Faramir

Rating: Null/10 (28 December 2002)

(Spoilers)
Peter Jackson has strayed from Tolkien's novel in this part of the adaption, for better or for worse. It's not surprising that viewers who've read the book don't like this. What is surprising, though, is what appears to be the shared interpretation of some of the changes: that Faramir is turned into a baddie, Theoden into a fool and a coward and that the Ents are somehow "tricked" into war with Saruman. I couldn't see anything remotely like it up on the screen, and I'm going to try to rebutt the "Bad Faramir" view here.
Faramir as portrayed in the movie seemed to me be a man in a fantastically complicated situation; he's commanding his country's rearguard in a desperate war, and is suddenly stuck with three beings of unknown species, to say nothing of allegiances. Of course interrogates them rather sharply; he did in the book, too. When he finds that they're bearing the Ring, he has his father's orders - on pain of death - to bring it to Gondor. He commits treason when he doesn't. On the other hand he sees the effects of the Ring on Frodo, right in front of him. He's in grief for his brother and is told of Boromir's treachery, can he be blamed if he doesn't want to believe it? And of course the ring affects him, it affects everybody. Tolkien made all this clear from the beginning, Jackson dramatizes it by only gradually revealing his true character. He makes Faramir a mystery to both the hobbits and to the audience, who might easily believe him to be evil. However, in the end his true value is revealed: as he says to Frodo: "now we finally understand one another". This becomes a double climax in the movie: plot-wise in that the whole future of Middle-Earth hangs on Faramir's decision, and morally in that Faramir stands true where his brother failed, thus indicating that mankind might itself stay true after all. Yes, this is somewhat different than Tolkien's Faramir, and one might quarrel with that. But to speak of a "Bad Faramir" seems to me to be nonsense.