9/8/2003
My Precious
I like the movies that have the little cartoon before the main feature. It give people time to settle into their seat and unwrap all that candy that they spent too much money on. So I would like implement something similar for this entry. A little cartoon help you get settled in…
An example of the finest that education has to offer. We even learned words like fangoriously, gelatinous, and linebacker.
Now our feature presentation…
Lord of the Rings, The Two Towers is a wonderful movie, but I have trouble watching it. Not because my butt goes numb halfway through the movie, or that I thought that it wasn’t quite as good as the first. For some time I had no idea what bothered me about the movie. The other day it hit me. Gollum. He was the problem. That presents a bit of a contradiction for me because I think that Gollum is the single best thing in the movie how could he be causing me to want to not watch the movie?
The character of Gollum is portrayed so well that it reminds me of a few kids that I have had in my class over the two years that I have been teaching. At a young age, these kids have been consumed by issues in their life. They have been beaten down by their live and when I meet them they are emaciated shells of what they should be. Gollum reminds me of them and somewhere inside of me, it hurts.
There is a scene in the movie where Frodo has Gollum on a leash and Frodo then takes the leash off of Gollum, much to Sam’s dismay. If you watch the film, pay careful attention to this scene, especially the look on Gollum’s just after being released. I’ve seen that look before on the faces of those children. It is that moment when they realize that someone trusts them. Up to that point, they didn’t know it could happen, they have been told repeatedly that they don’t matter, that they aren’t worth anything. In the movie, Gollum finally overcomes his issues for a little while, he take control and begins to grow.
Later in the movie, Frodo is forced to betray a Gollum while Gollum is happily playing in the water. It was probably the first time that he was happily doing anything because of the trust and relationships that he had formed with his “master.” That is the point when I have to stop watching. I see the kids that I have dealt with in Gollum’s place. Normally, I don’t want entertainment reminding me of those feelings of hopelessness, mistrust, and betrayal.
I haven’t read the books, so I don’t know what Gollum’s fate is going to be (and, no I don’t really want to know yet) but I hope that is a happy one. I fear, however, that his fate will be similar to that of some of the kids that have spent a year with me and gone on, the issues will overtake him, his desire for the ring will take him over and he will be lost. But I can always hope for the best.
Class dismissed!
PS I feel as though I should apologize for this post, this is the second time that I have written it because of a back button mishap and I fear it is nowhere as good as it was.
Filed under: The Screening Room
September 8th, 2003 at 11:14 pm
Very insightful, Christopher. I agree on the Gollum thing. The poor tormented soul is too familiar to be very entertaining if you are looking for light-hearted fare (which is what I usually expect with films).
September 9th, 2003 at 12:04 pm
Yep, I have the same reaction at that part of the movie. It pricks my compassion.
December 27th, 2005 at 5:10 pm
[...] King Kong falls into that rare category of movies that make me feel icky. Another movie that falls into this same category is Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings: Two Towers. Initially, however, I couldn’t figure out why the ape made me feel horrible like Gollum from the Two Towers. Kong wasn’t following his wicked desire like Gollum, the two really had very few things in common. Like many things, the answer came to me in the middle of the night (I hate when they wake me up). In the movie, Kong is really an innocent in the action of the movie. He reacts to what is going on. Eventually, society takes advantage and abuses the innocent, something that I see more often than I would care to in my job. So will I be going to see Kong again, even on video? No way. (I haven’t watched LOTR:TT a second time either.) [...]