Film goes where print cannot follow

Books that are made into film are rarely better in that form.  Too often a film races through complex networks of action and relationship, keen to get the story in a straight line and tell just enough of it to make sense.  In some the story resembles a series of ticked boxes as familiar events are assembled like hooks on which to pin the visuals, while the real sentiment is left out.  In others the action and characters are so altered that readers who have loved the books barely recognise their old friends.

The Lord of the Rings trilogy is especially guilty of this latter sin, distorting the Elrond into a jealous father who wants to draw his daughter away from Middle Earth and leave its allied peoples to their terrible fate.  The stately Aragorn becomes lovesick and doubt-ridden, and even Treabeard the Ent withholds his help until he is brought face to face with the destruction of his forest.

But the Lord of the Rings has moments of filmic splendour that manage to transcend even Tolkien’s breathtaking vision.  One such is the moment of despair in The Return of the King when, just before the turning of the tide, all appears lost and hope seems at an end.

Denethor, steward of the city of Gondor and an angry and embittered man, sends his second son Faramir into a hopeless battle to punish him for the death of his more favoured older brother, Boromir.  Sadness and fear accompany the departure of Faramir and his army.  The wizard Gandalf watches in shocked silence while the women of Gondor strew the  men’s steps with flowers.  From this battle none will return save Faramir himself, gravely wounded.

As the army rides out Denethor is shown shut up in his great hall, occupied with peeling red fruits which he does not share with Pippin, the hobbit who has sworn him allegiance.  Instead he orders Pippin to do something that seems tragically inappropriate to the hour: to sing.  Pippin, while Denethor tears at the fruit with his teeth and lets the red juice run down the corners of his mouth, produces a song of melancholy sweetness that becomes the soundscape of the doomed fighters lining up to face the orcs.

The scene ends with Pippin in tears, unable to continue, while Gandalf sits in the courtyard weighed down with foreboding.

As an expression of injustice and despair, it takes some beating.

Against the tide

Every Wednesday my other half and I have a date.  We try and spend time at the local swimming pool to exercise our joints, muscles and lungs and if not actually increase our fitness levels, at least avoid seizing up altogether.

The trouble is, having grown up swimming in the open sea, I had pools.  This is one of the best in our locality, with good changing rooms and large lockers, a normal rectangular pool (no irregular beach) and lanes arranged for the lunchtime crowd.  I’m fine about the swimming, I just hate dragging myself to a pool.

What do I hate so much?  Perhaps it’s the smell of feet which this pool can’t seem to shake off.  Or maybe the fast American pop being pumped out at us, with a thumping beat some swimmers apparently need to keep them in rhythm.

Once I start on the lengths there are always problems with speed.  I have to deal with slow old ladies hogging the intermediate lane and whom I overtake three at a time, and with large men thrashing past me, eating up the lengths, displacing as much water as an ocean liner and making me gulp the pool water.  Much smoother are the sleek women, hatted and goggled, streaking ahead in the fast lane.  One strange bearded man performs the front crawl with paddles strapped to his hands and barely  moving his legs.

I’m sure I seem just as strange to others.  I like to vary my stroke between the sedate breaststroke and energetic backstroke and front crawl.  I also like to do stretches in the buoyancy of the water, dodging the determined length rats between bouts of exercise.

I can take about 20 minutes of this.  Afterwards I will smell chlorine on my hands for the rest of the day.  The best part of the pool, barely visible through my perennially steamed-up goggles, is the large clock telling me it’s time to leave.