Newsgroup: it.fan.scrittori.tolkien
Titolo: Articolo di Tullio Kezich (eh ehe eh, paura eeh?)

Ehe ehh eh: paura eeh?
Cmq quest'anno sembra meno snob ^_^
Va da sè che riporto l'articolo solo a scopo informativo: per commentare il
film andare prego su Caltanet o su free.it.cinema.ilsignoredeglianelli.
«Le due torri», 179 minuti con il fiato sospeso - di Tullio Kezich.
Corriere della Sera, 11 Gennaio 2003
Sulle ventate, scintillanti vette della Nuova Zelanda si apre Le due torri ,
secondo tomo della trilogia Il signore degli anelli , così definita da
Quirino Principe nella prefazione del volume edito da Bompiani: «...Il
momento che dà al "récit" un carattere particolarmente doloroso e
faticoso...mentre la liberazione e il riposo e la felicità che Frodo, Sam,
Aragorn, Merry, Pipino, Gimli, Legolas si ripromettono (sotto la meditabonda
ed enigmatica ala protettiva di Gandalf) sembrano lontanissimi,
irraggiungibili e forse inesistenti». Quanto invidio la sapienza con cui il
saggista riesce ad addentrarsi nel leggendario territorio del mito creato da
Tolkien (1892-1973). Nella mia povera testa già il citato elenco di
personaggi crea una bella confusione, tanto che se tornassi a scuola e mi
assegnassero il classico tema «Dite con le vostre parole il contenuto della
saga del Signore degli anelli » prenderei uno zero. Per mettermi al passo ho
fatto del mio meglio, mi sono procurato libri come «Tolkien-The illustrated
encyclopaedia» di David Ray (Simon & Schuster) e «I magici mondi del
"Signore degli anelli"» di David Colbert (Fanucci) e li ho ampiamente
consultati: inutile, nell'accavallarsi dei personaggi e delle situazioni
continuo a perdere il filo di una vicenda che in realtà è semplice. Frodo,
ingenuo «hobbit» misteriosamente chiamato al compito di salvare il mondo,
scavalca mari e monti, sfidando ogni pericolo, per andare a intombare il
famigerato anello negli anfratti del Monte Fato e cancellare per sempre il
pericolo del Male che incombe sull'umanità. Ci metterà qualcosa come 1200
pagine e (quando l'anno prossimo la trilogia cinematografica sarà
completata) nove ore di film.
Insomma, tutto lo spazio e il tempo necessari per confondere le idee a un
lettore o spettatore poco pratico dell'universo inventato da Tolkien nel
tentativo di sopperire alla mancanza di una tradizione leggendaria nella
letteratura e nel folklore britannici.
Strepitosa è stata comunque l'accoglienza riservata in Usa a questa seconda
parte, in genere considerata dai cinecritici più attraente e riuscita della
prima. Pur nei suoi lunghi 179 minuti, il film riesce a non stancare,
creando incidenti avventurosi a rotta di collo, secondo una logica forse più
salgariana che tolkeniana. Ormai divisi in tre gruppi, gli eroi della
Compagnia dell'anello si alternano in primo piano sempre pronti a cadere
dalla padella nella brace incontrando draghi, mostri, orchi, giganti,
elefanti e altri parlanti e combattenti ereditati direttamente dal
«Macbeth».
Tra scontri all'arma bianca e nugoli di frecce, orde scatenate e macchine da
guerra che ricordano Ejzenstejn e Kurosawa, la battaglia finale è un brano
possente che colloca il regista Peter Jackson fra i massimi strateghi di
massa del cinema.
Opera di Alan Lee, illustratore originario di Tolkien in una perfetta
coincidenza di fantasmagorie letterarie e grafiche, e dello scenografo Grant
Mayor, l'immagine di Le due torri è abbondantemente nutrita di reperti dai
grandi pittori di battaglie ai Preraffaelliti, ed evocatrice di suggestioni
disparate. E se nella tonitruante partitura di Howard Shore le trombe e i
tamburi non smettono un momento, rinforzati da cori ora angelici e ora
infernali, gli interpreti si prodigano in stile teatro della fiaba tra urla
e cachinni (in sottotono recitano solo le donne, che contano poco). Mentre
Elijah Wood come Frodo resta un po' nell'ombra e considerando che in quest'
episodio il supercattivo Christopher Lee appare solo di sfuggita, emergono
Ian McKellen, il bianco santone Gandalf, e il nano di John Rhys-Davies che
viene dalla Royal Shakespeare company. Però il fenomeno più curioso è
costituito dall'incrocio di recitazione dal vivo (Andy Serkis) e deformazion
i da computer per creare il mostriciattolo schizofrenico Gollum che alterca
con se stesso (qualcuno ha paragonato i suoi occhioni sbarrati a quelli di
Peter Lorre).
Nell'ondata di consensi spicca il moderato dissenso del critico del «Chicago
sun-times», Roger Evert, secondo il quale la trilogia di Tolkien in chiave
da film d'azione rischia di somigliare troppo a Conan il barbaro e poco a un
libro dove trionfa Frodo antieroe dell'umiltà.

 libro dove trionfa Frodo antieroe dell'umiltà.
PDA! Troviamo quest'articolo dai!
Mae aur!
Tarabas ed Elanor all'Ovest

 PDA! Troviamo quest'articolo dai!
Detto, fatto!!!
Ho impiegato circa mezzo minuto (dice soffiandosi sulla punta delle dita)..
:-P 
 
LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS
*** (PG-13)
December 18, 2002
BY ROGER EBERT
With "Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers," it's clear that director Peter
Jackson has tilted the balance decisively against the hobbits and in favor
of the traditional action heroes of the Tolkien trilogy. The star is now
clearly Aragorn (Viggo Mortensen), and the hobbits spend much of the movie
away from the action. The last third of the movie is dominated by an epic
battle scene that would no doubt startle the gentle medievalist J.R.R.
Tolkien.
The task of the critic is to decide whether this shift damages the movie.
It does not. "The Two Towers" is one of the most spectacular swashbucklers
ever made, and, given current audience tastes in violence, may well be
more popular than the first installment, "The Fellowship of the Ring." It
is not faithful to the spirit of Tolkien and misplaces much of the charm
and whimsy of the books, but it stands on its own as a visionary thriller.
I complained in my review of the first film that the hobbits had been
short-changed, but with this second film I must accept that as a given,
and go on from there.
"The Two Towers" is a rousing adventure, a skillful marriage of special
effects and computer animation, and it contains sequences of breathtaking
beauty. It also gives us, in a character named the Gollum, one of the most
engaging and convincing CGI creatures I've seen. The Gollum was long in
possession of the Ring, now entrusted to Frodo, and misses it ("my
precious") most painfully; but he has a split personality and (in between
spells when his dark side takes over) serves as a guide and companion for
Frodo (Elijah Wood) and Sam (Sean Astin). His body language is a
choreography of ingratiation and distortion.
The film introduces another computer-generated character, Treebeard, a
member of the most ancient race in Middle-Earth, a tree that walks and
talks and takes a very long time to make up its mind, explaining to Merry
and Pippin that slowness is a virtue. I would have guessed that a walking,
talking tree would look silly and break the spell of the movie, but no,
there is a certain majesty in this mossy old creature.
The film opens with a brief reprise of the great battle between Gandalf
(Ian McKellen) and Balrog, the monster made of fire and smoke, and is
faithful to the ancient tradition of movie serials by showing us that
victory is snatched from certain death, as Gandalf extinguishes the
creature and becomes in the process Gandalf the White.
To compress the labyrinthine story into a sentence or two, the enemy is
Saruman (Christopher Lee), who commands a vast army of Uruk-Hai warriors
against the fortress of Theoden (Bernard Hill). Aragorn joins bravely in
the fray, but the real heroes are the computer effects, which create the
castle, landscape, armies and most of the action.
There are long stretches of "The Two Towers" in which we are looking at
mostly animation on the screen. When Aragorn and his comrades launch an
attack down a narrow fortress bridge, we know that the figures toppling to
their doom are computer-generated, along with everything else on the
screen, and yet the impact of the action is undeniable. Peter Jackson,
like some of the great silent directors, is unafraid to use his entire
screen, to present images of wide scope and great complexity. He paints in
the corners.
What one misses in the thrills of these epic splendors is much depth in
the characters. All of the major figures are sketched with an attribute or
two, and then defined by their actions. Frodo, the nominal hero, spends
much of his time peering over and around things, watching others decide
his fate, and occasionally gazing significantly upon the Ring. Sam is his
loyal sidekick on the sidelines. Merry and Pippin spend a climactic
stretch of the movie riding in Treebeard's branches and looking
goggle-eyed at everything, like children carried on their father's
shoulders. The Fellowship of the first movie has been divided into three
during this one, and most of the action centers on Aragorn, who operates
within the tradition of Viking swordsmen and medieval knights.
The details of the story--who is who, and why, and what their histories
and attributes are--still remains somewhat murky to me. I know the general
outlines and I boned up by rewatching the first film on DVD the night
before seeing the second, and yet I am in awe of the true students of the
Ring. For the amateur viewer, which is to say for most of us, the appeal
of the movies is in the visuals. Here there be vast caverns and mighty
towers, dwarves and elves and Orcs and the aforementioned Uruk-Hai (who
look like distant cousins of the aliens in "Battlefield Earth"). And all
are set within Jackson's ambitious canvas and backdropped by spectacular
New Zealand scenery.
"The Two Towers" will possibly be more popular than the first film, more
of an audience-pleaser, but hasn't Jackson lost the original purpose of
the story somewhere along the way? He has taken an enchanting and unique
work of literature and retold it in the terms of the modern action
picture. If Tolkien had wanted to write about a race of supermen, he would
have written a Middle-Earth version of "Conan the Barbarian." But no. He
told a tale in which modest little hobbits were the heroes. And now
Jackson has steered the story into the action mainstream. To do what he
has done in this film must have been awesomely difficult, and he deserves
applause, but to remain true to Tolkien would have been more difficult,
and braver.
Qui finisce l'articolo, ma mi ha fatto pensare al punto da fare un altro
thead... andate a vedere!
ciao
Balin Snorrisson
-- 
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 and braver.
grande periodo...
se in effetti cosi' e', come mi pare altamente probabile, allora una grande
occasione di incarnare e raccontare con le immagini il piu' bel sogno che
mente umana abbia mai concepito (ma forse sarebbe stata cosa non solo
piu' difficile e coraggiosa, quanto piuttosto impossibile) e' andata perduta
in nome del profitto (ma ormai questa e' la norma...)
lunga vita al libero mercato.

e soprattutto trucco per miliardi di dollari (massi'...) ed ore)
Dunque in particolare nels econdo film, e in particolare proprio per
le scene di battaglia a Helm è stato usato un programma chiamato
Massive, vi riporto un articolo che descrive a grandi linee l'idea
alla abse del software in questione:
"
 
http://www.massivesoftware.com/
Digital Actors in Rings Can Think
By Courtney Macavinta  |   Also by this reporter  Page 1 of 1
02:00 AM Dec. 13, 2002 PT
WELLINGTON, New Zealand -- In a sparse, sunlit loft, programmer
Stephen
Regelous quietly works alone every day to the hum of his laptop. But
what
he's really doing is leading the masses.
Regelous created Massive, the special-effects program behind the
colossal
battles in The Lord of the Rings film trilogy. Using Massive, the
Oscar-winning Weta Digital team pulled off anticipated scenes for the
latest
installment, The Two Towers -- such as the battle at Helm's Deep -- by
digitally generating smart crowds to supplement the live action.
http://www.wired.com/news/digiwood/0,1412,56778,00.html
 See also
Middle Earth: It's So New Zealand
For Simone, 'Fake' Is Flattery
Why TV Is Getting More Graphic(s)
Online Game Economies Get Real
Machinima: Games Act Like Films
DAT's Entertainment, So Enjoy
 Today's Top 5 Stories
Digital Actors in Rings Can Think
Tech Sniffs Employee Offenders
It's Time to Trash That Old VCR
China: New Cloning Superpower?
Waiter, There's DNA in My Food
The computer-generated characters, called agents, have minds of their
own.
"Every agent has its own choices and a complete brain," Regelous said.
"The
most important thing about making realistic crowds is making realistic
individuals."
To bring J.R.R. Tolkien's books to life, gathering 70,000 or so tall,
broad-shouldered extras, dressing them in elaborate armor and
choreographing
them slaughtering each another was out of the question. And that was
just
one scene from the prologue to The Fellowship of the Ring.
So in 1996, director Peter Jackson asked Regelous, who had worked on
Jackson's film The Frighteners, to come up with a program that could
handle
the task.
In Massive, agents' brains -- which look like intricate flow charts --
define how they see and hear, how fast they run and how slowly they
die. For
the films, stunt actors' movements were recorded in the studio to
enable the
agents to wield weapons realistically, duck to avoid a sword, charge
an
enemy and fall off tower walls flailing.
Like real people, agents' body types, clothing and the weather
influence
their capabilities. Agents aren't robots, though. Each makes subtle
responses to its surroundings with fuzzy logic rather than yes-no,
on-off
decisions. And every agent has thousands of brain nodes, such as their
combat node, which has rules for their level of aggression.
When an animator places agents into a simulation, they're released to
do
what they will. It's not crowd control but anarchy. That's because
each
agent makes decisions from its point of view. Still, when properly
genetically engineered, the right character will always win the fight.
"It's possible to rig fights, but it hasn't been done," Regelous said.
"In
the first test fight we had 1,000 silver guys and 1,000 golden guys.
We set
off the simulation, and in the distance you could see several guys
running
for the hills."
For inspiration, Regelous didn't watch war movies as you might expect.
Instead he experimented with artificial intelligence by growing
digital
plants, and studied how people avoided each other on crowded streets.
Massive is not just for making war. It was also used to generate
doubles of
the film's stars and to create flocks of birds.
"I wanted to take the processes of nature and apply them to generate
computer imagery," Regelous said.
As a result, when the dark wizard Saruman leads his Uruk-hai warriors
to
Helm's Deep to crush the human alliance in The Two Towers, the army
isn't
made up of the same character copied and pasted 50,000 times, marching
symmetrically like a chain of paper dolls.
"Every soldier is drawing from their own repertoire of military moves
and
determining how they will fight the fight," explained Richard Taylor,
director of Weta Workshop, on New Line Cinema's site. "Some of the
scenes
that we'll see in Helm's Deep will defy belief."
Regelous plans to sell Massive for $40,000 per single floating
license. Even
if he doesn't win over the market, some say he's made great advances.
Seth
Lippman, a 3-D sequence lead for the first two Rings films, said
Massive
surpasses techniques used for other Oscar-winning films he's worked
on.
"In What Dreams May Come, the crowd characters were like 2-D
billboards in
space -- filler. They couldn't become main parts of the action,"
Lippman
said. "The illusion created by using the 2-D billboards would be
exposed
when employing the radical 3-D moves Peter Jackson is famous for. With
the
Massive approach, he could fly cameras right through the middle of the
battle."
For his part, Regelous is satisfied that Massive's agents are covert
enough
to win over fans of the classic trilogy.
"I can't tell what's Massive and what's not anymore."
--
Cheers,
Ken
"
Per farla breve in pratica Massive considera ogni modello 3D come un
singolo agente in grado di percepire, prendere decisioni e agire.
Il che è anni luce avanti rispetto alle scene di massa con modelli 3D
duplicati, e anche rispetto a approcci ibridi come quello in "Star
Wars - Episode I" dove i droidi nelle scene di massa sono replicati ma
è introdotto un algoritmo che rende alcuni features dei robot casuali
differenziandoli un po'.
Augusto Pucci
http://www.neuraldaemon.com/pucci

 LORD OF THE RINGS: THE TWO TOWERS
[CUT]
Mi trovo d'accordo con il signor Ebert, soprattutto nella considerazione
finale.
Mae aur!
--
Tarabas Hunnaur - 10° deI FeSTosi - [Togli l'antispam per rispondermi]
Ordinario di Ottica al Politecnico di Imladris
"Those who perish in their duty and in the service of their country die
honorably" - Major-General James Wolfe

 rotfl... il paragone piacera' sicuramente a soronel...
Invece secondo me somigliano abbastanza all'alieno di Predator, che era
ispirato agli aborigeni, e secondo me lo sono pure loro.
--
Elendil, #44 deI FeSTosi, FIFeDe #1 e IAFo #181
"Non aspettatevi troppo dalla fine del mondo"
 Stanislaw J. Lec

 illustrated encyclopaedia» (cut)
Non voglio commentare il film, ma solo notare come alle volte bastino
poche parole per farti leggere un articolo con tutt'altra disposizione
d'animo.
A prescindere dal merito professionale, trovo che il sig. Kezich con una
semplice frase abbia mostrato di saper stare al mondo meglio di tanti/e
altri/e.
'ao
-- 
Thingol - IFScT #48
"She's not my special lady friend, man. I'm just helping her conceive"
