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.
