Yesterday afternoon I finished reading From Hobbits to Hollywood, a book of essays looking at Peter Jackson’s film adaptation of The Lord Of The Rings. I would have finished it long before now, but it has been a busy few weeks. It is, however, an excellent collection of essays: as a student of film, I was glad to see this trilogy treated with such a degree of academic rigour rather than being completely ignored. I always said Jackson’s was a remarkable achievement.

Now, as with any collection of essays, some are better than others. However, overall, the quality of these essays was very high. Of course, I was mining the book for material I could use in my never ending Master’s thesis, and I am pleased to say I think there are one or two useful bits. Surprisingly, an essay of the architecture in these films by Steven Woodward and Kostis Kourelis might be the most useful for my purposes, as it explores background details, something which links nicely into Cinephiliac Moments. There is also an essay by Murray Pomerance exploring the dramatic aspects of disappearing in relation to cinema history. Pomerance, who also edited the book, also wrote The Horse Who Drank The Sky, a fascinating text about filmic love. Also noteworthy is Golum as Golem by Tom Gunning, the essay which took me the longest to read: I was not that enthusiastic about it, and I kept getting distracted, but the last few pages proved interesting. It examined the philosophical aspects to CGI, which might also be useful in relation to my thesis.

There are about twenty individual texts in this book; summarising all of them would take far too long. I found most of them quite fascinating even if they were not relevant to my thesis, although it was clear from some that their authors, having been asked to write an essay for this book, had merely watched the films once or twice and dashed off something general.

I’m currently keeping a keen eye on Jackson, the release of the hobbit being only months away. He did a superb job with Lord of the Rings, and my liking for those films has only deepened since reading these essays. That’s why I’m quietly optimistic about the hobbit, although the current rumour that he’s now making three films rather than two seems rather odd. Mind you, I don’t think one should ever underestimate Peter Jackson.