The Hobbit: Soaring over Middle-Earth

The Hobbit takes us on a new journey through Middle-Earth, decades before the story of The Lord of the Rings. We are reunited with some old, trusted characters and are introduced to a number of new ones. Despite quite some production issues, the film is directed by another trusted character, Peter Jackson and written by Phillipa Boyens and Fran Walsh, with the addition of Guillermo del Toro. The composition of the music was once again entrusted to Howard Shore.

All in all, the story is nicely interwoven with The Lord of the Rings through a shared moment. Bilbo and Frodo are preparing for Bilbo’s one hundred and eleventh birthday as Bilbo decides to write down his adventures in a book, with the intriguing opening: “My Dear Frodo, you asked me once if I had told you everything there was to know about my adventures. While I can honestly say I have told you the truth, I may not have told you all of it…” However, the story takes a long time to gather speed. In an effort to draw us right back into Tolkien’s fantasy world, the film opens with an impressive battle sequence that tells the background story of the dwarves that are soon to appear. I would have liked for the film to have started of differently though, with the joyful wit that is so characteristic of The Hobbit and separates the book from its big brother. That playfulness luckily comes into play when we revisit Hobbiton and the thirteen dwarves start tumbling through Bilbo’s door, figuratively and literally. The strength of the book and of Bilbo as the unlikely hero, lies in the growth of the character from a homebird with childlike qualities to an epic hero without ever losing his charm and humouristic appeal. The filmmakers and actor Martin Freeman succeed in bringing this transformation to the screen, but in my opinion, it would have been more true to the heart of the story and more beneficial to its progress to allow for the film as a whole to develop in a parallel way from the start on. The Riddles in the Dark scene was one of those scenes strongly anticipated by many Tolkien fans and as such also by me. I have to say that I was not disappointed and might even say that the long moment when Bilbo looks into Gollem’s eyes and makes the fundamental choice without which the whole further history that is The Lord of the Rings never could have ended well, is one of those scenes that will stick in my mind forever.

As we visit a lot of the same places we did in The Lord of the Rings, a large part of the music in this film is reminiscent of the existing trilogy at many points. The themes for the Shire and Rivendell have remained the same, with some minor arrangements here and there to keep it fresh and when Galadriel appears we even hear parts of the old Lothlórien theme. The “In Dreams” melody also makes a comeback, but the music that accompanies the dwarves is an entirely new theme, characterised by the use of brass players, translating the robust nature and mighty history of the dwarf folk, but also the nostalgic longing to regain that history into music. This history and sense of longing is very clear in the dwarf song that is integrated in the trailer and consequently in the film. The song is an original poem from Tolkien, as included in the first chapter of his Hobbit book, put to music and a beautiful accolade to the writer’s poetic talents. However, for me, the one scene where music and image reach their full potential has to be the one where we as viewers are soaring through the air together with the mighty giant eagles and the music brings such a calm and peace, as if there are no dark forces and no wars to be fought and there never were.

Laura Van Wymersch

Laura Van Wymersch is 24 years old and studied English & Dutch Linguistics and Cultural Studies at the Catholic University of Leuven. Not only has she been one of the most loyal fans of Lumière, on November 25th, 2012 she was also our guest expert in Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings adaptations. Listen to the interview here.  Laura already wrote a blog about the Lord of the Rings that can be read here.

Lord of the Rings: "the one thing that films can do better than books"

When I first saw the first chapter of The Lord of the Rings in theatres, I was overwhelmed. Overwhelmed and intrigued by a new world that opened up before my eyes and was so extraordinary and complex that I just had to find out more about it. So I dove into every and any Tolkien book I could find, until that world started to take shape inside my head. I became so invested in this “Middle-Earth” and the story of The Lord of the Rings that when I saw the second movie, I was at first bothered by the “mistakes” I saw on the screen. It didn’t take long though before I realised that the changes these filmmakers made were actually no mistakes at all. The adjustments they made were based on a deep understanding of the story and its driving forces and of the medium they were using. They understood that what works in a book, does not necessarily work on film and vice versa, so changes need to be made to ensure that the story doesn’t lose some of its power when translated into a different medium. Peter Jackson, Fran Walsh and Phillipa Boyens, who wrote the screenplay, did exactly that. What is more, they managed to bring into the story some of the material that Tolkien himself would have loved to integrate into his trilogy, but could not find a way or a place to do so. I am talking of course about the love story of Arwen and Aragorn, a story line that much to the writer’s grief was relegated to the appendices at the end of The Lord of the Rings. The three script writers however managed to integrate the epic love between these two characters into the main story in a way that makes it almost impossible to imagine the trilogy without its inclusion. Through all this, they manage to stay true to the characters and to honour the authenticity of the story and the fantastical world, turning what Tolkien himself called an unfilmable book into an Oscar winning film production.

The music of this film trilogy, composed by Howard Shore, plays a big role in the success of these movies and in the bringing to life of Middle-Earth on the big screen. It is said that Shore regarded the scoring of these films as his chance to write an opera. The three acts therefore blend together beautifully, but more importantly, he gave every people of Middle-Earth its own theme and its own sound. For the simple, nature loving Hobbits of the Shire, he chose a wooden flute and a warm, peaceful melody, while he brought the mystical Elves to life with much more ethereal, exotic sounds, produced by instruments that sound very strange to the Western ear, complementing their not-from-this-world appearance. For the Dwarves, he found inspiration in the fact that they are a miner's folk and integrated hammering and very rhythmic male vocals. He also translated Tolkien's disapproval of industrialisation into sound. The overwhelming music that can be heard when diving into the production fires of Isengard is written in the rather unusual 4/5 time, that feels very forced and unnatural, as if it keeps stumbling. It still sounds very threatening though, as it should, since this is where a large part of the destruction of Middle-Earth is forged and bred. The force of the Ents of Fangorn forest however, is also one to be reckoned with. Shore wasn't afraid to experiment with different sounds to find the right companion for Treebeard the Ent and the dark forest he lives in. What he came up with, sounds very earth-like and tree-like, with a lot of wooden percussion instruments calling the tune. On the contrary, the realms of Men, Rohan and Gondor, are given a much more recognisable and “human” sound, with a Norwegian Fiddle as the lead instrument for the Scandinavian inspired Rohirrim and a French horn accompanying the more bombastic Gondorians.

When a number of these people meet in the battle of Helm’s Deep, these different sounds also fight each other. When we see the Elves ready for combat, we hear the same melody that we heard before in Lothlórien, but now in full battle mode. Soon after however, the Uruk-Hai start storming the keep and the unwholesome music of Saruman quickly takes over. This overwhelming piece of music contrasts sharply with some of the other battle scenes throughout the trilogy. For example, when when Faramir and his cavalry storm Osgilliath, the lone voice of a singing Pippin is nearly all that accompanies them. Somehow, this emphasises the madness behind the attack and the tragic end that certainly awaits them down by the river. The music is also used as a tool to differentiate between Gollum’s two sides: a melancholic, sad, pitiful sound for his good side, Sméagol, and a much creepier sound for his bad, manipulative side.

On the one hand, Howard Shore thus succeeded in establishing an emotional link to Middle-Earth through his music, while on the other hand giving depth to the cultures that inhabit this mythical world, in a way that is very close to Tolkien. The writer himself wrote down numerous songs and poems to the pages of his books, but their melody would always merely exist in the heads of the readers. This might be the one thing that films can do better than books and the one thing that Tolkien might have liked about the adaptation of his work. He meant for his work to be an English mythology that would serve as inspiration for artists to create more artistic work and that is exactly the desire that Shore answered to.


Laura Van Wymersch

Laura Van Wymersch is 24 years old and studied English & Dutch Linguistics and Cultural Studies at the Catholic University of Leuven. Not only has she been one of the most loyal fans of Lumière, on November 25th, 2012 she was also our guest expert in Tolkien and the Lord of the Rings adaptations. Listen to the interview here.