Tolkien Forums

As a piece of literature, I love the Children of Hurin. I've really only read what's in the Sil, but also have gotten half way through the real book. However, I too find it so sad and depressing that I can only do it in small chunks.

Bear, I can't say it surprises me that JRRT could write such different books. I guess because each of us has so many sides to our selves it makes sense that he had the darker side to him. Perhaps I should rephrase that. I feel that he had such an understanding of how evil can be at work in the world and therefore was able to write this book.

Friends,

I agree with Laurelin that "Children of Hurin" is a classic tragedy with all the sex and violence of Shakespeare ... and far away from the melodrama/ fantasy action-adventure of the current films.
Perhaps if Christopher Tolkien was willing to work with current play-write who has skills toward the classical view (comfortable with Oedipus Rex, Macbeth, Euripides,etc) a Stage play followed by (based on the play's success) a theatrical script there may be a chance it may be done.
Tolkien's works have been converted to play upon the stage ... but the "Children Of Hurin" is so dark and so deeply interwoven with the Silmarillion there would be an enormous amount of expositional background required to bring all the pieces to center stage.
I do believe the final product would be worth the money it would take to stage it.

As this is a discussion perhaps Arwen and Bilbo Baggins could elucidate why they think Children of Hurin wouldn't work as far as stage or screen is concerned ... I for one would value these opinions ...

Jaidoprism7,

I liked the big type in the post ... guess big ideas need a big setting! ;)

And I also appreciate the historical perspective of past cinematic/audio/television interpretations and why they were both rejected and embraced ... my mom put it well; "You eat what is on your plate and be grateful!"

I think it is important for us to remember that the order of the published works and the films were not presented or offered to us in the order that Tolkien wrote them ... nor were they critically embraced by the same populations ... nor were the reasons they were embraced universal.  And I think Jaidoprism has done well and I strongly agree with his post; "Let those who do not know the stories fall in love with them first...they will ask questions and seek out the meaning of their plots....just like we did. The following will be just as it always has been."

When we focus our attention on the "Children of Hurin" we must consider where Tolkien was in his life personally, academically,  as well as the social climate in which those works were released.  Certainly his life was filled with the pain and terror of war. There were real life personifications of Morgoth. The loss of young men from his classrooms and community must have had a traumatic shadow that he was forced to embrace. There was the danger that you might not wake up in the morning.
Another piece of this discussion is the current climate surrounding us as we read and share our observations and insights.  We see the world instantly in so many media.  Our networks and other sources are controlled and manipulated.  We are like Hurin chained to the chair only seeing those things that Morgoth knows will drive us to despair.

One last point ... that is that we tolerate and even embrace the various perspectives presented in the discussion, especially those with whom we differ ... having faith that it is with benign purpose that those perspectives have been presented.

One of the larger media conglomerates, Scripps-Howard, has a motto that says this insightfully. That is "Give the people light.  They will find their own way."

Good Stuff from everyone;

      Bear said: "...we must consider where Tolkien was in his life personally, academically, as well as the social climate in which those works were released." I have not considered that. I am always afforded a broader understanding by each of your perspectives. I truly appreciate this site and its members.

      Tolkien had an amazing way of weaving our world and his private experiences and observations into these tales but putting such a romantic spin on them that we are transported to a place that seems to be real and tangible...I guess in a way, we've made Middle-earth real and it lives on in all of us...powerful stuff! And that's why I believe that we aren't far off from seeing these other tales come to the big screen.

      I know The Silmarillion would be nearly impossible to make...as a whole! But not so daunting if you dice them up into the books that make up the Sil. "The Lay of Luthien" or "The Fall of Gondolin" just to name a few, would be awesome to see. Both of those stories are pretty much contained unto themselves, with pretty definitive beginnings and endings.  The Simarillion, cover to cover would be a terrifying undertaking for screen adaptation, I would assume. But "divide and conquer" and I feel that these stories within the pages of the Silmarillion can work well. So to stay on topic..."The Children of Hurin" could be done, since it is cover to cover awesome and certainly not as expansive as the Silmarillion.

     One of the main problems is that Movie Studios don't believe that Tolkien has a fan-base large enough to be worthy of the financing but since Jackson's LOTR all that has changed drastically. I meet young people all the time who love those movies and are thrilled to hear that "they were books first????" And when I start spurting some of the histories behind some of the artifacts or characters in the books I feel like an academic! I get a tickle out of it, but the real reward is to hear these youths say they're going to start reading it for themselves. My sons are some of these...it's really opened up communication between us!

       Jackson didn't do horribly but I think that he could've pulled back the reigns of main-stream cheeky antics in "The Hobbit" but I'm sure the studio didn't want to stray from a formula that worked so well previously.

       And I echo Laurelin's words: "I think part of the problem for me is that I have so little faith in people's desire to dig deeper." A lot of these studio heads are those people that put us in Hurin's figurative chair over the years. They have studies, and demographics from the 80's. Heck, I think I have seen the exact same movies with different titles, more than a few times it seems! Time to play it straight, Hollywood! Take the pages from the book and tell it raw...I think Movie-makers would be surprised about how sophisticated their audience has become.....they need to update their pie-charts!

P.S.  To the film-maker:  Stop making our Knights and Medievel characters say things like:  "Hurts don't it?" and "Come n' get some!"   just stop...