On Directing Film PDF 78: Master the Principles of Film Direction

78. At the same time, Judaeo-Christian thought demythologized nature. While continuing to admire its grandeur and immensity, it no longer saw nature as divine. In doing so, it emphasizes all the more our human responsibility for nature. This rediscovery of nature can never be at the cost of the freedom and responsibility of human beings who, as part of the world, have the duty to cultivate their abilities in order to protect it and develop its potential. If we acknowledge the value and the fragility of nature and, at the same time, our God-given abilities, we can finally leave behind the modern myth of unlimited material progress. A fragile world, entrusted by God to human care, challenges us to devise intelligent ways of directing, developing and limiting our power.

191. Whenever these questions are raised, some react by accusing others of irrationally attempting to stand in the way of progress and human development. But we need to grow in the conviction that a decrease in the pace of production and consumption can at times give rise to another form of progress and development. Efforts to promote a sustainable use of natural resources are not a waste of money, but rather an investment capable of providing other economic benefits in the medium term. If we look at the larger picture, we can see that more diversified and innovative forms of production which impact less on the environment can prove very profitable. It is a matter of openness to different possibilities which do not involve stifling human creativity and its ideals of progress, but rather directing that energy along new channels.

on directing film pdf 78

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240. The divine Persons are subsistent relations, and the world, created according to the divine model, is a web of relationships. Creatures tend towards God, and in turn it is proper to every living being to tend towards other things, so that throughout the universe we can find any number of constant and secretly interwoven relationships.[171] This leads us not only to marvel at the manifold connections existing among creatures, but also to discover a key to our own fulfilment. The human person grows more, matures more and is sanctified more to the extent that he or she enters into relationships, going out from themselves to live in communion with God, with others and with all creatures. In this way, they make their own that trinitarian dynamism which God imprinted in them when they were created. Everything is interconnected, and this invites us to develop a spirituality of that global solidarity which flows from the mystery of the Trinity.

Bakshi encountered Tolkien's writing early in his career. He had made several attempts to produce The Lord of the Rings as an animated film before producer Saul Zaentz and distributor United Artists provided funding. The film is notable for its extensive use of rotoscoping, a technique in which scenes are first shot in live-action, then traced onto animation cels. It uses a hybrid of traditional cel animation and rotoscoped live action footage.[7] The film features the voices of William Squire, John Hurt, Michael Graham Cox, and Anthony Daniels. The screenplay was written by Peter S. Beagle, based on an earlier draft by Chris Conkling.

Although Bakshi's The Lord of the Rings was a financial success, it received mixed reactions from critics, and hostility from disappointed viewers who felt that it was incomplete; there was no official sequel to cover the remainder of the story. Nonetheless, the film was an influence on Peter Jackson's trilogy in the early 2000s, as detailed in the DVD extras of The Fellowship of the Ring.

In 1969, the rights were passed to United Artists, where an "elegant" Peter Shaffer script was abandoned. Denis O'Dell was interested in producing a film for The Beatles, and approached directors David Lean (busy with Ryan's Daughter), Stanley Kubrick (who deemed it "unfilmable") and Michaelangelo Antonioni. John Boorman was commissioned to write a script in late 1969, but it was deemed too expensive in 1970.[2]

Bakshi approached United Artists when he learned (from a 1974 issue of Variety) that Boorman's script was abandoned. Learning that Boorman intended to produce all three parts of The Lord of the Rings as a single film, Bakshi commented, "I thought that was madness, certainly a lack of character on Boorman's part. Why would you want to tamper with anything Tolkien did?"[11] Bakshi began making a "yearly trek" to United Artists. Bakshi had since achieved box office success producing adult-oriented animated films such as Fritz the Cat but his recent film, Coonskin, tanked, and he later clarified that he thought The Lord of the Rings could "make some money" so as to save his studio.[12]

In 1975, Bakshi convinced United Artists executive Mike Medavoy to produce The Lord of the Rings as two or three animated films,[13] and a Hobbit prequel.[14] Medavoy offered him Boorman's script, which Bakshi refused, saying that Boorman "didn't understand it"[15] and that his script would have made for a cheap film like "a Roger Corman film".[16] Medavoy accepted Bakshi's proposal to "do the books as close as we can, using Tolkien's exact dialogue and scenes".[11]

Although he was later keen to regroup with Boorman for his script (and his surrogate project, Excalibur), Bakshi claimed Medavoy didn't want to produce his film at the time, but allowed him to shop it around if he could get another studio to pay for the expenses on Boorman's script.[16] Bakshi attempted unsuccessfully to persuade Peter Bogdanovich to take on the project, but managed to gain the support of the then president of MGM Dan Melnick.[16][11] Bakshi and Melnick made a deal with Mike Medavoy at United Artists to buy the Boorman script. Bakshi said later that "The Boorman script cost $3 million, so Boorman was happy by the pool, screaming and laughing and drinking, 'cause he got $3 million for his script to be thrown out."[11] Boorman, however, was unhappy with the project going to animation after Tolkien once wrote to him, pleased that he was doing it in live-action. He never saw Bakshi's film, and after it was released, tried to remake his live-action version with Medavoy.[17]

Before production started, Bakshi met with Tolkien's daughter Priscilla to discuss how the film would be made. She showed him the room where her father did his writing and drawing. Bakshi says, "My promise to Tolkien's daughter was to be pure to the book. I wasn't going to say, 'Hey, throw out Gollum and change these two characters.' My job was to say, 'This is what the genius said.'"[18]

Bakshi began developing the script himself. Learning of the project, Chris Conkling got an interview with Bakshi but was initially hired to "do research, to say what the costumes should look like or what the characters would be doing at any given time".[19] Together, they first decided how to break the films down. When they started, they contemplated a three-film structure, but "we didn't know how that middle film would work"[20] without a beginning and an end. Conkling even started writing a treatment for one long, three-and-a-half hour feature of the entire work, but eventually settled on scripts for two 150-minute films, the first of which was titled "The Lord of the Rings, Part One: The Fellowship".[21]

Of the adaptation process, Bakshi stated that some elements of the story "had to be left out but nothing in the story was really altered".[10] The film greatly condenses Frodo's journey from Bag End to Bree. Stop-overs at Farmer Maggot's house, Frodo's supposed home in Buckland, and the house of the mysterious Tom Bombadil deep in the Old Forest are omitted. Maggot and his family, Bombadil and his wife Goldberry and the encounter with the Barrow-wight are thus all omitted, along with Fatty Bolger, a hobbit who accompanied Frodo at the beginning. According to Bakshi, the character of Tom Bombadil was dropped because "he didn't move the story along."[10]

Bakshi said that one of the problems with the production was that the film was an epic, because "epics tend to drag. The biggest challenge was to be true to the book."[10] When asked what he was trying to accomplish with the film, Bakshi stated "The goal was to bring as much quality as possible to the work. I wanted real illustration as opposed to cartoons."[10] Bakshi said that descriptions of the characters were not included because they are seen in the film. He stated that the key thing was not "how a hobbit looks", since everyone has their own idea of such things, but that "the energy of Tolkien survives".[10] In his view what mattered was whether the quality of animation was enough to make the movie work.[10]

Bakshi was aware of the work of illustrators like the Brothers Hildebrandt, without accepting that their style had driven his approach;[24] he stated that the film presented a clash of many styles, as in his other films.[10]

Publicity for the film announced that Bakshi had created "the first movie painting" by utilizing "an entirely new technique in filmmaking".[10] Much of the film used live-action footage which was then rotoscoped to produce an animated look.[10] This saved production costs and gave the animated characters a more realistic look. In animation historian Jerry Beck's The Animated Movie Guide, reviewer Marea Boylan writes that "up to that point, animated films had not depicted extensive battle scenes with hundreds of characters. By using the rotoscope, Bakshi could trace highly complex scenes from live-action footage and transform them into animation, thereby taking advantage of the complexity live-action film could capture without incurring the exorbitant costs of producing a live-action film."[2] Bakshi rejected the Disney approach which he thought "cartoony", arguing that his approach, while not traditional for rotoscoping, created a feeling of realism involving up to a thousand characters in a scene.[10] 2ff7e9595c