Which is not to say that it's perfect; there's a lot of story
condensed into its 178-minute running time, and in later years,
diminished into the realm of home theater, you'll notice its
somewhat choppy dashing from scene to scene in much the same way
that you see the flaws of the original Star Wars if you
can look past the thick clouds of history and hype. But Star
Wars is indubitably the right comparison; this is the new
standard-bearer of the artistic possibilities of the blockbuster,
the flagship not of a franchise, which sounds so soulless, but for
the current generation that doesn't have a cinematic adventure to
call its own.
This is a crucial point: In the bright light of The Fellowship
of the Ring, dross like Tomb Raider or Gladiator is revealed as the
pretender it is. (The Phantom
Menace would have suffered horribly by coming out after
this.) With the exception of
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon and little else,
mass audiences have not seen the bar raised in so long that
it has in fact slowly slid to an astonishing lack of height;
it's almost shameful what we put up with. The Fellowship of the Ring isn't a new yardstick. It's a 10-foot pole; the adventure movies of recent (and not-so-recent) years can't touch it.
What lends it such transcendence — beyond the graceful direction and editing and the roundly marvelous and affecting performances — is how easily it incorporates its greater themes. The movie follows Frodo Baggins … well, more accurately, it follows a ring imbued with the life energy and dark power of an ancient warlord, which somewhat unwittingly passes into the hands of Frodo (Elijah Wood). Determined to get rid of the ring, Frodo and a small cadre of fellow hobbits — simple, timid creatures not keen on leaving their small burgh, ever — travel further and further away from home, teaming up along the way with a "fellowship" of humans, elves and dwarves and eventually committing to transport the ring across the dangerous land of Mordor and back to the volcano in which it was forged and which is the only place it can be destroyed.
The ring is a powerful, terrible thing, and we watch it twist the minds and sully the lives of many people along the way, which provides a fine tableau for dramatizing the seduction of power, particularly with respect to the humans in the party. And by using other humanoid races, the movie permits us to look at humanity in a light that we can't see when the protagonist is human; at the same time, the hobbits that propel the story, intended in the novels to represent English bourgeoisie, could not resonate more. And the thrust of its story — about not having control over the times in which we live or the duties with which we are charged, but only over how we comport ourselves and handle those duties — could not come at a more needful time.
Looking at 2001, it has perhaps not been a great year for movies, but it has been a great year for great movies, and each of these greats — Mulholland Drive, A.I., Amélie, many more — has really showcased a particular kind of excellence. Where The Lord of the Rings excels is in sparking and fanning the flame of that ineluctable sense of cinematic wonder that all moviegoers possess but that only rarely gets lit. You laugh, you cry, you cower and you are transported. What wizardry.
— Sean Weitner (sean@flakmag.com)
