried to fall in love with the filmic vision of my characters at this narrative point, and pretty much totally failed. Mainly because I think the Henneth Annun chapters of the book have plenty of tension, drama, and anxiety.
Because while Faramir is a decent guy, a good man, he’s still a Man, and that entails a certain amount of Not Getting It. This is what he says to Frodo, when all is revealed: “If you took this thing on yourself, unwilling, at others’ asking, then you have pity and honour to me. And I marvel at you: to keep it hid, and not to use it. You are a new people and a new world to me.” Okay thar, Captain Missing-the-Point, thanks for playing, but no.
Faramir constructs a false dichotomy: either Frodo must be an innocent, unwilling victim of circumstance, or he must he the sort of person who would use the Ring. But of course Frodo is neither. He willingly took up the Ring and the Quest, though he does entirely deserve Faramir’s pity for it. But to my mind, the main tension of these chapters lies is Faramir’s well-meaning, kind-hearted paternalism, in his persistence in seeing the hobbits as weak little things in need of protection and guidance.
Of course, this happens to all four hobbits, and more than once. Pippin only later saves Faramir from Denethor’s crazy because everyone assume him to be too small to take much notice of. More directly to the point, Theoden tries to leave Merry behind when the Rohirrim ride to war. If he’d succeeded in that, how much more grim would the story have been? Only Merry’s act of disobedience stands between Eowyn and death – and who’s to say that the Lord of the Nazgul would have survived the battle without Merry’s intervention?
By Mannish standards, hobbits aren’t worth much. Their strength is not manly strength, nor is their wisdom. They’re good at loving, and at hiding and being silent – but as Boromir demonstrates at the beginning of the Quest with his whole “thief in the night” business, Men don’t really value silence, even when they really should. Hobbits have no part in any sort of warrior ethos. And so, again and again, Men react to them paternalistically, preotecting instead of trusting, though hobbits will ultimately save them all.
In Ithilien, Frodo understands this. From the beginning, he works very hard to maintain authority and keep the upper hand: “’My part in the Company … was appointed to me by Elrond of Imladris himself before the whole Council. On that errand I came into this country, but it is not mine to reveal to any outside the Company. Yet those who claim to oppose the Enemy would do well not to hinder it.’ Frodo’s tone was proud, whatever he felt, and Sam approved of it; but it did not appease Faramir.”
Frodo’s not usually one to so nakedly grasp at authority, but he understands, I think, that he has to do everything he can to establish himself in Faramir’s eyes as something other than a victim.
Because here’s the way I think it could have gone: even after resisting the personal temptation of the Ring, don’t you think Faramir might have taken it for Frodo’s own good? In his eyes, he’s got these exhausted little hobbits, standing at the edge of great terrors. They’re being guided by Gollum and Faramir doesn’t trust Gollum. Of course, neither does Frodo, but being hobbitlike Frodo understands that sometimes the perfect is the enemy fo the good – Gollum is all he has, and so he’ll follow him. But by Faramir’s lights, wouldn’t it make a deal more sense for him to take the Ring away from these two little helpless lambs and deal with it himself, being as he is both Strong and Manly, not to mention Virtuous?
The tension that runs throughout the Ithilien scenes rests on trust and autonomy: does Faramir see Frodo as an equal, and adult, someone who can make his own decisions? Or does he patronize the little guy and distrust him with the fate of the world? Faramir is intelligent and diplomatic and thoughtful – and that acutally could work against Frodo, because the logical action might very well be for Faramir to take on the mission himself. After all, his resources both personal and material are far more extensive.
Faramir with the Ring would, of course, result in disaster, because Faramir is still too politically minded to manage it. Paradoxically, the very qualities in Frodo that would seem to be his weaknesses are those that allow him to succeed in the quest – being small and quiet and sweet, he ultimately does not desire power, and so the Ring has a very hard time twisting him. Because what could it really promise Frodo? Power? What on earth would he do with power, if he were to receive it?
Everything could have been ruined, right then and there. And the moral complexities of Tolkien's Faramir only heighten the tension, because I think some of us may very well doubt Frodo by that point too – Faramir looks awfully shiny and competent. Our uncertainty adds to the confusion, because we don't really know what we want to happen. But ultimately it is Frodo's burden to bear, and his alone, and it's a credit to Faramir's sense that he gets that.
The films' messing up of things galls at me, because those are my absolute favorite chapters of the whole epic. We go from "What's taters?" to "I love him, whether or no," and then on to "do not love the bright sword for its sharpness." Sigh.
Because while Faramir is a decent guy, a good man, he’s still a Man, and that entails a certain amount of Not Getting It. This is what he says to Frodo, when all is revealed: “If you took this thing on yourself, unwilling, at others’ asking, then you have pity and honour to me. And I marvel at you: to keep it hid, and not to use it. You are a new people and a new world to me.” Okay thar, Captain Missing-the-Point, thanks for playing, but no.
Faramir constructs a false dichotomy: either Frodo must be an innocent, unwilling victim of circumstance, or he must he the sort of person who would use the Ring. But of course Frodo is neither. He willingly took up the Ring and the Quest, though he does entirely deserve Faramir’s pity for it. But to my mind, the main tension of these chapters lies is Faramir’s well-meaning, kind-hearted paternalism, in his persistence in seeing the hobbits as weak little things in need of protection and guidance.
Of course, this happens to all four hobbits, and more than once. Pippin only later saves Faramir from Denethor’s crazy because everyone assume him to be too small to take much notice of. More directly to the point, Theoden tries to leave Merry behind when the Rohirrim ride to war. If he’d succeeded in that, how much more grim would the story have been? Only Merry’s act of disobedience stands between Eowyn and death – and who’s to say that the Lord of the Nazgul would have survived the battle without Merry’s intervention?
By Mannish standards, hobbits aren’t worth much. Their strength is not manly strength, nor is their wisdom. They’re good at loving, and at hiding and being silent – but as Boromir demonstrates at the beginning of the Quest with his whole “thief in the night” business, Men don’t really value silence, even when they really should. Hobbits have no part in any sort of warrior ethos. And so, again and again, Men react to them paternalistically, preotecting instead of trusting, though hobbits will ultimately save them all.
In Ithilien, Frodo understands this. From the beginning, he works very hard to maintain authority and keep the upper hand: “’My part in the Company … was appointed to me by Elrond of Imladris himself before the whole Council. On that errand I came into this country, but it is not mine to reveal to any outside the Company. Yet those who claim to oppose the Enemy would do well not to hinder it.’ Frodo’s tone was proud, whatever he felt, and Sam approved of it; but it did not appease Faramir.”
Frodo’s not usually one to so nakedly grasp at authority, but he understands, I think, that he has to do everything he can to establish himself in Faramir’s eyes as something other than a victim.
Because here’s the way I think it could have gone: even after resisting the personal temptation of the Ring, don’t you think Faramir might have taken it for Frodo’s own good? In his eyes, he’s got these exhausted little hobbits, standing at the edge of great terrors. They’re being guided by Gollum and Faramir doesn’t trust Gollum. Of course, neither does Frodo, but being hobbitlike Frodo understands that sometimes the perfect is the enemy fo the good – Gollum is all he has, and so he’ll follow him. But by Faramir’s lights, wouldn’t it make a deal more sense for him to take the Ring away from these two little helpless lambs and deal with it himself, being as he is both Strong and Manly, not to mention Virtuous?
The tension that runs throughout the Ithilien scenes rests on trust and autonomy: does Faramir see Frodo as an equal, and adult, someone who can make his own decisions? Or does he patronize the little guy and distrust him with the fate of the world? Faramir is intelligent and diplomatic and thoughtful – and that acutally could work against Frodo, because the logical action might very well be for Faramir to take on the mission himself. After all, his resources both personal and material are far more extensive.
Faramir with the Ring would, of course, result in disaster, because Faramir is still too politically minded to manage it. Paradoxically, the very qualities in Frodo that would seem to be his weaknesses are those that allow him to succeed in the quest – being small and quiet and sweet, he ultimately does not desire power, and so the Ring has a very hard time twisting him. Because what could it really promise Frodo? Power? What on earth would he do with power, if he were to receive it?
Everything could have been ruined, right then and there. And the moral complexities of Tolkien's Faramir only heighten the tension, because I think some of us may very well doubt Frodo by that point too – Faramir looks awfully shiny and competent. Our uncertainty adds to the confusion, because we don't really know what we want to happen. But ultimately it is Frodo's burden to bear, and his alone, and it's a credit to Faramir's sense that he gets that.
The films' messing up of things galls at me, because those are my absolute favorite chapters of the whole epic. We go from "What's taters?" to "I love him, whether or no," and then on to "do not love the bright sword for its sharpness." Sigh.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-11 06:28 am (UTC)I also loved Faramir in the book. I also spent much of the second movie WTFing. I also watched the documentaries about the making of the movie and said, "What? NO!"
IIRC, PJ's point with that was that no man could resist the siren call of the Ring--but obviously Faramir did in canon, so this means what, Tolkien's a bad writer? Ultimately, I think the Ring is about temptation, and there's no temptation without choice. Faramir's "I would not touch it if I found it lying by the highway" (paraphrasing, here) was a victory where Boromir had unfortunately failed, and highly relevant considering Denethor's favoritism.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-11 03:49 pm (UTC)I wasn't bothered by that element in the movie. It was totally not the book, but in my head this was a different Faramir who just hadn't gotten to that level of wisdom yet so had to learn it through experience because they want to play it out dramatically. But I can totally understand other people not liking the change.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-11 08:31 pm (UTC)From my own personal experience - I never questioned the power of the Ring, not as a little girl, not after I'd grown up. At a certain level, I just don't see this problem that everyone's always talking about.
Azo, magpie, I like your point about the choice to avoid temptation being slightly different than resisting that temptation outright.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-11 09:47 pm (UTC)But yeah, I never really questioned the power of the ring either.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-12 12:47 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-12 12:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-12 01:01 am (UTC)The other thing with LotR is that it's demonstrably been functioning just fine for oh pretty much ages. All these flaws that the movie people found, did they just magically hide for fifty years?
By rushing to judgment, by assuming that these things must just be problems, we miss out on the chance to consider more deeply the author's apparent point and its successes/failures.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-12 01:11 am (UTC)Other changes I think were maybe made for the same reason but I think they were just wrong about it and could have done it the way they did in the book.:-) And then, of course, there are going to be the things that a director's like "This never worked for me--wtf is up with that?" When thousands of people are like...um, worked for me, dude. Don't know what your problem is.
no subject
Date: 2009-06-12 01:42 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-12 12:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-06-12 07:04 am (UTC)This has a huge impact on his interaction with Frodo and Sam, and I think it's why it's so different than anyone else's.
I also had a good deal more to say about this, but it's ridiculously late and I'm going to stop making sense. Thank you for posting this--I agree wholeheartedly and might have more at a later point. :)
no subject
Date: 2009-06-15 09:33 am (UTC)Was it necessary to change the character to add tension? No, I don't think so either. Then I think they could also just have cut a lot of the Faramir stuff - but since they didn't, they might have worked better to find a more book-like tension to the passage, like you suggest. (I wouldn't have had Faramir laugh the Ring off, though, not when it was supposed to be so powerful - but I would have written him as already having made up his mind to resist it.)