Thirteen Oscar nominations. A soundtrack that just went gold. Four production giants together in one room.
Last Friday, four members of the production of “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Rings” met at Barnes and Noble in New York City for an hour-long question and answer period.
Most of the questions were aimed at and answered by Peter Jackson, a pudgy and hairy little man with large glasses who looks more like a character of the movie rather than its director. The other panelists included Fran Walsh (producer and screenplay), Howard Shore (score), and Christopher Lee (actor as Saruman the White).
The room was also filled with over one hundred people, ranging from die-hard fans to those who only recently picked up the buzz about the film.
One fan, having seen the movie 31 times, had camped out the night before in anticipation of the discussion. Another was decked out in full costume, with a flowing brown skirt, angled arm sleeves, and a corseted vest, creating the perfect picture of a Middle Earth citizen.
Walsh said it was a “scary project” on many levels. With fans anticipating its arrival and ultimately scrutinizing every character and camera angle, with New Line Cinema practically bankrupting itself to fund the filming, and with actors spending 18 months in New Zealand “in the bottom of the world,” the movies had a lot of pressures to deal with, she said.
“We didn’t know what we were getting into,” said Walsh. “As a project to take on, we knew it would be big, but it just became this huge thing.”
With these tensions, the crew had an extra pressure placed upon them in being the only group to ever film three sequential movies at once, creating cinema history as Lee said.
However, the crew is pleased with the result, they said. “When I first saw the cast in their clothes and actually performing the scenes, I realized that the spirit of Tolkien is there on the screen, there’s no question of it at all,” said Lee, who has appeared in about 300 films including The Rings. “I think the casting was absolutely faultless. I as an actor can’t really visualize anybody else playing these parts.”
Critics have also taken notice of the careful casting, plot, and impressive effects of the film, as it has been nominated for 13 Oscar Awards including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Cinematography.
Jackson however, seemed humble about the many nominations and his work. “The nomination is almost as good as winning,” Jackson said. “There’s a status, a prestige of being an Oscar nominee, no one can take that away from us now.”
The movie magic and its hype do not stop there however. Two DVDs of The Fellowship are coming out soon. In August the theatrical version (that which was released in theaters) will be put out, while an extended version will be released around November.
The extended version will showcase more character developments that Jackson and many fans would have liked to see more of, but that were not practical to release in the theatrical version.
Jackson said that at some point they had to start looking at the film from “more of a commercial proposition” rather than including every aspect of the novel in the movie. “We had to look on it as a film at this point and not look from the books perspective,” he said. “You just want to start propelling the audience to the climax of the film.” However, “all that stuff [character and plot development] was shot and we got it” on the DVD he said.
While many DVDs offer extra scenes at the end of the movie, this will incorporate the scenes into the flow of the film. Additionally, 30 extra minutes of musical score will be written for the DVD. Normally, music is simply recycled or doubled up when a movie is extended, Jackson said, but this is the first time that extra music will be specifically written for a DVD.
The soundtrack features some music by Enya, and Shore said, “Tolkien’s languages came back into the score in an opera context.” Because the plot takes place about six or seven thousand years ago, he “wanted a sound of an ancient world, a historical piece.”
In addition to these extended scenes and music, fans can look forward to a three and a half minute teaser for the second Rings movie, “The Two Towers.” Assuming that many fans will revisit the theaters in the last few weeks of its showing, Jackson thought it would “be a great way to thank the fans for all their support if we had a sneak preview” in the theaters.
Beginning March 22, every cinema that is still showing The Fellowship, will replace the last reel with a new one featuring the new teaser. It will not be released on TV and is “just for people that are going to see it on the big screen” and will feature “stuff that you guys wont be expected to see,” said Jackson. In “The Two Towers,” the relationship between Frodo, Sam, and Gollum will be very developed, Jackson said.
One of the hardest things to capture in the next two films, Jackson said, was the entity of Sauron, the evil force in the story with an interesting presence. Jackson said that a filmmaker can present his or her villain or bad guy, but “you’ve never made him a giant flaming eye ball,” as Sauron is. “I have this Monty Python image of this big armored knight coming out and he lifts his visor and there’s just this big eyeball,” Jackson laughed.
With the Oscars, upcoming DVDs and two movies still to be released in the trilogy, fans of “The Lord of the Rings” have a succession of events to look forward to.
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