Δαφνη Ευτυχια Αρθουρος

I keep sitting down to write a Return of the King review, not being sure where to start because there's So Much There, and putting it off a little longer. Maybe if I throw out bits and pieces at a time ...

I'm accustomed to finding directing either invisible or bad. That is, I'll get to the end of a movie and comment on how good or bad the acting was, or the writing, or how bad the directing was, but I'm not used to leaving a movie thinking, "Wow, that was awesomely directed!

With Return of the King there was good acting. There were brilliant sets and locations. The story ... well there's a reason it's as famous as it is. But as good as the acting was, I walked out thinking about the amazing job Jackson did as director.

There are lots of things Jackson did well. Here's one: as I remarked to silmaril, in the scenes with Gollum, Frodo, and Sam, Gollum was a pretty amazing and effective special effect, and he's a very distinctive character -- you've got this special effect, moving in really unusual and eye-catching ways, speaking in a distinctive and unusual style and exhibiting psychiatric issues dangerous to the other characters -- and it would be very easy for Gollum to steal the scene without meaning to. In fact, it's pretty difficult for Gollum not to become so much the focus of those scenes that the other two characters become mere stage decoration for him, or to wind up being essentially comic. But that doesn't happen. The other two characters are equal to Gollum in how "present" they are in the audience's attention, and the scenes feel balanced. Gollum is an effective character, but not a scene-stealer. A large part of this is, of course, the acting of Wood, Serkis, and Astin, but even so, I see a major dose of the director's hand in making those scenes really work to serve the story instead of letting "awareness of impressive technique" take over and making the story at that point feel like an excuse for showing off the technique. And as Silmaril commented back to me, even another great director failed that particular test recently.

That's just one bit that caught my attention when thinking about the movie a day or so later (at the time all that caught my attention was the story). There are others all over the movie. I'm not used to singing the praises of a director, but Jackson is utterly amazing.