“Anything You Can Imagine: Peter Jackson and the Making of Middle-earth”, by Ian Nathan

 

592 pages, HarperCollins, ISBN-13: 978-0008369842

Having read The Lord of the Rings (reviewed on October 1^st, 2022, God Help Me) and watched all the extensive DVD material of all six Middle Earth films, I thought I had learned everything there was to know about the story of Peter Jackson and the making of “The Lord of the Rings” – and then Lo, what do I find but Anything You Can Imagine: Peter Jackson and the Making of Middle-earth by Ian Nathan. There’s lots to like in Nathan’s book, a British Filmographer, the material of which was gleaned primarily from his own experiences in covering the making of the “Fellowship of the Ring”, “The Two Towers” and “The Return of the King” (and the three “Hobbit” films, but those things have been relegated to a single chapter).

From the beginning the choice of Jackson to direct Tolkien’s much loved if flawed masterpiece was…peculiar, considering his filmography: from warped horror comedies like Bad Taste and Braindead (Dead/Alive in the States), to the drama fantasy Heavenly Creatures (with Kate Winslet in her first-ever role), to the Michael J. Fox vehicle The Frighteners, this was a man with an individual taste in subject matter. Also, in learning his craft on the go, he was able to make connections with a variety of different creative craftsmen over a range of genres, connections especially that helped him build his special-effects studio, Weta Workshop, without which LOTR would never have been made.

Nathan presents Jackson’s trials in bringing the books to film like a spy thriller, full of false leads, breathtaking amounts of work against seemingly impossible deadlines, studio intrigue and, mostly, dumb luck. The complex web of events could have been impossible to understand, but Nathan moves the events along with nail-biting urgency. My inner geek thrilled at the numerous anecdotes featuring behind-the-scenes goings on, such as when Sean Bean and Orlando Bloom were forced to seek shelter in an old woman’s cottage for four days when their car was caught in a flood while driving between locations.

Ultimately Nathan is able to evoke the wonder that accompanied the making of the movies, wonder at the ingeniousness of the production and design crew, the ability of Jackson and co-writers Fran Walsh and Philippa Boyens to reduce the essence of Tolkien’s epic into three films, and the fact that these got made at all.