I have just finished doing something which, believe it or not, I had never done before. Yesterday morning I was struck by the urge to watch all three parts of The Lord Of the rings in one go. It had been an age since I’d watched it last, so I decided that there was no other thing for it than to sit down and watch it. The problem is, all three volumes of the extended edition come to eleven and a half hours long, so in the event I had to split it over two days, and even then I began to worry about neglecting Lyn. While I did enjoy it, and now feell a sense of accomplishment, the fact that I simply could not view it in one go as I would any other mainstream film begs the question, can Lord of The Rings be seen as a film in the conventional sense? Of course, on the one hand it is a piece of mainstream Hollywood cinema, conforming to many of its conventions (including the overuse of introducing reinforcements when any battle seems lost). But on the other hand, this film is not just another part of mainstream post-classical American cinema: when viewed as one text, as I’m sure both Tolkien and Jackson intended, it is too long to be a mere entertainment, or a distraction. Films usually last ninety minutes, at the end of which everyday life resumes. This film demands a special effort to watch: it is too long to be classed as entertainment – it almost demands too much effort and time to be entertaining. Thus it struck me that, given that to condense the plot any more than Jackson did would make a mockery of Tolkien’s book, the old maxim holds true that the lord of the rings is unfilmable. It cannot be translated into film as the word is conventionally used. Remarkable though it is, and, as an adaptation it could have been far worse*, Jackson could not render Tolkien’s work just as an (entertainment) movie: it demanded to be rendered as something more, something special, and that, in my opinion, is what we got. But on the other hand it strikes me, that in a way it ceased to be a pure piece of entertainment in the process; a great story became more of a work of art, in a way changing it’s status to something Jackson might not have intended. After all his intention was to entertain.

*Tolkien purist have reservations about Jackson’s many changes from the original, as do I, but just imagine what a car crash it would have been had Disney got the rights and decided to make a ninety minute version.