12.00-24.00 I watch the Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers with the consequence that the greater part of the day was filled with serious intense application and for light relief I had my evening meal accompanied by T Rex- Marc Bolam in a Top of the Pops special, and then rather than watch the cricket I turned to Little Miss Sunshine, which was featured on the Devil Wears Prada film and which in turn gets the long trailer treatment on Little Miss Sunshine. I am back to the cricket and amazingly Sky decided to show a little film about Cricket in England later this summer and decided to play the highlights are being shown against the Hair number Let the Sun Shine In which is even more amazing because less than fifteen minutes beforehand I decided to reorganise my writing of the day under the same title. The experience of the day, only half way through its twenty four hours, confirms it is possible to move between contrasting emotions very quickly. From a foreboding that darkness was inevitable to belief I would find my way out of the valley up to a spectacular viewpoint.
.
16. 30 The experience of watching the Two Towers is complete. A cup of tea and a tomato, some basic project work and I put on the actor’s commentary, which I can listen while continue working, looking at the screen if what they say is of interest. The commentary is designed for fans whereas the other three will be of direct value to the student and professional film maker. My overall reaction to the film today is no different from that experienced in theatre and when viewing the original two disk version. There is the overall sense of darkness descending over the earth, of loss, of things never being the same. Goodbye childhood hullo reality. In some ways I suspect the original two film approach may have achieved a better balance because sense of doom and darkness throughout The Two Towers is not relieved by the victories or the moments of humour. It is also a more difficult film to understand by those who have not seen the Fellowship or read the book and digested the story line. While the main story of Frodo’s struggle to take the ring back to Mordor for its destruction is kept to the foreground, there are a number of sub plots and interactions which command attention and the emotions, with only a few lighter moment introduced by Merry and Pippin as they are shown to grow up as they realise that although the inclination is to take flight, back to the security of their homeland, if they do not fight, there will be no homeland to go back to. But I am ahead of myself.
17.30 Earlier I discover that Wikipedia has a whole manual of film making and script writing and this leads me into rethinking how I will write about my birth and care mothers, returning tot eh original conception in which I try to find out how others saw her saw her, how she is likely to have viewed me, together with something of her life in Gibraltar and her family roots. Do we ever get to know and understand our parents until they are dead?
18.15 I am lost in thought and in sleep. It has become that kind of day but at least the garage door worked when I went to bring the wheelie bin back inside, having strong doubts that it would after this morning’s experience. My typing is much rougher than usual. The Two Towers begins with a flashback to the moment in the previous film when it looks as if Gandalf the wizard has perished as he is whipped off the narrow bridgehead by the fiery monster of the depths, as he bids the rest of the fellowship to make their escape. Later in the film we find that he has not only survived but has become Gandalf the White instead of Gandalf the grey and becoming the leader of the order the wizards that he had anticipated Saruman to have been before he joined forces with the Dark Lord owner of the Ring with both beings occupying dominating towers with all seeing eyes and empowering prenuclear energies at their pinnacles creating The Twin Towers of the fires of Hell, and spiritual darkness. We are then quickly introduced to Gollum, the former Hobbit , Sméagol as he finds Sam and Frodo on their journey across the mountains and ravines in the journey towards Mordor. I know now, but not when I first saw the films that the technology was developed to film every separate body movement of the Gollum playing actor so that while the cinematic creature is smaller, impish and more wiry, his movements are those of actor, as is his voice. It is soon after they meet that Frodo explains to Sam why he wants to keep and use Gollum, because of the hope that it is possible to return to normality after being possessed by the ring. If there is no hope for Gollum then there is no hope for Frodo. It is this hope that enables those who fall deeply into the abyss to believe they can survive however impossible their circumstances have become. That redemption is possible appears to be one the fundamentals of the film.
19,30 I make an omelette for my meal of the day, using small chunks of ham cut from a small pre cooked joint purchased yesterday evening. I watch a special programme of Top of the Pops appearance of T Rex, Marc Bolam. I have a CD of all his successful records with the Children of the Revolution a favourite together with Teenage Dream and Get it on. His unique look and voice were quintessential symbols of flower power psychedelica although later he was part of the Glam response to punk and hard rock. Like me but a decade later in terms of respective experiences he was drawn to the coffee bars of Soho. I once cleared the tables and kept the sugar containers full doing stand in shifts before doing the long stretch. It is ironic that never learning to drive, despite owning cars and with a fear of crashing he died at the age of 30, a short distance away from his home. hitting a tree in a car driver by his lover, a backing singer, on their way back from a restaurant in Berkeley Square where I had spent a month on sales training course run by British Olivetti in 1959. Neither wore seat belts and the trees has. become something of a shrine for his fans. His marriage had ended by then leaving a widow and a son.
20.00 Meanwhile we move into the Kingdom of Rohan where Saruman’s forces are already creating a terror with the objective of destroying all opposing life. Two children are sent away by their mother towards the mountain top stronghold of their king and we, the audience, fear she will not see them again. This is the time for self sacrifice as it is always for the just and righteous in the time of war, especially when the enemy is at the door. Pippin and Merry, prisoners of the Orcs, are being taken to Saruman’s stronghold because their leader believes they know the location of the Ring, but they are nearly killed and eaten when the Orcs rebel. They are being followed by Gimli, Legolas and Aragorn, three against many. And the King of Rohan? He has become a feeble shell of his former self taken possession by Saruman with the help of his steward Grima Wormtongue whose features have links with those of Gollum. Wormtongue coverts the ward of the King who is fearful at what is befall them all as King’s son has been banished for opposing Saruman, Grima and what has happened to his father. This son leads a small band who destroy the Orcs as they are about to eat Pippin and Merry, who in turn manage to escape to Fangorn Forest where they encounter the Ents, tree like creatures with the oldest Treebeard who has been put on his guard to look out for them by the renewed Gandalf. The remainder of the Fellowship then run into the King’s son who give the impression that Pippin and Merry must be dead. Frodo, Sam and Gollum then go through the dead marshes where Tolkien is said to have tried to recapture his experiences of the trenches in World War One when men drowned in the mud their eyes looking up into you as you came across their faces emerging from the brown grunge. The film moves to Fangorn Forrest where the new Gandalf rejoins Aragon, Gimli and Legolas and then explains about the threat to Rohan and the need to try and stop Saruman’s and Grima’s influence on the King. Frodo and co reach the Black Gates of Mordor and realise they cannot progress that way. The film then appears to have a break from the gloom as Pippin and Merry enjoy life in the forest and attempt to persuade the Ents join in the fight while Gandalf and Aragon rescue the King and banish Grima. However the sense of winning is short lived as the Ents who have existed for hundreds of years and who have seen it all happen before decline the intervention to intervene, and the King decided to move his people to an impregnable fortress built into the side of a mountain except that Grima has reached Saruman and we learn that there is way through the defences and an army of ten thousand has to be resisted with a force of 300 mainly old men and young men who are children at heart and in body. How many Spartans were there?
22.00 Last week I when I watched the Devil wears Prada there was a trailer for Academy award winning film Little Miss Sunshine which I have wanted to see for sometime and it was a pleasant surprise when the film was included in those sent to me on return. It is a clever, witty and serious slice of American family life and the absurdity and potentially dangerous absurdity of aspects of the American Dream. As I cannot think of ways to improve upon the Wikipedia summary of the plot, I reproduce with slight amendment with thanks. Sheryl Hoover is an overworked mother of two, Her brother Frank is a homosexual Proust Scholar living at home with the family after a suicide attempt. Sheryl’s husband is a motivational speaker and life coach who has put his future in the publication of his flawed life plan for success. Her son by the first marriage is a Nietzsche reading teenager who took a vow of silence nine months beforehand until he can accomplish his dream of being a test pilot for the National Airforce and Alan Arkin award winning Oscar best support actor in a male role plays the paternal grandfather who has been evicted from his retirement home for snorting heroin, chasing the ladies and a love of earthy swearing and of soft porn magazines. The couple’s average looking and slightly overweigh weight daughter with glasses wants to become Miss America and has been suddenly awarded a finalist place in the Little Miss Sunshine contest held in California 900 miles away after being the runner up in a state Competition. The combination of you can be a winner if you try father and a supportive follow your dream mother is that the disparate family embark on the journey in their old Volkswagen people carrier which fails in first gear soon after starting and they decide to follow the advice of the mechanic that it can be used to continue their journey if jump started and kept in third or fourth gear. The journey continues the disharmony, the frustrations and unhappiness with their lives. While it is correct, according to Wikipedia, that the failure of a love relationship between the scholar brother and a pupil precipitated the chain of event which lead to his suicide attempt, the major cause is the recognition as a published Proust expert of his intellectual rival who runs off the student object of his desire and who he encounters during the trip. In the film the brother explains to his nephew that an essential aspect of Proustian philosophy is that one only becomes a person of integrity and depth through hardship, suffering and lack of contemporary recognition. This is no consolation to the nephew when he discovers he will be unable to fly jets because of colour blindness. The husband who appears to have given up his paid teaching work to disinterested students in order to become a big time celebrity of his nine point plan learns that there is no interest and therefore no market however good his plan, because he remains unknown, a swipe at all the celebrities who publish their diet plans and how to be a success recipes after they have become internationally known figures and those peddlers of gambling and stock market systems who need punters to make a livelihood. The hard pressed wife feels trapped and cornered having to cope with her brother, who cannot be left on his own even at night, her husband with no future income, her son who says he hates her, and her husband’s father who likes to tell everyone, including her daughter how things really are. He, the grandfather then dies in his sleep and confronted with the bureaucracy involved in securing release of the body for transporting across the state lines, which will mean missing the pageant, the family is persuaded to remove the body and arrange the transportation after they have arrived in time at the hotel for their daughter to be registered as one of the finalists. The makers of the film hired successful child pageant winners to perform in the film, and the bathing costume made to look and walk like adults followed by the singer, dancing, gymnastic talent show competition illustrates that the children are unaware of the sexual and paedophilic undertones of their performances. Unbeknown to the family, grandfather has shown their daughter a new routine to the tune of Rick James Super Freak, a burlesque routine with frilly knickers which incurs the wrath of the organisers and the mums, underling their blindness to what they are doing to their daughters. The one exception appears to be a male watcher who appears to be on his own. The film has a good and enjoyable ending. I say this because the DVD includes the four other endings considered including running off with a trophy several times the size of the daughter. The film cost a tenth of the making of the individual Lord of the Rings films, and won awards in several countries and states in addition to as many unsuccessful nominations. The film brings home the risks, however unintentional, parents can place their children, but more importantly the harm that involvement in events like this can cause by promoting false attitudes and beliefs about what makes a good self image and does so more effectively than most serious documentaries because of its charm and its humour. One of the remarkable aspect of the culture of the United States is the ability for self scrutiny and self criticism and to make lots of money out of doing so.
02.15 I go to bed, stagger is a better description and sleep immediately waking over four hours later. I wake again around seven to eight but although a little uncomfortable do to rise and return to sleep, getting up at 08.30. I am encouraged by this change and debate how far it the result of the switch from tea to sugarless coffee, to have a light snack before going to bed if I feel the need, or to keeping a record. So far expressing concern at the gradual increase in weight this Winter has no resulted in the trend being reversed but I have decided to recommence daily weigh which might help control the quantity as well as the content of what I eat. The weather remains bitterly cold. I know I am spending too much time at my desk, but the sense of achieving writing and work targets also contributes to deep and restful periods of sleep.
09.40 coffee time but do the washing first and after the hot drink I will get myself up although driven to complete the writing of The Two Towers, but knowing that my work supplies order could arrive at any time during the day have received the on its way notices. I have achieved a run of 85 winning games of level one chess and know that unless I resist the temptation to rush onwards I will crash out again in the 90’s as twice previously since the last instance of reaching 101. I reach 89 games, send a text and go for my wash and to remake the bed.
The creation of Middle Earth the first appendix DVD begins with the relationship between Tolkien and C S Lewis and one of their early agreements was that unable to read works what they would like and therefore decided to try and created their own worlds. There are four aspects of the second part of the Twin Towers which appealed to me. Pippin or Merry, I forget which hit on the idea of persuading Treebeard to drop them off on the other side of Saruman’s tower who when confronted by the vast area of destroyed trees, abandons the usual Ent caution and prolonged reflection to shriek out a call to the trees and the Ents, the guardians of the trees into battle. Saruman has developed the original underground industrial furnace to produce the vast quantity of armour and weapons, destroying a vast area of ancient trees and which appealed to in earlier times given my William Morris, anti industrialization back to nature period, until I came to understand the nature of human beingness and its inevitable progression of choice between the constructive harnessing of invention and discovery and increased power and opportunity for self destruction of everyone and everything. It is of great significance today that I is the forces of nature, the trees symbol of survival through time and the power of water which destroys the industrial creature made world around Saruman’s Tower. The second interest is the way the book and the film especially show understanding, pity and compassion towards Gollum. After all we are shown the Hobbits as mini human beings with all our strengths and weaknesses, the liking for parties with fireworks and for adventures, Pippin and Merry are introduced stealing vegetables from a neighbour and Bilbo’s relatives are after the home which he leaves to Frodo. The ring brings out the worst not only in Man but in any creature, and the only difference between creatures and individuals is their inherent goodness or otherwise. Frodo is serious and good and therefore his struggle against the evil nature of the ring is one he can win, but he needs help and support, while Smeagol who has succumbed remains tormented, a split personality which is dramatically but sensitively portrayed in the film. This reflects the Catholicism of Tolkien echoed by the writers of, brings it to an end with the words of Sam that there is some good in the world. The third aspects is the role of Aragorn as the traveller who has lost his homeland and found love with someone who not only lives geographically distant from wherever he is, but knows that if she is to share his love and his life it will mean she ceases to be eternal and will experience all the horrors and unhappiness of humans, particularly that in normal life one partner will leave the other through death.
The fourth area is also one of relationships rather than epic against the odd battles. This is the relationship of Boromir, who dies at the end of the Fellowship, his brother Faramir and their father, their father the Steward of Condor the other Kingdom of Middle earth and the homeland of Aragorn. It is only in the extended edition that we learn of the relationship between the brother and their father, He sees Boromir as the successful achiever and entrusts to him the task of getting the One Ring to be able to defend Condor against the new rising of the Dark Lord and his empire, hence sending him to Rivendell. He regards Faramir as a failure who has made their situation worse. In the books Faramir is a one dimensional character, but as the acting playing him ..appreciated when he studied the original text, the filmmakers decided to develop him during the film, as they did with several other of Tolkien figures. I identify much with Faramir because he is regarded as weak, a failure and outsider, and in terms of what has happened in his life this is so, yet he persists to prove himself to his father and to himself and thus capturing Frodo and Sam and then Gollum he has the capacity to listen and hear what is said to him, and instead of take the Ring from Frodo to achieve the ultimate recognition for his father, he allows them to continue with the task, even if this also involves the release of Gollum.
.
16. 30 The experience of watching the Two Towers is complete. A cup of tea and a tomato, some basic project work and I put on the actor’s commentary, which I can listen while continue working, looking at the screen if what they say is of interest. The commentary is designed for fans whereas the other three will be of direct value to the student and professional film maker. My overall reaction to the film today is no different from that experienced in theatre and when viewing the original two disk version. There is the overall sense of darkness descending over the earth, of loss, of things never being the same. Goodbye childhood hullo reality. In some ways I suspect the original two film approach may have achieved a better balance because sense of doom and darkness throughout The Two Towers is not relieved by the victories or the moments of humour. It is also a more difficult film to understand by those who have not seen the Fellowship or read the book and digested the story line. While the main story of Frodo’s struggle to take the ring back to Mordor for its destruction is kept to the foreground, there are a number of sub plots and interactions which command attention and the emotions, with only a few lighter moment introduced by Merry and Pippin as they are shown to grow up as they realise that although the inclination is to take flight, back to the security of their homeland, if they do not fight, there will be no homeland to go back to. But I am ahead of myself.
17.30 Earlier I discover that Wikipedia has a whole manual of film making and script writing and this leads me into rethinking how I will write about my birth and care mothers, returning tot eh original conception in which I try to find out how others saw her saw her, how she is likely to have viewed me, together with something of her life in Gibraltar and her family roots. Do we ever get to know and understand our parents until they are dead?
18.15 I am lost in thought and in sleep. It has become that kind of day but at least the garage door worked when I went to bring the wheelie bin back inside, having strong doubts that it would after this morning’s experience. My typing is much rougher than usual. The Two Towers begins with a flashback to the moment in the previous film when it looks as if Gandalf the wizard has perished as he is whipped off the narrow bridgehead by the fiery monster of the depths, as he bids the rest of the fellowship to make their escape. Later in the film we find that he has not only survived but has become Gandalf the White instead of Gandalf the grey and becoming the leader of the order the wizards that he had anticipated Saruman to have been before he joined forces with the Dark Lord owner of the Ring with both beings occupying dominating towers with all seeing eyes and empowering prenuclear energies at their pinnacles creating The Twin Towers of the fires of Hell, and spiritual darkness. We are then quickly introduced to Gollum, the former Hobbit , Sméagol as he finds Sam and Frodo on their journey across the mountains and ravines in the journey towards Mordor. I know now, but not when I first saw the films that the technology was developed to film every separate body movement of the Gollum playing actor so that while the cinematic creature is smaller, impish and more wiry, his movements are those of actor, as is his voice. It is soon after they meet that Frodo explains to Sam why he wants to keep and use Gollum, because of the hope that it is possible to return to normality after being possessed by the ring. If there is no hope for Gollum then there is no hope for Frodo. It is this hope that enables those who fall deeply into the abyss to believe they can survive however impossible their circumstances have become. That redemption is possible appears to be one the fundamentals of the film.
19,30 I make an omelette for my meal of the day, using small chunks of ham cut from a small pre cooked joint purchased yesterday evening. I watch a special programme of Top of the Pops appearance of T Rex, Marc Bolam. I have a CD of all his successful records with the Children of the Revolution a favourite together with Teenage Dream and Get it on. His unique look and voice were quintessential symbols of flower power psychedelica although later he was part of the Glam response to punk and hard rock. Like me but a decade later in terms of respective experiences he was drawn to the coffee bars of Soho. I once cleared the tables and kept the sugar containers full doing stand in shifts before doing the long stretch. It is ironic that never learning to drive, despite owning cars and with a fear of crashing he died at the age of 30, a short distance away from his home. hitting a tree in a car driver by his lover, a backing singer, on their way back from a restaurant in Berkeley Square where I had spent a month on sales training course run by British Olivetti in 1959. Neither wore seat belts and the trees has. become something of a shrine for his fans. His marriage had ended by then leaving a widow and a son.
20.00 Meanwhile we move into the Kingdom of Rohan where Saruman’s forces are already creating a terror with the objective of destroying all opposing life. Two children are sent away by their mother towards the mountain top stronghold of their king and we, the audience, fear she will not see them again. This is the time for self sacrifice as it is always for the just and righteous in the time of war, especially when the enemy is at the door. Pippin and Merry, prisoners of the Orcs, are being taken to Saruman’s stronghold because their leader believes they know the location of the Ring, but they are nearly killed and eaten when the Orcs rebel. They are being followed by Gimli, Legolas and Aragorn, three against many. And the King of Rohan? He has become a feeble shell of his former self taken possession by Saruman with the help of his steward Grima Wormtongue whose features have links with those of Gollum. Wormtongue coverts the ward of the King who is fearful at what is befall them all as King’s son has been banished for opposing Saruman, Grima and what has happened to his father. This son leads a small band who destroy the Orcs as they are about to eat Pippin and Merry, who in turn manage to escape to Fangorn Forest where they encounter the Ents, tree like creatures with the oldest Treebeard who has been put on his guard to look out for them by the renewed Gandalf. The remainder of the Fellowship then run into the King’s son who give the impression that Pippin and Merry must be dead. Frodo, Sam and Gollum then go through the dead marshes where Tolkien is said to have tried to recapture his experiences of the trenches in World War One when men drowned in the mud their eyes looking up into you as you came across their faces emerging from the brown grunge. The film moves to Fangorn Forrest where the new Gandalf rejoins Aragon, Gimli and Legolas and then explains about the threat to Rohan and the need to try and stop Saruman’s and Grima’s influence on the King. Frodo and co reach the Black Gates of Mordor and realise they cannot progress that way. The film then appears to have a break from the gloom as Pippin and Merry enjoy life in the forest and attempt to persuade the Ents join in the fight while Gandalf and Aragon rescue the King and banish Grima. However the sense of winning is short lived as the Ents who have existed for hundreds of years and who have seen it all happen before decline the intervention to intervene, and the King decided to move his people to an impregnable fortress built into the side of a mountain except that Grima has reached Saruman and we learn that there is way through the defences and an army of ten thousand has to be resisted with a force of 300 mainly old men and young men who are children at heart and in body. How many Spartans were there?
22.00 Last week I when I watched the Devil wears Prada there was a trailer for Academy award winning film Little Miss Sunshine which I have wanted to see for sometime and it was a pleasant surprise when the film was included in those sent to me on return. It is a clever, witty and serious slice of American family life and the absurdity and potentially dangerous absurdity of aspects of the American Dream. As I cannot think of ways to improve upon the Wikipedia summary of the plot, I reproduce with slight amendment with thanks. Sheryl Hoover is an overworked mother of two, Her brother Frank is a homosexual Proust Scholar living at home with the family after a suicide attempt. Sheryl’s husband is a motivational speaker and life coach who has put his future in the publication of his flawed life plan for success. Her son by the first marriage is a Nietzsche reading teenager who took a vow of silence nine months beforehand until he can accomplish his dream of being a test pilot for the National Airforce and Alan Arkin award winning Oscar best support actor in a male role plays the paternal grandfather who has been evicted from his retirement home for snorting heroin, chasing the ladies and a love of earthy swearing and of soft porn magazines. The couple’s average looking and slightly overweigh weight daughter with glasses wants to become Miss America and has been suddenly awarded a finalist place in the Little Miss Sunshine contest held in California 900 miles away after being the runner up in a state Competition. The combination of you can be a winner if you try father and a supportive follow your dream mother is that the disparate family embark on the journey in their old Volkswagen people carrier which fails in first gear soon after starting and they decide to follow the advice of the mechanic that it can be used to continue their journey if jump started and kept in third or fourth gear. The journey continues the disharmony, the frustrations and unhappiness with their lives. While it is correct, according to Wikipedia, that the failure of a love relationship between the scholar brother and a pupil precipitated the chain of event which lead to his suicide attempt, the major cause is the recognition as a published Proust expert of his intellectual rival who runs off the student object of his desire and who he encounters during the trip. In the film the brother explains to his nephew that an essential aspect of Proustian philosophy is that one only becomes a person of integrity and depth through hardship, suffering and lack of contemporary recognition. This is no consolation to the nephew when he discovers he will be unable to fly jets because of colour blindness. The husband who appears to have given up his paid teaching work to disinterested students in order to become a big time celebrity of his nine point plan learns that there is no interest and therefore no market however good his plan, because he remains unknown, a swipe at all the celebrities who publish their diet plans and how to be a success recipes after they have become internationally known figures and those peddlers of gambling and stock market systems who need punters to make a livelihood. The hard pressed wife feels trapped and cornered having to cope with her brother, who cannot be left on his own even at night, her husband with no future income, her son who says he hates her, and her husband’s father who likes to tell everyone, including her daughter how things really are. He, the grandfather then dies in his sleep and confronted with the bureaucracy involved in securing release of the body for transporting across the state lines, which will mean missing the pageant, the family is persuaded to remove the body and arrange the transportation after they have arrived in time at the hotel for their daughter to be registered as one of the finalists. The makers of the film hired successful child pageant winners to perform in the film, and the bathing costume made to look and walk like adults followed by the singer, dancing, gymnastic talent show competition illustrates that the children are unaware of the sexual and paedophilic undertones of their performances. Unbeknown to the family, grandfather has shown their daughter a new routine to the tune of Rick James Super Freak, a burlesque routine with frilly knickers which incurs the wrath of the organisers and the mums, underling their blindness to what they are doing to their daughters. The one exception appears to be a male watcher who appears to be on his own. The film has a good and enjoyable ending. I say this because the DVD includes the four other endings considered including running off with a trophy several times the size of the daughter. The film cost a tenth of the making of the individual Lord of the Rings films, and won awards in several countries and states in addition to as many unsuccessful nominations. The film brings home the risks, however unintentional, parents can place their children, but more importantly the harm that involvement in events like this can cause by promoting false attitudes and beliefs about what makes a good self image and does so more effectively than most serious documentaries because of its charm and its humour. One of the remarkable aspect of the culture of the United States is the ability for self scrutiny and self criticism and to make lots of money out of doing so.
02.15 I go to bed, stagger is a better description and sleep immediately waking over four hours later. I wake again around seven to eight but although a little uncomfortable do to rise and return to sleep, getting up at 08.30. I am encouraged by this change and debate how far it the result of the switch from tea to sugarless coffee, to have a light snack before going to bed if I feel the need, or to keeping a record. So far expressing concern at the gradual increase in weight this Winter has no resulted in the trend being reversed but I have decided to recommence daily weigh which might help control the quantity as well as the content of what I eat. The weather remains bitterly cold. I know I am spending too much time at my desk, but the sense of achieving writing and work targets also contributes to deep and restful periods of sleep.
09.40 coffee time but do the washing first and after the hot drink I will get myself up although driven to complete the writing of The Two Towers, but knowing that my work supplies order could arrive at any time during the day have received the on its way notices. I have achieved a run of 85 winning games of level one chess and know that unless I resist the temptation to rush onwards I will crash out again in the 90’s as twice previously since the last instance of reaching 101. I reach 89 games, send a text and go for my wash and to remake the bed.
The creation of Middle Earth the first appendix DVD begins with the relationship between Tolkien and C S Lewis and one of their early agreements was that unable to read works what they would like and therefore decided to try and created their own worlds. There are four aspects of the second part of the Twin Towers which appealed to me. Pippin or Merry, I forget which hit on the idea of persuading Treebeard to drop them off on the other side of Saruman’s tower who when confronted by the vast area of destroyed trees, abandons the usual Ent caution and prolonged reflection to shriek out a call to the trees and the Ents, the guardians of the trees into battle. Saruman has developed the original underground industrial furnace to produce the vast quantity of armour and weapons, destroying a vast area of ancient trees and which appealed to in earlier times given my William Morris, anti industrialization back to nature period, until I came to understand the nature of human beingness and its inevitable progression of choice between the constructive harnessing of invention and discovery and increased power and opportunity for self destruction of everyone and everything. It is of great significance today that I is the forces of nature, the trees symbol of survival through time and the power of water which destroys the industrial creature made world around Saruman’s Tower. The second interest is the way the book and the film especially show understanding, pity and compassion towards Gollum. After all we are shown the Hobbits as mini human beings with all our strengths and weaknesses, the liking for parties with fireworks and for adventures, Pippin and Merry are introduced stealing vegetables from a neighbour and Bilbo’s relatives are after the home which he leaves to Frodo. The ring brings out the worst not only in Man but in any creature, and the only difference between creatures and individuals is their inherent goodness or otherwise. Frodo is serious and good and therefore his struggle against the evil nature of the ring is one he can win, but he needs help and support, while Smeagol who has succumbed remains tormented, a split personality which is dramatically but sensitively portrayed in the film. This reflects the Catholicism of Tolkien echoed by the writers of, brings it to an end with the words of Sam that there is some good in the world. The third aspects is the role of Aragorn as the traveller who has lost his homeland and found love with someone who not only lives geographically distant from wherever he is, but knows that if she is to share his love and his life it will mean she ceases to be eternal and will experience all the horrors and unhappiness of humans, particularly that in normal life one partner will leave the other through death.
The fourth area is also one of relationships rather than epic against the odd battles. This is the relationship of Boromir, who dies at the end of the Fellowship, his brother Faramir and their father, their father the Steward of Condor the other Kingdom of Middle earth and the homeland of Aragorn. It is only in the extended edition that we learn of the relationship between the brother and their father, He sees Boromir as the successful achiever and entrusts to him the task of getting the One Ring to be able to defend Condor against the new rising of the Dark Lord and his empire, hence sending him to Rivendell. He regards Faramir as a failure who has made their situation worse. In the books Faramir is a one dimensional character, but as the acting playing him ..appreciated when he studied the original text, the filmmakers decided to develop him during the film, as they did with several other of Tolkien figures. I identify much with Faramir because he is regarded as weak, a failure and outsider, and in terms of what has happened in his life this is so, yet he persists to prove himself to his father and to himself and thus capturing Frodo and Sam and then Gollum he has the capacity to listen and hear what is said to him, and instead of take the Ring from Frodo to achieve the ultimate recognition for his father, he allows them to continue with the task, even if this also involves the release of Gollum.
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