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2 days ago
12
When the autumn mists descend and the trees turn from leafy green to russet brown, some people defrost the Gilmore Girls: I defrost Gimli son of Glóin (and the lads). The world needs saving again and I know just the nine capable sets of hands – well, eight if you discount a fool of a Took – to get it done.
I have a friend who is loth to watch The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring because she feels bad about setting those noble hobbits off on their journey to Mordor again, knowing the peril and horrors that lie ahead of them. Not me. I love to send them off on their quest two, maybe three times a year, and I rarely let them finish it: not because I yearn for the suffering of tiny little guys, but because I put my own comfort above them. With all due respect to mists and mellow fruitfulness, Fellowship is autumn to me: as cosy and comforting as snuggling into a blanket with a hot chocolate.
Most people I know agree that Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy is as close as we will ever get to cinematic perfection. Even on the small screen, the sweeping grandeur of the scenery is breathtaking and the emotional undercurrent that drives every scene pulls you out of your living room and into Middle-Earth. But no one can quite agree on which of the three is the best. Every man I’ve ever been on a date with has put forth passionate arguments for The Two Towers supremacy based mainly on the Battle of Helm’s Deep. My most sensitive friends like Return of the King and the general concept of narrative closure. But I personally don’t think you can beat Fellowship: a bunch of new pals getting together and agreeing to Do the Good and Noble Thing is as close as you can get to a utopian society in my opinion, even if I only ever let them get a third of the way through the mission.
This is key to Fellowship and LOTR as a whole: the lines of good and evil are very clearly drawn. There’s no what-aboutism to contend with. No one’s saying we should get Saruman on Question Time to defend his diabolical deforestation project or going, “I’m not saying that I agree with everything Sauron stands for but he’s got a point about population density.” Your mum isn’t being radicalised by the Ringwraiths on Facebook. You know who the good guys are, you know who the bad guys are. It’s clear what needs to be done to sort out the creeping dark and someone with pure intentions is stepping up to do it.
It’s tempting to say there is no bad time to stick Fellowship on but there is one: at the cinema in 2001 with my parents who have recently split up and palpably detest each other. For some reason that no one has ever quite pinned down since, it was decided that The Solomon Family Unit would reunite every Christmas for The Lord of the Rings: was it because both parents wanted to introduce us to Middle-Earth? Was it a catastrophically mistaken belief that this would bring some normalcy to a very not-normal situation? If we were a family who talked about things, we might find out. Whatever the reason, this very unsettling yet somehow weirdly comforting annual tradition stuck. Even now I feel a glorious thrill of dread due to more than just the rise of Sauron as the harsh whisper of Elvish creeps in and Galadriel starts her opening monologue: “The world is changed.” Lady, it sure is.
You can tell from every frame of this film that the project was a labour of love. Even the most upsetting bits of Fellowship elicit a sort of pleasurable pain, like prodding a mouth ulcer with your tongue. Sometimes I pause it on Gandalf’s face when Frodo says he will take the ring to Mordor just to sit in that feeling for a little longer: a tiny throwaway moment that hits me like a ton of bricks every time. It’s that love that makes all the walking and talking of Fellowship pop. It’s what makes me feel so good when I watch it, even when Boromir’s being decimated by crossbow bolts, when the Fellowship splinters and Gandalf is dead but the quest has to continue regardless, when second breakfast is replaced with an apple. And if you can make me feel good while all that’s happening and I’m sandwiched between my two warring parents: you’ve really done some magic.
