Lord of the Rings (1971, directed by Bo Hansson)
The miniseries Sagan om Ringen consists of two fourteen-minute episodes that appeared on Swedish TV channel SVT1. A narrator talks continuously during the twenty-eight minutes, while actors perform against painted backgrounds. While the actors are seen talking, the narrator says all their lines. The effect resembles one of those history docudramas shown in school where actors pantomime their performances on sets while the narration fills in the important details.
Since the miniseries’ total running length is just under half an hour, it can’t tell the full story of Lord of the Rings. Rather than taking Gene Dietch’s approach in The Hobbit (boiling the story down until things become unrecognizable), the miniseries covers a little over one half of The Fellowship of the Ring. It begins with Bilbo’s party, and ends with the Fellowship leaving Rivendell to destroy the ring. For reasons unclear, the ring prop is the size of a large soup bowl.
The narration approach means there are few conversation scenes and events move at a quick pace. At the same time, the script takes time for little moments. Bits of dialogue straight from the book—Gandalf sharing the ring’s history, Frodo and his friends meeting wood elves, Gandalf sharing how he got Shadowfax—are reused without much trimming. The story also takes time to include a dance sequence when the wood elves are camping out with Frodo. The Tom Bombadil material appears (although minus the second adventure with the Barrow-Wights). In other words, this miniseries includes, and even slows down, for scenes that most versions omit.
The choice to cover little incidental scenes (dancing elves, etc.) that don’t move the plot forward may indicate a poor script. However, it shows a key dilemma with translating Tolkien’s work to a new medium. Tolkien didn’t just write a huge story; he wrote a huge story where he seemed equally invested in the little things—the offhand references to past events, Frodo’s years of waiting in the Shire, the traveling scenes, the elves’ songs—as he was in the broad character arc.
Since Tolkien displays equal care for the little picture and the big picture, he’s particularly hard to adapt. Some fantasy authors like J.K. Rowling give their fantasy worlds depth while keeping the plot in the foreground. No readers complain that she spends too much explaining how the wizard bank of Gringotts works, or devotes too many pages to Harry’s traveling time on the Hogwarts train. Tolkien wrote stories where the plot, the secondary details, and the backstory each feel loved and important.
Screenwriter William Goldman suggested a key rule with revising a screenplay is that making changes are fine, provided the changes aren’t “altering the spine” of the story (Five Screenplays 475). He was speaking primarily about original screenplays, but the same point applies to adaptations: either the original story’s spine must remain intact, or the filmmakers must create an entirely new spine. Well-made adaptations that follow the book do the former. Tolkien’s writing style (coupled with the fact he wrote very long books) makes it particularly difficult to accomplish this task.
He would likely have said all the story was spine.
Come back next week for part 3, a look at the Rankin-Bass adaptation of The Hobbit.