to this day, the scariest part out of any of the lord of the rings movie still is that fucking nightmarish face that bilbo made when he tried to take the one ring back from frodo
Oh my gosh, the day I spent watching Lord of the Rings with commentary is finally paying off, because the Bilbo nightmare face is the center of why I love Fellowship a little more than the other movies.
So before Lord of the Rings became the CGI carpet bombing that we all know and love (see Legolas elephant surfing), the first movie was obsessed with practical effects to an unsettling degree. Perspective tricks (when Gandalf and Bilbo have tea they’re actually at two separate tables with the camera at an angle to make it look like one table – at one point Ian McKellen bumps his side of the table with his knee and only his side of the table wobbles), miniatures, makeup artistry, the works.
But the Bilbo nightmare face is maybe the best of it all. Because it wasn’t CGI. It wasn’t makeup artistry. It wasn’t even a mask.
They built a life-sized Ian Holm model, gave it a nightmare face, dressed it in the Bilbo costume, and put it in the shot for exactly a half second. There’s pictures (I can’t find them now, but I know they exist) of Ian Holm standing next to the model, and its uncanny insofar as it’s extremely unsettling but you can’t tell why.
Sean Bean hiking up to the Lord of the Rings sets bc he’s afraid of helicopters is even funnier when you hear that Viggo Mortensen did the exact same thing, except Viggo’s reason for hiking to the sets was bc he wanted to be authentically travel-worn
Like literally you have Boromir doing this pretty cool thing bc he’s scared to death of the alternative while Aragorn just does it for The Aesthetic™
Okay, so if you’re only familiar with the movies, then you don’t know this, but in the Lord of the Rings books when Boromir dies, Legolas and Aragorn sing a song at his funeral (no Gimli doesn’t sing). Now when I read the books, I fell in love with this song, because it’s a beautiful poem, and you should go read it.
Well I was thinking about it again today, and one thing that still impresses me, is that canonically, Aragorn and Legolas come up with this on the spot. There doesn’t appear to be any moment in which they sit down and write this, they just sing. And it can’t be a standard funeral song because it specifically references Boromir and their journey
Now the real reason the poem is so nice is because Tolkien was a poet and loved to fit as much poetry as he logically and illogically could into his works, and naturally he had plenty of time to revise this death-song and made it beautiful, but I came up with an in-text explanation as well.
So I’ve decided that clearly this is a well practiced skill for elves and people raised by elves. They obviously spend evenings sitting in halls coming up with spontaneous poetry which they then recite to the crowds. I am adamantly convinced this happens. Seriously, read up on Tolkien’s elves and tell me I’m being unrealistic.
But to the point, thinking about this, I decided that naturally most of the poetry we see from the elves is beautiful and flowing and elegant because that’s the style they’re familiar with. But if introduced to other styles of poetry, they likely could do quite well
So what I’m saying is, elves would be really good at freestyle rapping
damn, I was yelling Elvish rap battles! before I got halfway through the post
YES. ALL OF THIS.
I only have two tiny things to contribute to this post:
If you are like me and love the Lament for Boromir, you absolutely need to go listen to this version by @everywindintheriver. She does a lot of setting Tolkien poetry to music, but this remains one of my absolute favorites; it’s quite beautiful and haunting.
Elvish rap battles are 100% canon. In Silmarillion version of “The Tale of Beren and Luthien,” there’s a bit where Sauron captures Beren and Finrod Felagund while they’re on a quest, and “Felagund strove with Sauron in songs of power” or, in other words, they literally had a contest where they sang poetry at each other and tried to destroy each other with their words, so. Elvish rap battles definitely definitely happened.
HEY THIS IS AWESOME… and i also have a thing to add!
The reason Gimli doesn’t sing? Is because they left him the East wind. So, Aragorn first sings of the West wind, then Legolas sings of the South wind, and then Aragorn sings of the North wind, all asking of news of Boromir.
But to the East is Mordor, and you can imagine that Mordor is pretty damned pleased about the recent adjustment in Boromir’s breathing conditions.
So Gimli, tactfully, doesn’t sing.
‘You left the East Wind to me,’ said Gimli, ‘but I will say
naught of it.’
‘That is as it should be,’ said Aragorn. ‘In Minas Tirith
they endure the East Wind, but they do not ask it for tidings.’
– The Departure of Boromir, The Two Towers.
From this, I personally surmise two things.
a. Book-Aragorn is a tremendous attention-hog. WHAT A SHOWPONY.
b. it’s not uncommon or unusual for Dwarves to be warrior-bards, no less than Elves.
““A time may come soon,“ said he, “when none will
return. Then there will be need of valour without renown, for none shall
remember the deeds that are done in the last defence of your homes. Yet
the deeds will not be less valiant because they are unpraised.”“
