Diana Wichtel: Cinema snobs had better get over it

COMMENT

The Lord Of The Rings bah-humbugs, briefly silenced by a truckload of Oscars, are stirring. Denis Dutton, in a piece in the Herald, makes the astonishing discovery that the trilogy isn't great art.

I'm not sure that many people, apart from trainspotters and the odd overexcited New Zealand film critic overdosing on Hobbitmania, thought it was. A magnificently flawed fantasy action masterpiece would be more like it.

Not to Dutton. The trilogy, he grumbles, is "ham-fisted, shallow, bombastic and laughably overrated". Aristotle, who wasn't big on special effects, would apparently have disapproved. Fortunately, Aristotle hasn't got voting rights at the Baftas, Golden Globes and Oscars.

If the films are that bad, you have to wonder how they won any awards at all. There was clearly a mysterious international outbreak of not agreeing with Denis Dutton.

Dutton sees LOTR as an example of "the degraded state of popular movies", "the victory of special effects over dramatic art". Yet the most spectacular special effects - that flying cow in Twister - won't save a bad movie from total turkeydom.

Why are moviemakers creating ever bigger and better special effects? Because they can.

Human beings are like that. Dutton cites the space scenes in Star Wars. Now, he says, the effects seem trite. Why, then, do the movies continue to entrance new generations of kids? Because it was never just about special effects.

There's been an outcry from fans because the original Star Wars movies on DVD have been enhanced. Bugger the effects. They want their movies creaky and trite and as they were when they fell in love with them.

Okay, so Elijah Wood can't act and the LOTR women are boring. Part of the charm of LOTR is the way it keeps escaping its action movie intentions. The movies are a feast of possibly worrying, misogynistic fun, from the Eye of Sauron to Shelob, the insatiable, hairy mouth on legs in her very Freudian tunnel. No wonder the movie's hard men are stunned into bad dialogue.

The film has been accused of racism, too, although from memory most of the Orcs sound more like Phil from EastEnders.

An international intellectual I happened upon the other day sees Return of the King's admittedly tiresome ending as vaguely Nazi. The scenes back at Hobbiton with Sam's fraulein-looking wife - "she had everything but braids!" - and child represent some sort of Aryan idyll. Interesting. Though I don't think a super race of short, fat people with hairy feet and a fondness for smoking strange substances was quite what Hitler had in mind.

In other words, the LOTR films are rich enough to be read in a multitude of ways. The whole exceeds the sum of its often silly parts.

Dutton compares the trilogy unfavourably with The Wizard of Oz. Most films compare unfavourably with that trippy classic. The Wizard of Oz is one of those rare, cosmic alignments of story, stars, style and good luck that produce pure cinematic genius.

But look at the story: pushy girl travels to strange land with unquarantined pet, kills someone, steals shoes, meets animated tin can, gets molested (if you believe the gossip) by Munchkins. Who would have predicted it would still be considered one of the greatest films ever made?

What makes an enduring classic? Ask sometime New Zealander Richard O'Brien, creator of The Rocky Horror Show.

Jackson's next project is the immortal King Kong. Remakes are always tricky - Psycho anyone? And there's apparently a Turkish Wizard of Oz that I really want to see.

If we're talking boring roles for women, Fay Wray is single-handedly responsible for generations of scantily clad actresses spending entire movies screaming. Still, the big ape should be in safe hands.

But Dutton is worried. "There is a pathos in King Kong's beauty-and-beast tale that is beyond the standard-issue geek imagination." Jackson, of course, also made the divine, disturbing Heavenly Creatures, hardly a work of standard-issue geek imagination.

For those who say LOTR didn't deserve to be in the exalted company of Oscars Best Picture winners, I have one word: Titanic. All that movie offers posterity is the chilling prospect of having Celine Dion sing at your funeral.

Dutton allows Hollywood three good years - 1939 to 1942 - during which it produced the likes of Citizen Kane, Gone with the Wind and Casablanca. "Ask yourself," he demands, "how much better movies have got since then." To which my admittedly subjective reply is: The Godfather, Apocalypse Now, Five Easy Pieces, Taxi Driver, Manhattan, The Graduate, Saturday Night Fever, Toy Story, The Hustler, Pulp Fiction and Schindler's List.

To get lost in nostalgia for a mythical Golden Age of Hollywood is like pining for Upstairs, Downstairs when you've got The Sopranos.

Dutton insists his downer on LOTR isn't a tall poppy thing. In fact, our internationally feted director will be newly overwhelmed to hear he admires Jackson "as much as I'd admire any local entrepreneur who cracked, say, the international tomato sauce market".

Somehow the thought of Wellington festooned with giant sauce bottles as cheering crowds of joyous ketchup lovers gather to celebrate in the streets sounds more improbable than the storyline of LOTR.

The fact is that LOTR captured the imagination of huge numbers of people from all over the world in a way that is rare in the world of bottled condiments.

Like it or don't, one thing is certain: Peter Jackson's trilogy will last longer and give a great deal more delight than anything the cinema snobs are likely to produce. It already has. So get over it.

Herald Feature: Lord of the Rings