JRRT drew such a careful picture of Minas Morgul, but from story-
telling necessity, he couldn't be that descriptive of what it had
replaced and corrupted so long ago: Minas Ithil. The Citadel of the
Moon, with its "upwelling light," always sounded so beautiful, too. I
have imagined it several ways but finally saw it in an unexpected
place: beginning at 1:47:03 in the Internet Archive version of the
1924 silent movie, "The Thief of Bagdad."
That's
http://www.archive.org/details/ThiefOfBagdad1924 at 1:47:00
through roughly 1:47:11 (when, unfortunately, a species of Hollywood
dwarf comes running down the stairs.)
The whole film is actually very good (don't let the dwarf deceive you
- it's quite atypical of the general quality of the fantasy), but it's
those 11 seconds, more or less, that are worth noting here. William
Cameron Menzies was responsible for production design and art
direction in this movie. More on him here:
http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0580017/
Quite remarkable. The citadel isn't clearly defined in this movie,
either, but something designed to celebrate moonlight, of course,
can't ever be clearly defined or seen, can it? That's what I actually
liked about the whole idea of Minas Ithil: that it was a solid, real
place full of moonlight. Talk about a definition of Faerie!!
Very unstable: no wonder it fell, and evil took its place.
Anyway, with that in mind, I noticed a few other interesting things in
this "Thief."
Ahmed/Fairbanks slays a monster by getting under it and slicing open
the stomach that is now roofed over his head, and a bit later on he
slays a giant arthropod sort of creature (supposedly this scene was so
horrifying to test audiences that it was deleted from the original
release -- I don't know if that's true). One could imaginatively
combine the two and conjure up a Shelob, possibly.
There is a magic crystal through which events at a distance can be
seen (but the crystal is far different in appearance, origin, and use
from a palantir).
There is a chasm of fire in an underground cave, into which Ahmed/
Fairbanks seems to have fallen, though he quickly appears on the other
side, relatively unscathed.
There is a magic tree that turns into an odd tree-like human who aids
the hero and then turns back into a tree. It doesn't look particularly
Ent-like or Huorn-like, though one might imagine something of the sort
in the Old Forest up north.
I know how JRRT said he felt about drama in general. But that was
later on in his career. He was younger in January 1925, when "Thief of
Bagdad" was released in the UK; his son Christopher had just been born
in 1924, and his own career as a scholar was turning at that point.
There were as yet no hobbits on the horizon, let alone the dread
"sequel" waiting to be written. It was a lighter and more open time,
and yet a busy one, and even scholars need a break every now and then;
I can imagine the couple "getting out of the house" one night or off-
day afternoon and going to see the film. Fairbanks could be quite
intoxicating.
It's heretical, but I wonder if anything in this movie ended up in
JRRT's particular bowl of Soup, to later reappear, even in some very
small way, as part of Middle-Earth.
Barb
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