Tolkien Week Post 4: The Collection

December 14, 2012December 14, 2012 / LadyGrave / 4 Comments

It’s stiiiiiiill Tolkien Week! And we’ve had our first contributor. 🙂

M.D. Sanchiz wrote a Tolkien Week post over at her very cool blog. Go check it out!

If you want to join the fun, here’s how: 1.) Take the Tolkien Week banner and place it at the beginning of a blog post. 2.) Link to gracemakley.com (because I made the banner and that’s good manners). 3.) Write a post about anything related to Tolkien (how did you first discover the books? What is your favorite movie interpretation? Any scenes or lines from the book that you find especially meaningful? Do you have a rad Tolkien collection you’d like to show off? Who’s your favorite Tolkien illustrator?). 4.) Let me know about your post by commenting here, and I will happily link to you as part of the Tolkien Week festivities.

My previous Tolkien Week Posts have been: The Hobbit (1977), The Return of the King (1980), and Unsung Illustrators.

The Collection

What better time than Tolkien week to celebrate all the Tolkien things I’ve managed to collect over the years? Here’s the collection. I mostly did a sweep of nearby shelves, without digging too deeply—I could have beefed it up significantly with all the movie posters, but most of them are rolled up in the closet. And yes, that is an official Glamdring replica sword, which usually hangs on a very pretty display plaque on the wall.

Feel free to grab the Tolkien Week banner and share your own collection—or anything else you want to share about Tolkien. I’m running Tolkien week through Sunday, so you still have plenty of time.

Cheers!

Tolkien Week Post 3: Unsung Illustrators

December 13, 2012December 13, 2012 / LadyGrave / 2 Comments

Sorry for the delay, folks. We’ll get back to Animated Tolkien tomorrow (there are still the virtues of the Bakshi LOTR to extoll, after all) but tonight will be a short post. To those of you on your way out to see The Hobbit midnight premiere, I wish you luck and godspeed. Also, don’t discuss any of the details with it within my hearing, if you can help it. I’m going to see it by the end of the weekend, but it’s a busy weekend in the Makley household and we’re still figuring out our plans.

If you want to participate in Tolkien Week (it’s on through Sunday, as far as I’m concerned) here’s how: 1.) Take the Tolkien Week banner and place it at the beginning of a blog post. 2.) Link to gracemakley.com (because I made the banner and that’s good manners). 3.) Write a post about anything related to Tolkien (how did you first discover the books? What is your favorite movie interpretation? Any scenes or lines from the book that you find especially meaningful? Do you have a rad Tolkien collection you’d like to show off? Who’s your favorite Tolkien illustrator?). 4.) Let me know about your post by commenting here, and I will happily link to you as part of the Tolkien Week festivities.

Unsung Illustrators

We all know about Alan Lee and John Howe. We’ve seen their artwork on the DVD cases and in the movies themselves. We’ve bought the LOTR sketchbook, and the How to Paint Like John Howe book (not its real title). We’ve watched all the DVD extended features, and we’re intimately familiar with Alan Lee’s crooked teeth and John Howe’s magnificent beard. We’ve watched them sketching in Hobbiton, seen John Howe trying on armor, sighed over their artwork, and wondered what it takes to bring that amount of vision and artistry to life. We love them to pieces. But they aren’t the only ones.

Jenny Dolfen

YOU CAN FOLLOW HER ON WORDPRESS!! http://goldseven.wordpress.com/

Love, love, love her elves and all her work from the Silmarillion. You can find a lot of it by clicking on the Tolkien button under galleries. My favorite doesn’t seem to be there, I found it at The Tolkien Gateway and am posting it below (source: http://tolkiengateway.net/wiki/File:Jenny_Dolfen_-_Nirnaeth_Arnoediad_-_Unnumbered_Tears.jpg)

Jenny Dolfen

Nirnaeth Arnoediad – Unnumbered Tears

I love sad and beautiful things, and she handles watercolors so well.

Donato

I only discovered this artist the other day because another artist I follow on Facebook posted this link to a really cool and detailed portrait he did of Tolkien, the man himself: http://www.donatoart.com/gallery/jrrtolkien.html

Here’s the link to his full Tolkien gallery: http://www.donatoart.com/middleearth.html

His hobbits don’t quite look like hobbits to me, but he’s got some really cool interpretations of key scenes, and I like his portraits of the human characters. I especially love the colors, composition, and staging of “Eowyn and the Lord of the Nazgul”

39″ x 34″ oil on panel
© 2010 Donato Giancola
collection of Greg Obaugh

Source: http://www.donatoart.com/middleearth/eowynandnazgul.html

And that’s all I’ve got tonight—time to finish this margarita and go to bed. Who’s your favorite Tolkien illustrator? And do you have any elaborate plans for seeing The Hobbit this weekend?

-Grace out

Tolkien Week Day Two: The Return of the King (1980)

December 11, 2012December 11, 2012 / LadyGrave / 4 Comments

It’s still Tolkien week! Here’s how to play: 1.) Take the Tolkien Week banner and place it at the beginning of a blog post. 2.) Link to gracemakley.com (because I made the banner and that’s good manners). 3.) Write a post about anything related to Tolkien (how did you first discover the books? What is your favorite movie interpretation? Any scenes or lines from the book that you find especially meaningful? Do you have a rad Tolkien collection you’d like to show off? Who’s your favorite Tolkien illustrator?). 4.) Let me know about your post by commenting here, and I will happily link to you as part of the Tolkien Week festivities.

The Return of the King (1980)

In case you missed it, yesterday’s post was about the 1977 animated version of The Hobbit by Rankin and Bass.

We’re gonna stick with Rankin and Bass for another day. They made The Hobbit, it was great, lots of people liked it, even if the wood-elves looked like ogres (seriously). Then, in 1978, Ralph Bakshi makes his animated version of The Lord of the Rings (which we’ll discuss in a day or two). But this movie ends at Helm’s Deep, not even all the way through the second book of the Trilogy. Enter Rankin and Bass to save the day! In 1980, they released The Return of the King, a movie that steps in roughly where Bakshi’s The Lord of the Rings leaves off. Remember how I said The Hobbit is an animated children’s movie with a great soundtrack? Well, they tried to do the same thing with The Return of the King. The obvious problem here is that, unlike The Hobbit, The Return of the King isn’t actually a children’s story. The result of this awkward combo (serious plot + singing orcs?) is entirely laughable.

And that’s what you should do. You should laugh, and keep laughing. Don’t cringe or cry, because what’s the point? And if you laugh long enough, you might work your way around to finding some real delight in the ridiculous sincerity of this lovely little film.

For examples, you may return to the same playlist I linked to yesterday, this time with animation included. I once found this entire film on youtube, but those days have passed (the days have gone down in the West behind the hills and into shadow…) The last time I watched it was more than a year ago, when a gentleman I was seeing managed to procure it for us via internet download. It’s probably high-time I purchase an old VHS copy or something. Anyway, by far the most representative track is ‘Where There’s a Whip There’s a Way‘. What is it about this song? It must be that disbelief, that, “Wait, is this really happening?” feeling you get when you’re following Frodo and Sam through Mordor and suddenly there’s a chorus-line of orcs. The funny this is that the lyrics are even inspired by the book. “Where there’s a whip there’s a will, my slugs,” says the orc slave driver (Lord of the Rings page 941). It’s a catchy tune, and its placement (and very existence) is hilarious. It’s one of those things that, any time you encounter another person who knows what you’re talking about, the two of you simply can’t help breaking into a rousing rendition, complete with whip sound effects. Basically this song, which is sort of an abomination, is also a beautiful thing, and the world would be just a little less fun without it.

I genuinely like all the music in this movie. It opens with Glenn Yarbrough’s rendition of ‘Frodo of the Nine Fingers and the Ring of Doom‘—another nod to the book; in the chapter The Fields of Cormallen when the quest is completed, a minstrel of Gondor begs leave to sing and says, “I will sing to you of Frodo of the Nine Fingers and the Ring of Doom” (Lord of the Rings page 965).

I’m running out of time for deep analysis and would like to post this before the day gets any older, but both ‘The Bearer of the Ring’ and ‘The Towers of the Teeth’ are songs with some real foreboding in them. Amongst all the silliness, there’s something in them that catches at the heart.

That’s all we have time for today. More Tolkien topics to come—please stay tuned! And if you have anything to say on any Tolkien-related matter, please use my banner and join the Tolkien-week festivities (details at the top of this post).

Has anyone else seen the 1980 Return of the King? I’d love to hear from you in the comments, whether you share my delight in the movie or find it too silly to take.

Tolkien Week Day 1: The Hobbit (1977)

December 10, 2012December 10, 2012 / LadyGrave / 6 Comments

I tried to do a single post on the merits of animated Tolkien films, but it got away from me. Instead, to celebrate the release of the first new Hobbit movie on Friday, we are going to do a whole week of Tolkien posts. Participation is encouraged! If you feel inspired to do a Tolkien post this week, let me know and I will link to it here. You may also use my Tolkien Week banner, if you’d like. If you do, just be sure to link back here. And if Tolkien isn’t your thing, never fear—regular blog posts will resume next week.

The Hobbit (1977)

Does anyone remember this film? It’s by Rankin and Bass, who are also responsible for The Last Unicorn and the animated version of The Return of the King (which we’ll get to in a day or two.)

I find this film entirely charming. Go into it with the proper expectations (it is an ANIMATED CHILDREN’S MOVIE) and you will find a beautiful little film that hits at the heart of The Hobbit story. I confess I haven’t actually seen it for a number of years, but one of its most valuable and enchanting elements is the music, performed by folk singer Glenn Yarbrough. I found a youtube playlist of the entire soundtrack, which has only ever been released on LP. Go check it out!

(It should be noted that this playlist goes directly into songs from The Last Unicorn and The Return of the King.)

Almost all of these songs feature Tolkien’s actual lyrics from the books. My father read The Hobbit out loud to my brother and me when I was very, very young—and when he read the book, he sang the songs to the tunes from this movie. For me, the songs on this playlist ARE the songs from the book. This version of Over The Misty Mountains Cold, especially, encapsulates much of the utter magic that the works of Tolkien seemed to me during my childhood. Here’s the track (the Misty Mountains song is preceded by the song the dwarves sing to tease Bilbo as they clean up after their meal): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4TysZL6YiA&list=PLC00BB6EBF33B103C&index=7

Listen to this track all the way through, and you will also encounter John Huston’s voice as Gandalf, reciting directly from the book the story of Smaug and the Lonely Mountain. I have no complaints about Ian McKellan’s Gandalf whatsoever, but the timbre of John Huston’s voice is so rich here, and so transporting.

(As an addendum, I have some reservations about the upcoming Hobbit movie, but the performance of Misty Mountains from the first trailer is one of the things that gives me hope.)

There is also a song on this sountrack that never made it to the movie: Old Fat Spider. It’s a pretty loose adaptation of the song from the books that Bilbo sings at the spiders in Mirkwood, but I find it rather delightful. Something about the pacing; it feels like Yarbrough might be slightly out of breath and running away from spiders as he sings. There is also something very satisfying about the sung lyrics, “Attercop! Oh Attercop!” I always figured the Attercop insult was a bit of nonsense, but trust Tolkien to do better than that: it’s actually from an Old English word for spider, and it still survives in the Yorkshire dialect today: http://www.worldwidewords.org/weirdwords/ww-att1.htm

All in all, I think this old movie is an excellent adaptation of The Hobbit, and it shouldn’t be completely discounted just because there’s a shiny new film on the loose. Even the song lyrics that don’t come from the book at all, like those of The Greatest Adventure (Track 1), seem to capture the heart of the story; of what it is to be a small person who suddenly discovers he is capable of great things after all.

The greatest adventure is what lies ahead,
Today and tomorrow are yet to be said.
The chances, the changes, are all yours to make.
The mold of your life is in your hands to break.