What The Lord of the Rings is doing for our profile

By LOUISA CLEAVE

Depending on which international publication you're reading at the time, New Zealand can be seen as a place of "bohemian living", "blue jags of mountains" or where "an entire nation rallied around to make The Lord of the Rings".

Considering there are few places on Earth right now where people are not aware a movie set in Middle-earth is about to start, it's probably right that we take some interest in how our corner of the world is being portrayed in the international media.

If the travel reporter from USA Today is right, the LOTR trilogy could do for New Zealand tourism what Crocodile Dundee did for Australia. Jayne Clark, in Wellington last week researching an article, made the connection between LOTR and Crocodile Dundee, saying the latter had drawn America's attention to our neighbours. (We could argue the finer points of the films, but Clark's publication does have a circulation of 2.6 million in a large tourist market).

But Clark's observation is just one of many media takes on the country.

No in-depth story on the film seems to have gone to print without mention that it is made Down Under. Even better is that none can be found to have made the mistake of calling New Zealand a suburb of Australia.

A survey of major magazines, websites and newspapers provides interesting perspectives on Aotearoa (a title, incidentally, not used once).

America's Entertainment Weekly, in a November 16 edition where LOTR was the prized cover story, said an "entire nation rallied around this movie", including glassblowers, basket makers, boatbuilders, tanners, coopers, boot makers, thatched-roofers and milliners. Welcome to 19th-century New Zealand.

American entertainment media group E! Online was granted exclusive behind-the-scenes coverage from the start of filming, with reporter John Forde filing monthly updates. Sample from December 1999: "After a bumpy flight over spectacular snow-topped mountains, miles of pine forest and raging rivers, I arrive at Queenstown's matchbox-size airport and begin the 90-minute drive to The Lord of the Rings set, a place called Paradise, in the depths of a national park. It's perfect Tolkien country: wild, beautiful, inaccessible. Recent flooding has washed away sections of the road. Thankfully, we're riding in a four-wheel-drive - with big mudguards."

The Times also took a peep behind the scenes in New Zealand. Its correspondent described director Peter Jackson as "a tubby 40-year-old New Zealander with a straggly beard, large Lennon-specs and comfortable smile".

"And with Jackson comes New Zealand. Nowhere else in the world boasts the variety of landscape and ecosystem within such a small landmass. Yet even the heavenly beauty of the Kiwi scenery is not enough to play Middle-earth verbatim."

Writers trying to capture New Zealand's landscape in words come up with some extraordinary descriptions. Here's EW's cover piece: "The New Zealand terrain is one of lively lumps and bumps, blue jags of mountain, green scoops of valley. The sky is mischievous. Storms tumble off the ocean, loosing rain as hard and bright as rice. Curvy clouds bob so low that if one stood on tip-toe, they might be lickable. The wind has a wicked streak. And the gnarly island trees? They have faces. In the violent gloaming, you can hear them plot. Welcome to Middle-earth."

Perhaps you can't blame the flowery language used by the overseas scribes when a New Zealand Tourism ad for 100 per cent Pure New Zealand reads: "Welcome to Middle-earth. A place where ancient stories are told and spells are woven. Where the craggy peaks, mountain mists and breathtaking vistas inspire adventures only dreamed of. Take a step from your well-worn track; you will leave this mystical land with many a story of your own."

At least we don't have crocodiles.

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Feature: Lord of the Rings