LotR & Harry Potter: both escapist white middle-class works with inherent comforting racism

CULTURE
What is a national cinema?

Frank Capri sifts through the sack of shite that was Lord of the Rings' recent whitewash at the Oscars to find several reasons for its canonization. Such as: white. Middle-class. Escapism. Illustrations by pW

In his celebrated Hitchcock interviews of the 1960s, Francois Truffaut remarked that "British cinema" was a contradiction in terms. Today such an assertion would be not so much inaccurate as nonsensical. What does "French cinema" have over "British cinema" anyway? What right does the one have to be "good" - let alone exist - that the other doesn't? Should we then exempt Godard's British Sounds, or Tout Va Bien starring Jane Fonda, or Truffaut's own Fahrenheit 451, filmed in English starring Julie Christie, from the list of authentically "French" cinema? Sixties nationalism is surely a contradiction in terms.

There is only one cinema, the cinema of vertical integration, or the "cinema" that facilitates the production, distribution and consumption of films. Calling it "French", "American" or "Icelandic" concedes far too much to the misguided ideal of national culture. What is "national culture"? Is it, perhaps, something akin to "national socialism"? And what locates it squarely in its would-be country of origin?

Someone clearly in love with the ideal, at least of national culture, is Peter Jackson, the New Zealand director of The Lord of the Rings (LotR) saga. Far too much public space has been wasted on this "film" already, so let's leave aside its artistic merits or misdemeanours. How are we to make sense of its tumultuous financial profits and its Santa's sleigh full of gleaming awards?

Jackson's Action
The sight of Jackson receiving his Best Film Oscar at this year's Academy Awards was both utterly hilarious and depressing. The pomposity of this annual awards show, surpassed only by The Grannys in its vulgar xenophobia, always provides cathartic release. But this year we shat bricks at the self-congratulatory fervour reserved for one of those epic statements that Demands Recognition by The Academy, a film that launches cottage industries and puts through tax breaks faster than a third world government. Sweeping the board at The Oscars only happens for one reason and one reason only. It's intended to do for film what Nike does for trainers. In response to the periodic slump in market share, there comes a point when the industry compels itself to endorse not just another product, but a bona fide cultural phenomenon, a product that "redefines" the industry for the poor neglected masses. Sports manufacturers invent their "air soles" (gotta watch how you say it); the film industry comes up with digital technology. This is the first great irony of LotR. Here we have a film whose "exterior" locations, despite what Peter Jackson says about the uniqueness of the New Zealand landscape, are largely irrelevant to the mise en scene, or to any of the diegesis (but what is the film "itself" in this instance?). Basically, since digital technology is indispensable to the postmodern epic, it could have been filmed anywhere! Give us a big field and the digital animators will do the rest.

So what was Peter Jackson actually "directing"? What all directors of the postmodern epic direct. Like the CEO of a multi-national corporation, directors don't work, which is to say their position at the "sharp" end of a multi-million dollar enterprise is largely cosmetic. Jackson's role was to "sell" New Zealand to the world, and thus to provide the imaginary setting for a "revival" of this incestuous little tale.

If the New Zealand landscape was largely irrelevant as a location for this film, then there are two material respects in which it was indispensable. First, a film dealing with the struggles of a medieval and hence pre-industrial society, ie, one unpolluted by the inconvenience of class struggle and whose sacred quest was to bring together all the races of "Middle Earth", is clearly informed by the geopolitics of Disneyland. New Zealand is probably the one place on earth where we could almost be forgiven for believing that the coming together of elves, goblins, hobbits, dwarves and the world of "men" is a prophetic metaphor for global peace. This last remaining shire (gotta watch how you say it) innocently holding out against the ravages of modernity, technology and the niggers at the gates, provides the perfect fantasy escape. Alas the adaptation of this fairy tale, penned by a Cambridge historian in his spare time (lazy fucker!), didn't include a Jamaican yardie or a Mexican toilet cleaner who takes ballet lessons in her spare time and has an affair with a hobbit (they could have cast J-Lo!). One simply cannot underestimate the popularity of this film among cinema audiences hungry for a Euro-centric, and hence exclusively white, reinterpretation of Anglo-Saxon myth. New Zealand, steeped in the national tourist's board utopian spin ('don't dream it's over'), is a powerful magnet for such mysticism.

Second, and without relegating its importance, there's the matter of tax breaks. This is where filmmakers are allowed to claim back significant portions of their production costs on the pretext that their "investments" provide a boost to the domestic economy. For LotR the figure being touted was circa $200 million - approximately one third of the $600 million production spend - although the exact figure, claims New Zealand's Economic Development Minister Jim Anderton, is "unknown". Do what? How can it be "unknown"? One assumes that such policies are implemented in the financial interests of the country, so if they can't be calculated what point is there in implementing them? Could the explanation for this apparent ignorance possibly be that the true tax burden for this film has fallen disproportionately on the working class people of New Zealand? Or is it presumed to be in the nature of "hobbits" not to concern themselves with such technicalities?

In terms of its public reception, was it any coincidence that its unprecedented success at the Oscars was reserved for the culmination of its final "work", the final "installment" in the franchise? Intriguingly for an epic, and quite arguably explained by the lack of any characterization whatsoever, almost the entire focus of publicity for LotR was placed on the scale of the production itself: 20,000 cast and crew, a lifetime in pre-production, a post-production budget equivalent to the national debt of Haiti, etc, etc. What remaining critical interest did manage to penetrate this corporate balance sheet tended to be "dazzled" by special effects. Very little serious commentary focused on the puerile plot and vacant characters, who marched relentlessly through hours on hours of digitally enhanced scenes, each one more "dazzling" than the last, while intoning vapid clichés like "You cannot escape your destiny" and "It is time" (time for WHAT exactly!). Come back Han Solo (stick the cunt in a wheelchair and fit him with a catheter if you have to) all is forgiven!

Finally, the biggest conceit of all, and the most convenient answer to the question "why now?" has got to be the nature of this adaptation. We cannot possibly overestimate the hold that "classic literature" has on middle-class America, and particularly on dumb American movie producers. Sitting there monged out in front of the box, watching cunt after cunt go up to collect their awards (for fucking "make up"?!), it suddenly dawned on me that the Americans haven't read the book, that they seriously think Tolkein is Shakespeare or Dickens or George Eliot or something. But anyone who's gone through the British education system in the last thirty years knows Tolkein for what it is: puerile magical realism for primary school kids with limited imaginations. It doesn't fit into the canon - apart from the one it should be shot out of! Ironically, what we are witnessing with the literary adaptation is the branding of modern literature, in much the same way as Disney branded the European folk tale.

At the time of writing, an adaptation of The Lion, the Witch & the Wardrobe is in pre-production. Where? New Zealand. A further word of warning: CS Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia run to seven volumes.