Posted: December 08, 1999 at 02:54:04: by Dave C-Q
: : with all due respect, I can't believe that *that* is your
major
: : complaint, Michael! I know most of your arguments about
: : medieval whatnots and hoosiwhatees, and I agree with a good
: : many of them--partly out of seeing the soundness of your
: : arguments, partly because I don't know any better--but come
on!
: : Even I think you overstate your case a bit too much by being
so
: : self-assured. Your arguments are just that - positions which
: : you've chosen to defend. Other positions - even the
: : medievalists - have quite a bit to add to the mix, and on
some
: : counts they can score a point or two against you. Since
Tolkien
: : never described in detail the socio-economic organization of
: : Middle-earth at the time of the War of the Ring, all
arguments
: : must necessarily be conjecture. So I guess my point is,
please
: : don't let that (of all things) spoil the movies for you.: The most knowledgeable medievalists (including our own Martin)
usually acknowledge that Middle-earth is not a pseudo-medieval
Europe. Their point of view is that Tolkien created a world
similar to that which he would have been familiar with as a
professor of Anglo-Saxon studies at Oxford. But my concern where
the movie displays this detailed medievalist view is that it will
only reinforce the mistaken notion of many fans that Tolkien's
stories are really employing somehow medieval lifestyles and
technologies. They are not. : People lived a certain way in Europe for many thousands of
years: they farmed, raised livestock, wove their own clothes,
took part in what we could call tribal or supertribal
communities, and so forth. These traditions began to change
during the Middle Ages under the influence of the Church, and
that influence is not present in Tolkien's stories. At best only
a protomedieval connection is justifiable in some cases. Yes, of course. My only point was that I was shocked that *that*
was your biggest complaint. From my POV (and others' I would
think), a pretty obscure thing to be worried about. But to each
his own, eh? ;) On the medieval thing, my own feelings are that, while not
medieval, the societies aren't quite pre-fuedal either (well,
Mordor, Khand, and harad might be... being slave societies and
all). In some ways, parts even seem to be *post*-fuedal (e.g.,
the Shire). Tolkien doesn't seem to have been to concerned with
the anthropological possibility of such a society existing. So in
that case, what should a movie dude do? PJ's gotta make it look
like something; he can't use dress from any period, but he also
can't go off and go all avante garde on us either. So he has to
just pick something. And since a good number of fans go with the
medieval thing, and the general public will relate easiest to
that, I think it's an ok choice. If I were doing it, I'd probably
have a mix of dress types--Roman/Greek (subtle), Chinese/Japanese
(even more subtle), medieval europe (more prominent), and
eighteenth/ninteenth century english (most prominent with the
hobbits). But that's me. (And again, when you say the fans are
"mistaken" for thinking ME is medieval/fuedal, I think you go too
far; I would say maybe "misguided" or somesuch. B
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