Peter Jackson: A Film-maker’s Journey

by Sibley, Brian

  The only thing New Line consistently said was that they’d love it if the movie could be about three hours long; we said that we’d do our best, but ultimately a movie finds its own length – in the case of The Return of the King, three hours twenty minutes. You have to create a movie that feels right – if it feels too long (whatever length it actually is) it’s going to die on its feet.

  The sheer enormity of the task on the third film was down to the complexity of decisions about the weight of the story – keeping it centred on Frodo and Sam but embracing the rest of the mounting drama involving the rest of the characters – and as such it was constructed differently in editing than how it had been on paper. We abandoned the script: we had shot the script but now Jamie Selkirk and I were working that material into the best possible film.

  New Line made various suggestions along the way and we always tried to listen to everything. At one point, they suggested we cut the Grey Havens but we loved that sequence and were very proud of it, so that was dismissed very quickly. Other notes might probably have received more consideration.

  ‘There were times,’ reflects Peter Nelson, ‘when the studio was fairly insistent in asking Peter to re-examine his view; using any number of ways to express how they’d really like him to reconsider, but by the second or third time they always let it be known that if Peter felt that was the creative way to go, then they should be deferring to him. Of course, there are disagreements every day in the creative world – otherwise how is great art made? – but I think Peter has earned his right to hold a place where people will now defer to him much more than others in the creative world.’

  Some of the editing decisions that were finally taken inevitably disappointed fans – the scenes in the Houses of Healing that resolved Faramir and Éowyn’s stories – as well as cast members, most notably Christopher Lee, who had originally expected to die as Saruman at the conclusion of The Two Towers but then seemed to have survived into the third movie. When Christopher flew to New Zealand to film more pick-ups in January 2003, it had seemed to confirm that The Return of the King would indeed open with Saruman’s postponed confrontation with Gandalf the White and his Lucifer-like fall from the pinnacle of Orthanc.

  But then his dramatic exit was cut from the final edit and Christopher’s very public displeasure fuelled a juicy press story at a time when it might have been thought that all that could be said about the trilogy had been said, and this inspired a ‘petition’ to reinstate Saruman into the opening moments of the third film. Ironically, those very people who had once been imploring the film-maker to ‘Let Saruman live!’ until the conclusion of the third book were now demanding his death!

  It simply felt too long for the beginning of the third film and also like we were wrapping up the previous year’s film rather than jumping straight into The Return of the King. We experimented with ways to trim it down and we got to the point where we’d cut it to three minutes – which felt perfunctory and wrong for different reasons, as if it were

  Not Christopher’s favourite moment but one he endured with his customary patience and dry humour: ‘There’s something vaguely familiar about this situation.’

  there as a ‘requirement’. We asked whether it really was required. Put yourself in the place of an average audience member – not a Tolkien fan: what would they think about Saruman? Having seen the defeat at Helm’s Deep and the Ents’ destruction of Isengard wouldn’t they think that Saruman had been defeated? During the last days of cutting, we reached the conclusion that taking it out would do no actual harm to the perception of most moviegoers.

  Establishing the structure and cutting the material to length became a race against time, and it became increasingly clear that the film would not be edited in line with the original schedule. New Line, whose budgets were drawn up, at an additional cost of two or three million dollars funded the continued editing and the completion of all the special effects. The original concept had been for three movies with 1,000 special effects shots in all three movies; the eventual tally ended up at 500 shots in Fellowship; 800 in The Two Towers and 1,300 in The Return of the King, some of which – including the Mûmakil sequence – were completed only weeks before the film was due to premiere.

  New Line were fine about it; even when it became clear that we were going to be late in getting the film cut and locked, they were completely supportive. They saw a four-hour version of the film and they knew where we were at every stage and knew what was in front of us…

  In a telephone conversation with Peter, two weeks before the last few cuts were made to the final edit, he told me: ‘I think I’m going to feel pretty weird on the last day before we deliver the film. There’s going to be a sense of relief, but because we are still working so hard there is no sense of completion yet, no light at the end of the tunnel…But I know that there will be a real mix of emotions. I’m not going to be feeling sad that there’s no fourth Lord of the Rings movie, because I’m ready to move on to other things, but I am very conscious that I am completing work on the production that, ultimately, is going to define me for ever more – and will be unlike anything else that I will ever do in my life…’

  Eventually, the day came when that work finally was complete…

  The very last thing we did on The Return of the King was reinstating a scene reuniting Merry and Pippin on the battlefield of Pelennor Fields. It was in, then it was deleted (because we felt that the audience would assume that’s what had happened and didn’t need to see it) and then, on the very last day of cutting, we changed our minds and put it back!

  It was close to the wire, and it is said that there were those – some close to the production – who were anxious about whether or not the final ‘drop-dead’ deadline would be met; whether at this point on the final, homeward straight, Peter Jackson would find himself in trouble. Ken Kamins was not one of them: ‘I was never concerned about whether or not Peter was going to make delivery. This is not a normal film-making situation and there isn’t one that I can point to, save for Lucas or perhaps, on a different level, Kubrick, where literally the film-maker’s hands were on every lever of the machine.’

  So, was New Line Cinema anxious as the day grew closer and closer and they still didn’t have the final version of the final part of The Lord of the Rings?. Ken Kamins offers a way of looking at the situation:

  ‘When you are a division of a multinational conglomerate like New Line Cinema is to AOL-Time Warner, the definition of success is not just about how many hundred-million dollars a movie makes worldwide, it is based on answers which the studio gave, months before the movie comes out, to the questions: “What do you think the movie’s going to do in terms of gross revenue and what do you think it’s going to return to us in net profit?” New Line would then be judged by AOL-Time Warner on the basis of meeting expectations; so, if a movie does US$910million worldwide, but you promised it was going to do a billion dollars, then the fact that it only did $910million would make it a failure!

  ‘Bob Shaye and Michael Lynne live under a whole different set of criteria to Peter Jackson. Peter is living in the world of the artist who has consummate respect for the work and his audience. New Line has a need to earn profit and a corporate master to satisfy. If the two can coincide, great; but if they can’t, then everyone’s going to fight for their constituency.

  ‘So, yes, the studio was incredibly anxious, but in reality they were no more anxious about delivery of the film than they were on the previous two movies!’

  ‘Would Peter finally deliver the film?’ asks Michael Lynne, rhetorically. ‘I didn’t have any doubt. Peter is a very careful guy, but he does take advantage of every second he’s got.’

  Bob Shaye agrees: ‘No, we didn’t doubt he would do it, but it sometimes got a bit aggravating! More than anything else, it was his reputation as far as he was concerned. He was driving everybody crazy! That seems to be his professional modus operandi – and, one has to say, it’s out of that pressure-cooker that comes some
of his best stuff!’

  We could have just given The Return of the King a quick once-over on the assumption that it’s the third movie and that everyone is going to go and see it anyway, but that is not how we work. We take a pride in what we do. Our view was, ‘We want it to be the film we’re ultimately most proud of…’ so we just worked round the clock. And I said to those who were worrying, ‘Stop stressing about not having a movie to release! I take complete responsibility and I ensure that I keep my word…’

  And so he did. ‘Every film ends in much the same way,’ observes Bob Shaye; ‘it’s never a picnic, there is always the sadness or remorse of the family breaking up and people moving on. There is also, on the other hand, memories of “How many days do we have to get through?!” There’s a lot of regret and a lot of relief!’

  To ask Peter, or any director, to select his favourite shots or sequences is invidious, like asking a father to choose which of his children means the most to him. But there are, nevertheless, a number of candidates for special affection!

  Probably one of my favourite sequences from all three films is the journey through the Mines of Moria. It was that material that blew people away at Cannes and confirmed New Line’s trust in what we were doing. But I also always think of it as one of the sequences that Miramax was never going to allow us to shoot! During one of the last script meetings we had with them, when they were proposing their single film version, they suggested that we have Frodo, as an old hobbit at the end of his life, reminiscing about his adventures and covering the whole of this episode by saying something like, ‘So then we went on a dangerous journey through the Mines of Moria and lost Gandalf!’ Unbelievable really! So, that’s why I will always regard Moria as being a special blessing.

  I also get real goose bumps when Théoden and the troops arrive at Minas Tirith and they charge into the Orcs. From that point on, the final forty-five minutes: cutting from shots of Frodo’s fingers clawing at the rock as, unable to walk anymore, he crawls on hands and knees up the side of Mount Doom; to shots of 100,000 Orcs surrounding Aragorn’s troops as they desperately try to buy Frodo as much time as they can by putting their own lives on the line…

  That was always my ambition for these movies – the dramatic contrast of the epic and the intimate…

  Five years of recollections would take a good deal of processing, ranging from small, lingering, intimate pleasures such as the moment when John Rhys-Davies as Gimli looks up at Galadriel and falls in love, or the afternoon on location, filming Bilbo talking to Frodo in the gardens at Rivendell, when the sun broke through and gave a golden halo-effect to Bilbo’s white wig. Sometimes it was moments of elation on a grand scale.

  I remember arriving at Mt Potts where the Edoras set was located. The helicopter dropped through a tiny hole in the cloud cover and we were suddenly confronted by the incredibly spectacular sight of this great hill with the city of Edoras and the Golden Hall right there in front of us. The helicopter pilot couldn’t believe it. He said, ‘Holy s***! Is that real?’ We said, ‘It sure is!’

  Walking around Edoras you were suddenly in Tolkien’s books, in Middle-earth. This was totally unlike being in the studios in Wellington, where we were always surrounded by blue screens and with aeroplanes flying overhead! In those situations you always felt a good few degrees removed from the book, but here…Here you were literally thrust into Tolkien’s imagination. It was the real thing; it was great; it was fantastic!

  But, for all the ephemeral grandeur of the Edoras location, perhaps the strongest feelings for Peter were evoked by the set designed and built to represent Bag End, Bilbo Baggins’ homely hobbit-hole in the Shire.

  I loved its atmosphere: the roundness of it, the intriguing angles, the intricate detailing. It was wonderfully romantic.

  It was just about the most profound experience I’ve ever had on a movie set. We were filming, yet again, in a grotty old tin building and the set itself didn’t look anything very special from the outside, but the moment you stepped inside you just felt that you were in this totally magical place.

  I remember sitting in there and I’d look around and think to myself, ‘Most people will only ever see this at the movies, but I’m one of the incredibly lucky ones to have been inside Bag End!’

  When the time finally came for it to be broken up, I simply couldn’t bear the idea. So I asked New Line whether – so long as I stored it somewhere at my own expense – I could dismantle the set and keep it for myself.

  They were happy with the proposal providing it didn’t take up storage space needed for the shoot, so I hired a warehouse – it was a big set – and we carefully took it all apart and put it into store.

  The ironic twist to this tale is that, a year later, when we had decided we were going to film pick-ups, we needed some shots inside Bag End. My refusal to part with the set meant that we were able to pull it out of storage and put it all back together again – without, I might add, any additional expense to New Line!

  I’ve now installed it as a kind of guesthouse. I find its round corridors to be peaceful and relaxing. If anybody comes to our house to stay, they all want to sleep in Bag End!

  At long last, the day that the world – but specifically Wellington, New Zealand – had been waiting for finally dawned: Monday 1 December 2003.

  The city with a population of 178,000 saw its streets seething with an estimated 100,000 fans – a good few of whom, obviously, were Wellingtonians enjoying their undisputed moment of vicariously sharing in the triumph of their favourite son.

  Over five hundred yards of red carpeting ribboned through the heart of town; a giant Fell Beast with a Nazgûl rider (an astonishing example of triumphal art from Weta) perched on the top of the Embassy cinema. The sun shone on a citywide street party and a parade made its way from a parliamentary reception hosted by Prime Minister Helen Clark to the cinema, where those fortunate to have tickets would get first sight of a film that the world was waiting for – and which, in its final finished form, even the director had yet to see!

  Most of the media hounds who picked up on that particular admission during the previously days’ press conferences doubtless filed it as a cute comment that was unlikely to be true. Ken Kamins knew better: ‘It may seem extraordinary, but given the enormity of the task and Peter’s need to have it be just so, he really pressed the schedule up to the limit. As a result, I think he must have been nervous about showing a movie to a world audience that he hadn’t yet seen finished – except that it’s not like the average film-maker saying, “I haven’t really seen it…” because, truth be told, he was totally intimate with every foot of film that he shot!’

  This was a photo we took for posterity. Ken Kamins and his wife, Judy, with Fran and me, seconds before we left our hotel room to head to the 2004 Oscars. Ken had been guiding us on our The Lord of the Rings adventure since that first phone call in 1995. We were terribly nervous, but one way or another it was going to be over in a few hours – as it turned out, it was a pretty good night!

  Outriders of Gondorians and Ringwraiths followed by gangs of Orcs and troops of hobbit folk preceded an open-top motorcade carrying the stars and the film-makers past the cheering throngs and through a tickertape blizzard! Peter described the experience as feeling as if they had been ‘the first people to land on the moon or something,’ and indeed he looked, as Reuters told the world, ‘like a victorious general at the front of his army.’ What the reporter overlooked was that, with video camera in hand, Peter – ever the film-maker – was making his own director’s-eye-record of the event.

  The day is a blur. One day, I’ll look at my home movies and remember. My main recollection of the day was being popped into a hotel suite for the two hours leading up to the parade and left alone there. It was the loneliest two hours of my life. I just lay on the bed and watched a telemovie. Once everything started…I can only conjure up fleeting memories now.

  Everyone made speeches…Everyone was thanked…Everyone was cheered…
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  ‘We made the movie,’ Peter told the crowd, ‘but you guys have given us the party. These movies are made for people to enjoy them and it makes us incredibly humble and proud that so many of you have turned up today, so thank you very much…’

  Peter commented on the fact that 23,000 New Zealanders had, in some way, shape or form, been involved, a reminder of the director’s fierce loyalty to his homeland and home town; his determination to produce and direct films there and to invest in the country’s movie-making industry. No wonder he is nationally admired, respected, loved…

  ‘To Peter and all of the talent of The Lord of the Rings,’ said Prime Minister Clark, ‘the movie has done New Zealand very proud and we’re really proud of you. May this premiere and this film launch you to more fame and more rewards.’

  As indeed it did: 161 award nominations, including eleven Oscars (only two short of the thirteen previously received by Ben-Hur and Titanic), and this time the nominees included Best Film and Best Director.

  Sunday 29 February 2004: the seventy-sixth Academy Awards ceremony. The crowds gathered outside the Kodak Theater on Hollywood and Highland; the stars modelled the latest designer gowns and glinted with borrowed gems as those hoping to carry off Gold took their seats for another Oscar-night marathon.

  As it turned out, anyone nominated in a category featuring The Return of the King might just as well have left their tuxedo or frock in the closet, stayed at home and had an early night! For, as everybody now knows, it was Peter Jackson and The Lord of the Rings’ night of nights: the grand slam; the clean sweep! ‘Best’ everything: art direction, costume design, make-up, film editing, sound-mixing, original score, original song, visual effects; adapted screenplay…And Best Film…And Best Director!