[Spoilers] The Hobbit: Second impressions

So it took me a day longer than expected, but I saw the 2-D version today, and I had a much better time during the film than I did on Thursday. Much of this I attribute to (as Sloan mentioned) not being worried that my kid had the lead and might mess up badly — or that he might appear and I might miss a crucial second. I think that the way I’ve been watching Richard Armitage all this time has really conditioned me to an unusual level of visual alertness and corresponding physical tension.

It’s so cool to Armitage’s name all by itself on the screen. Really cool.

However, and here I’m being heretical (sorry, Mr. Jackson; sorry, Mr. Armitage, who defended him) I do not believe that anything hugely significant about this film is lost to anyone who sees it “only” in 2D. The movie screen is important; this film will not be as impressive on a television screen unless it is a very large one. But the 2D version is also beautiful and shows Middle Earth wonderfully. And, although it may be because I now had an idea of where to direct my eyes, I caught a lot more detail in the action scenes this time around.

I liked Martin Freeman slightly better, the conference between Elrond, Galadriel, Saruman and Gandalf at Rivendell much less, and the preaching between Gandalf and Galadriel not at all. I got a better idea of some the dwarves who’d gone under in the melee the previous time, especially Jed Brophy, who has a really interesting face.

And, of course, I had a better impression of Richard Armitage. I see what people are saying who were noting that they feel like the dwarf prosthetics slowed his forehead way down. I think that’s essentially true. But I stand by remarks about his eyes — they’re really amazing and they do an incredible amount. This time, I got tears in my eyes in the scene where Azog almost kills Thorin. I also saw the moment Armitage was referring to when he said that there was a second where all the pieces fall together for Thorin when Gandalf gives him the key — it’s very brief, though, but yes, a quite successful moment.

But the biggest gain from this watch was in personal associations. I’m about to take on a big challenge that’s going to occupy a lot of time in my personal life and space on this blog, for the next month and a half, and you may have noticed there’s a new countdown on the righthand margin. The challenge I was worried about in September has materialized — and I am not walking away from it. Partially because it would be unwise to do so, partially because despite all the distance I’ve gained, I don’t feel fully able to leave it. I hope I’ve learned enough to master this. It’s weird how all of these things have coalesced around Richard Armitage, but that’s just the way it is. If there are no coincidences, I will read the signs where I find them. And where Armitage pops up there seem to be few coincidences and many signs. So now I’m searching the movie for clues.

One big theme for me in this viewing was the tension between Thorin’s awareness that success is unlikely and his inability to avoid the path that seems laid out before him once the key and the map were there. He has a tremendous loyalty that applies equally to the patchwork group of companions around him (and his repeated sacrifices to rescue Bilbo despite his opinion of him) and to his own notion of the meaning of his past for his present and future. I’m trying to figure out what Thorin’s loyalty, or inability to let go of, the past means. Should he not have gone on the quest when the path opened up? Should he have gone on the quest in greater awareness of the stumbling blocks that felled his grandfather? The scene where he tells Gandalf he doesn’t want to make for the elves seemed key to me — Gandalf telling him he didn’t give him the objects in order to see him hang onto his old resentments, and Thorin’s rejoinder that the key and map were his — not Gandalf’s. That seems like a tension I’m living on palpably, now. Also Gandalf’s agreement with Thorin that the elves will not want to support the dwarves on their quest — but that they can answer questions. And his point that the elves bear Thorin no ill will, that the ill will is all inside of Thorin.

And at the same time, as this film makes much more clear than the book does — all of this is tied up in the quest to defeat evil. Maybe this is part of why I dislike the sermon at Rivendell so much — because in fact, all of these tiny little people are tied up in the thrall of a great power conflict that is well beyond their ken. Thorin is thinking about the restoration of “his” kingdom and that is more than sufficient — without having to wonder about Sauron in the background, as the filmmaker has (as some critics have noted, to the detriment of the film). I know myself that the question can’t be too big, the horizon can’t be too far — or I will fail. Thorin feels ready to face his destruction — he doesn’t seem to think that what he’s built in the interval is weighty against the restoration of his kingdom. But as meager as what I’ve built seems to me — a better self-awareness, a capacity to know when to stop, an enjoyment of writing and flow, and the renewed capacity to desire and to feel love — I am so scared of giving these things up.

It was interesting to me that the scene where this picture appears is one where Thorin is almost completely out of control — with Gandalf and Thorin’s nephew taking charge. Armitage acting is showing flow, but the character he’s portraying is chiefly experiencing threat, desperation, failure, being trapped.

What should Thorin’s attitude toward the elves have been?

People who are especially good with metaphor are enjoined to help me figure this out (and not just in this post). What is Thorin telling me? What is this story telling me?

~ by Servetus on December 16, 2012.