Re: CHAT: Best/Worst/Missing Scenes in LotR

Patrick Dunn:
> The languages, I thought, were *very* well done.  I happen to know David
> Salo (the fellow who did the trnaslations), and I ripped him that he must
> have taught the actors how to do the pronounciations because they were
> absolutely careful to get that alveolar tap in Mordor.  He didn't; but he
> instructed the speech coaches.
Tolkien himself, even when reading English, is careful to say Morder
as [mo4do4], with taps, though in his readings in general he uses a
lot of taps, some of which are consistent with his generation (in
elocuted or formal speech) and some of which sound to my
ears excruciatingly mannered (& furthermore he haphazardly reintroduces
rhotic Rs to his nonrhotic accent). Irritatingly he reads _a Elbereth_
as [a4el] (as remarked upon in a chapter by I forget who in _An
introduction to Elvish_) -- i.e. he inserts intrusive R and then taps
it, which is something no normal English speaker has ever done, afaik,
outside of Liverpool).

Ian McKellen said in an interview that he modelled Gandalf's voice on
Tolkien's, so I suspect that the taps in actors' _Mordor_ was
influenced by Tolkien's own readings.

But I did very much get the impression that the actors were carefully
coached -- overcareful in some ways. Examples that caught my notice
have fled my memory, but I noticed that when speaking English/Westron
they used [i] in certain Elvish names which would more naturally have
been said with [I] in English speech. This then gave the effect of the
names being pronounced as if in italics -- as foreign forms rather than
as names well-integrated into common speech. -- An error, IMO. Despite
the coaching, some errors were let through (e.g. Gandalf saying CARadhras
in one scene and Saruman saying caRADHras the next). But I have to say
that the respect for the language was a source of pleasure (compare this
to Bakshi LotR which has some attractive animation in parts but is too painful
to watch because of the contemptuous disrespect embodied in the egregious
insufferable mispronunciations of names).

(Off topic indulgence on a topic of common interest:) Overall I agree
with other people's assessments of the film. Given that the film has to
have popular appeal so as to recoup its production costs, there are few
respects in which it could have been better. It is a good two hours too
short and the pacing is far far too fast; the fellowship zips through
Middle Earth like stereotypical Americans on a 5-day tour of Europe. But
perhaps a future director's cut could at least slow the pace.
  The cut I personally regretted the most is the discovery of the fate
of the dwarves of Moria. Some points of interpretation seem a bit too
quirky: orcs scampering up walls in Moria. But the Uruk Hai are fantastic.
  The facility of modern special effects leads to an overuse of helicopter
shots, so that they lose their impact and simply seem dizzying.
  As for what I cannot forgive:
* 'calligraphy' (of roman script, not tengwar) -- miscellaneous abortions
with no aesthetic or palaeographic justification. Tolkien would not have
perpetrated such monstrosities.
* naff cod irish flute music in the shire, evoking your average braveheart-like
hollywoodian epic of the 1990s, and evidencing the usual confusion
of rural England with rural Ireland. This evil is due to some journeyman
called Howard Shore.
* two songs by Enya, who should be prosecuted for crimes against humanity,
for trying to drown us in the treacle vulgarity of synthesizer strings.
One song merely ruins the end credits, but the other is used for the love
scene of Aragorn and Arwen, and literally made me want to puke. It is not
as if there were no alternatives: Emma Kirkby sings like an elf of Lorien,
but not, alas, on the soundtrack of this film.
  These things I cannot forgive because they unnecessarily lower Tolkien
to the justly-contemned travesty of him beloved of treehuggers and the
dungeons and dragons brigade. They are also going to make the film seem
dated in 10 years or so, which is a crying shame, because the book won't
ever be, and nor will great films. -- Alas!

-- elegiacally,

--And.

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