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morgan1 and I went to the Lord of the Rings yesterday. It was a long, engaging film and an all out assault on the American bladder.
MST3K Moments:
1) After Smeagol kills for the ring and we find ourselves in the present we learning the gravest danger that the ring poses: Turning hobbits int CGI's! The Horror!
2) Denethor flees the chamber in which he tried to immolate himself and his kid Faramir. Although Faramir was saved from the flames, Denethor goes running out, all on fire, and jumps off a cliff. Thus Gondor launches its first Incendiary Idiot Bomb (IIB) against the forces of Mordor!
There were others, but I've forgotten them now.
Frodo's Tale, The Medieval Mystery Play and Freud's mental model.
It seems to me that Freud's Id, Ego, and Superego, as well as the Morality play model of Bad Angel, Everyman, and Good Angel serve as good models for understanding Frodo's quest and its consequences, though depending upon which model one uses one comes away with a different reading.
The Freudian approach would give us Gollum as Id, Frodo as Ego, and Sam as superego. Ego is forced to mediate between superego and id and make the decisions on behalf of the self. All three components are necessary to go on; the id provides drive, the Superego regulates the impulses of the Id, and the Ego makes turns that dynamic into action.
In the film we see that Frodo becomes stalled whenever he loses Sam or Gollum, so much so that without Sam, he is rendered immobile by the spider, and without Gollum he loses his impetus to climb towards the cracks of doom When the quest is complete, and Gollum dead, he returns to the Shire, but is never really happy again. He completes his book, only because he must, and then, having grown "world weary" without Gollum in the world, he heads west with the elves, as is their custom when they have grown similarly depressed. Indeed the line of Elves marhing to the shore to take ship very nearly puts one in mind of John Boorman Apathetics from Zardoz. It is clear that they have lost interest in the world, and thus leave it.
Looking through the Morality Play filter, however, all of these take on different meanings. Sam becomes Frodo's "Good Angel" and Gollum his "Bad Angel." It is through his struggle with and conquest over the Bad Angel that Frodo is released from the cares of this world and able to ascend to heaven, i.e. travel to the western lands.
I will not argue that one of these readings is more valid than the other; indeed, from a man who was fmiliar with both Freud and the Morality play, I suspect the ambiguity is intentional.
And then I stood up to let people out and the effect of gravity on my bladder negated my plan to watch the credits roll. Morgan learned that Viggo Mortenson did his own singing.
morgan1 and I went to the Lord of the Rings yesterday. It was a long, engaging film and an all out assault on the American bladder. MST3K Moments:
1) After Smeagol kills for the ring and we find ourselves in the present we learning the gravest danger that the ring poses: Turning hobbits int CGI's! The Horror!
2) Denethor flees the chamber in which he tried to immolate himself and his kid Faramir. Although Faramir was saved from the flames, Denethor goes running out, all on fire, and jumps off a cliff. Thus Gondor launches its first Incendiary Idiot Bomb (IIB) against the forces of Mordor!
There were others, but I've forgotten them now.
Frodo's Tale, The Medieval Mystery Play and Freud's mental model.
It seems to me that Freud's Id, Ego, and Superego, as well as the Morality play model of Bad Angel, Everyman, and Good Angel serve as good models for understanding Frodo's quest and its consequences, though depending upon which model one uses one comes away with a different reading.
The Freudian approach would give us Gollum as Id, Frodo as Ego, and Sam as superego. Ego is forced to mediate between superego and id and make the decisions on behalf of the self. All three components are necessary to go on; the id provides drive, the Superego regulates the impulses of the Id, and the Ego makes turns that dynamic into action.
In the film we see that Frodo becomes stalled whenever he loses Sam or Gollum, so much so that without Sam, he is rendered immobile by the spider, and without Gollum he loses his impetus to climb towards the cracks of doom When the quest is complete, and Gollum dead, he returns to the Shire, but is never really happy again. He completes his book, only because he must, and then, having grown "world weary" without Gollum in the world, he heads west with the elves, as is their custom when they have grown similarly depressed. Indeed the line of Elves marhing to the shore to take ship very nearly puts one in mind of John Boorman Apathetics from Zardoz. It is clear that they have lost interest in the world, and thus leave it.
Looking through the Morality Play filter, however, all of these take on different meanings. Sam becomes Frodo's "Good Angel" and Gollum his "Bad Angel." It is through his struggle with and conquest over the Bad Angel that Frodo is released from the cares of this world and able to ascend to heaven, i.e. travel to the western lands.
I will not argue that one of these readings is more valid than the other; indeed, from a man who was fmiliar with both Freud and the Morality play, I suspect the ambiguity is intentional.
And then I stood up to let people out and the effect of gravity on my bladder negated my plan to watch the credits roll. Morgan learned that Viggo Mortenson did his own singing.
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Date: 2003-12-26 06:35 pm (UTC)You seem like the kind of person that would.
lol... luv the commentary on RoTK, i watched it on the 23rd...thankfully I had not drank anything beforehand! But i had to leave before the credits! eek!