"Literary" Criticism on a Film Scene: Osgiliath

[newleaf31]

For those of you I'm just getting to know, in my not-online life, I'm a biblical scholar. I teach ancient Hebrew and interpretation of the Hebrew Bible to students studying for master's degrees in divinity, and I do original interpretive work on biblical texts. My particular areas of interpretive interest are literary and feminist criticism. I have

Comments

on "tertiary" creation

[ambree40]

Robin, what a glorious post. When I started reading I immediately thought of TG Shaw's site. And when I read on, there it was! I think your, and her, interpretation of this scene are spot-on. You know she did something similar for the Weathertop scene? There we see Frodo's internal battle with the witchking, which has also been so misinterpreted. Reading all this again I was reminded of my thoughts when I first discovered Trudy's site (last year). I was enchanted, very excited to gain a better insight into Frolijah but also quite puzzled. Tolkien writes about his work as "secondary creation", as opposed to "primary creation" in the biblical sense. I have sometimes felt that Trudy might be involved in "tertiary creation" (not that I mind). She may see more than was consciously put into the scene by the actor and the director. I very much doubt that PJ and Elijah actually INTENDED to portray a battle as you/she have just described. From what I've seen, PJ may lack the sensitivity. And Elijah is a very INSTINCTIVE actor (see his remarks

Re: on "tertiary" creation

[newleaf31]

The language of "primary," "secondary," and "tertiary" creation interests me a lot, ambree. I was wondering just yesterday, if Tolkien were alive today, what his opinions on postmodernism in general would be. One of the questions I wrestle with a LOT in what I do is where, in any given work of art or communication, meaning inheres. Does the meaning of a book/poem/movie/actor's performance/whatever come solely or primarily through the artist's intent? I.e., is "the meaning" of a work of art whatever it is that the artist meant to be saying or doing? To what extent does meaning inhere in what the reader/viewer perceives? That is heavily dependent on the different factors the reader/viewer brings to bear on her perception of the art in question -- gender, ethnicity, cultural backgroudn, sexual orientation, economic background, all those different things. (One of my favorite quotes, from Anaïs Nin, speaks to this: "We don't see things as they are; we see things as we are.") Does meaning in art inhere in the space between authorial intent

Re: on "tertiary" creation

[newleaf31]

The reason I tweeted him about it (and left this entry unlocked in case he's ever interested in reading it) is not because I'm fishing for a response -- I don't think there's the slightest chance I'll ever hear from him on it. But I wish, I WISH I could, because it would give me the most amazing insight into how I interpret biblical texts. Here's what I mean. When I take a given text -- let's say Ezekiel 37, the vision of the valley of the dry bones, which is a focal text for my dissertation -- I know from the beginning that I can never access authorial intent. I can try to infer what the author of Ezekiel meant to be doing or saying, but I can never be sure, because he/they have been dead for millennia. So there's only so far that authorial intent can take me in the interpretive process. But at the same time, I make the assumption that everything about the final form of the text was intentional on somebody's part -- the author/authors and/or different editors/redactors meant for the text to say what it says, in the words it employs,

Re: on "tertiary" creation

[ambree40]

“where meaning inheres

[castallia]

I really enjoyed reading this post, and hope to see more criticism on your blog in the future! I have gotten more and more interested in film/literary/art/pop culture criticism of late. In college, I got turned off by some of the more obnoxious, pretentious critics I was forced to read, but I think good criticism, like this, not only explains things clearly, but make the reader want to read or look at the source material with the new insights in mind

[newleaf31]

Thank you, my friend, I appreciate your kind words! I was hoping you would comment. I'm always interested to hear your thoughts! I know what you mean about pretentious criticism -- I think that was all I ever read in college, and it is so unutterably tiresome and pointless. But there's nothing I love to do more than take a text (or in this case, a scene) that I love, but which perhaps contains elements that leave me with question marks, and really sink my teeth into it in order to find out how and why it works the way it does. There's always the danger that breaking something down into its smallest component parts means losing sight of the forest in your quest to understand the twigs on each tree, but if you spend some time with the twigs, if you then step back again, ideally the forest is still visible... it may just look different than it did before

[bellewood]

Oh This is wonderful! I really envy your literary expertise. If this is an example of how you teach, then your students must surely do well.

Thinking about this scene, which i haven't seen in a while, after reading this, i realised something that i had just taken for granted. I never once thought that the Ring had completely taken over. I have always assumed that there was a battle going on in Frodo's head.. a battle that thankfully he won. If i thought about Sam's part in it at all, it was that it was his plea that made the battle all the more desperate.

I wasn't around (the fandom) when the films were released - hadn't seen them, didn't have internet access, ( sad, i know..) so i missed a lot of the discussions that most probably went on at the time. This post is a joy.

*note to self* Check out Trudy's site :)

[newleaf31]

Thank you so much, Belle! I appreciate your taking the time to read it, and I'm grateful for your kind words. :) I love teaching; it's my passion, and there's nothing I'd rather do than equip a student with the tools to read in ways they might not have been able to before

[oxer12]

I always kind of dismissed The Two Towers for quite a long time, and then I started to really watch it and realize how good it is. These scenes (this one and the one where the Nazgul almost gets him) are among my favorites, because of Elijah's facework (for lack of a better term).

I really enjoyed your analysis - you're a great writer. :)