In this 50-minute lecture at at Swarthmore College, Professor Tom Shippey, the author of J.R.R. Tolkien, Author of the Century, charts the creative reshaping of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings into Peter Jackson’s award-winning trilogy of films.
Or, as he puts it:
Is the overall effect of the movies different from the overall effect of the books? And, next: how far is this an inevitable result of different media? and next, how much of it is a result of deliberate editorial or scriptwriter decision?
Interesting questions to ponder.
Professor Shippey’s talk — which is, I think, quite excellent — charts the creative reshaping of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings into Peter Jackson’s award-winning trilogy of films, and whether (and how) the medium affects the message. You’ll probably recall that Shippey was the literary consultant to Jackson and the actors as they worked on the films.
