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contours provocations
journal - 2004-0105 - 2000 Readings Was I recently muttering something about balmy weather. Oh, silly me! Today was chilly, then cold, then cold and windy. Last night I finished Pullman's "The Subtle Knife." There is a climatic battle ahead. And if understand what I'm reading, it is a battle between belief and knowledge. Belief being that which is mandated by authority and the church. And knowledge being that which one has managed to wrestle free of belief. There are alternate worlds, predestined lost children, warrior bears, angels, witches, daemons, soul-eating specters. But each encounter feels fresh. At lunch, I read a review of "The Return of the King" from the latest "The New Yorker." It was full of those bits that reviewers use when they want to be perceived as being witty. But may come across as seeming snarky. About halfway through, I found myself asking, "Well, Jesus Christ! Just tell me if you thought it was decent or not!" The author did mention the splendor of the lighting of the beacons aross the mountain tops. This one scene has been spoken of in almost every review I've read. And it surely is one of the magical moments in cinema. I've tried to think of a similar scene elsewhere, but I can't. PAX! journal | archives | home | e-mail |
"I had never fully clocked the subplot of Eowyn ... until she turned up in the movie, clad in a man's armor, and dared to confront the chief of the Nazgul. He hisses that he fears no man, whereupon she whips off her helmet, shakes her tresses, and utters the Shakespearean cry "I am no man," folowing it up with a solid jab on the Naz. I wish Lawrence Olivier were alive to see that. It was he who realized that to film Shakespeare was not enough -- one had to dig up what was filmlike in Shakespeare, to shock his works into becoming the natural flesh of a movie. ... Peter Jackson has not really made a movie of "The Lord of the Rings"; he has sprung clear of it to forge something new. He has drawn a deep breath, and taken the plunge."
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