Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema rewind. This is Rob Lamb. Hey,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of Lord of the Rings in the
Speaker 1: air once more. We've got that new season of The
Speaker 1: Rings of Power out now. And for my own part,
Speaker 1: I just finished rewatching nineteen seventy eight The Lord of
Speaker 1: the Rings with my son, and we also rewatched the
Speaker 1: old animated Hobbit and the old animated Return of the King.
Speaker 1: Those are from the years nineteen seventy seven and nineteen eighty.
Speaker 1: But hey, this one is a lot of fun. This
Speaker 1: is an episode Joe and I did a while back,
Speaker 1: because we're talking about the Keepers. This is a Russian adaptation,
Speaker 1: a Russian TV adaptation of The Fellowship of the Ring
Speaker 1: from nineteen ninety one. You can find places to stream this.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure offhand of it's had a more official release,
Speaker 1: but it is out there. You can breathe it in.
Speaker 1: It is. It is fascinating because, as we'll get into,
Speaker 1: like the pacing is rather interesting. A lot of time
Speaker 1: is devoted to things like Tom Bombadil, which is great,
Speaker 1: big Tom Bombadill fans here, but at the expense of
Speaker 1: what else, I don't know. It's got some nice synth
Speaker 1: music in places, and the ring Raiths look really cool.
Speaker 1: So without further ado, let's dive right into the keepers.
Speaker 2: Welcome to stuff to blow your mind, A production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob.
Speaker 3: Lamb and I'm Joe McCormick. And today we're doing Lord
Speaker 3: of the Rings. We're entering the Tolken verse for Weird
Speaker 3: House Cinema. Now, I assume you are immediately thinking, Okay,
Speaker 3: the Peter Jackson epic series, you know, the New Zealand Journey.
Speaker 3: Of course, that's not what we're doing, because you know,
Speaker 3: we're not going to go with that mainstream that we
Speaker 3: did recently do Deep Blue cy But no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: we're not doing that. You know what we're doing, of course,
Speaker 3: it is the nineteen seventy eight Ralph Bakshi animated version
Speaker 3: of the Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 1: And feeling a little more obscure, right it makes sense.
Speaker 3: No, I'm just kidding. No, we're not doing that. Of course,
Speaker 3: what we're actually doing is the nineteen eighty Return of
Speaker 3: the King.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, where there's a whip, there's a way of course.
Speaker 3: No, actually I'm kidding. We're not doing that. The adaptation
Speaker 3: of Lord of the Rings we're doing today is the
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety one Soviet made for TV production Kronatelli, which
Speaker 3: translates directly as Keepers, which was made for the Leningrad
Speaker 3: TV station in nineteen ninety one as the Soviet Union
Speaker 3: was collapsing. And wow, this is one of the most
Speaker 3: amazing films I've ever seen.
Speaker 1: It is so much fun. This what it recently emerged? Right,
Speaker 1: It seems like you've've certainly been making the rounds recently.
Speaker 3: It was thought lost for like thirty years until I
Speaker 3: think it was just earlier this year, maybe around April
Speaker 3: of twenty one, that the TV station that Leningrad TV
Speaker 3: turned into I think it's called Channel five or five
Speaker 3: TV now. I believe they were responsible for locating the
Speaker 3: originals and publishing it to the internet. I think they
Speaker 3: just put it up on YouTube.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think I read that one of their employees
Speaker 1: wandered down into the basement and won the lost footage
Speaker 1: in a game of riddles for a subterranean creature, right.
Speaker 3: Uh huh. And so and also some beautiful Soul was
Speaker 3: kind enough to create some English subtitles, which is what
Speaker 3: we're going to have to be working off of here.
Speaker 3: The original was of course in Russian, and the best
Speaker 3: we can do is whatever these user generated subtitles are.
Speaker 3: But I don't know. I got a good feeling from them.
Speaker 3: I trust them. I feel like they're mostly accurate.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, we know the source material and this
Speaker 1: film will discuss the changes, but it's mostly accurate to
Speaker 1: the source material. It's honorable to the source material, with
Speaker 1: some caveats, and you get some weird characters thrown in,
Speaker 1: like I had a lot of crucifixes thrown into my
Speaker 1: my subtitles, but it was still there were decent subtitles.
Speaker 1: So if I'll go ahead and put this out there
Speaker 1: that if you want to find these YouTube links that
Speaker 1: we're discussing here, I'll include them on the blog post
Speaker 1: for this episode at samooda music dot com. That's se
Speaker 1: m U t A m U s C dot com.
Speaker 1: That's just a blog I have, but it's the only
Speaker 1: place I can put stuff up like this right now,
Speaker 1: So go there if you want to see it, or
Speaker 1: just go look it up on YouTube. Doesn't matter to
Speaker 1: me as long as you see it and hear it
Speaker 1: and feel it.
Speaker 3: Now, if you are hoping to encounter shelob or see
Speaker 3: the battle for Minas Tirith, or see the Hobbits go
Speaker 3: into Mordoor or anything like that. Unfortunately, that is not
Speaker 3: going to happen in this part of the story because
Speaker 3: if you're familiar with the arc of Lord of the Rings,
Speaker 3: you know it was originally published as one gigantic novel,
Speaker 3: but broken into three volumes. You had Fellowship of the
Speaker 3: Ring and then The Two Towers and then Return of
Speaker 3: the King. This movie adaptation is just the first third,
Speaker 3: is just the Fellowship of the Ring.
Speaker 1: Right, And I have to say, they really, they really
Speaker 1: let it breathe. You know, they spend they spend two
Speaker 1: solid hours. They cut out some stuff that you might
Speaker 1: not expect them to cut out.
Speaker 3: Very strange choices about pacing and how to allocate the
Speaker 3: plot into the two hours they had, Right.
Speaker 1: But then they also they show a lot of love
Speaker 1: for sections of the book that are traditionally cut out
Speaker 1: of all adaptations, or at least all that I'm familiar with.
Speaker 3: Yes, so one of the most notable things about Kronatelly
Speaker 3: is that it includes Tom Bombadil and the Barrow Downs,
Speaker 3: which is so exciting to me.
Speaker 1: Yes, Yes. I was excited for this as well because
Speaker 1: I have recently my son and I have recently started
Speaker 1: listening to the audio book of the Fellowship of the
Speaker 1: Rings and we just finished this section with the Barrow
Speaker 1: Whites and Tom Bombadill, and so he's had a lot
Speaker 1: of thoughts about it, and like I was telling him
Speaker 1: about about all this, and I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: most most film adaptations cut Tom Bombadil out. And he's like, no,
Speaker 1: Tom Bombadil is an important character. I mean, not that
Speaker 1: he would know, yes, right, made it that far into
Speaker 1: the book. At this point, he seems very important because
Speaker 1: he's essentially like a nature god who showed up and
Speaker 1: saved everybody twice.
Speaker 3: I think Tom Bombadil will come off as especially essential
Speaker 3: and uncutable to people who have listened to the audiobook
Speaker 3: narrated by Rob Nglis, who does the you know, his
Speaker 3: own wonderful renditions of the songs that Tolkien only wrote
Speaker 3: the lyrics to. You know, there isn't music in the books,
Speaker 3: so but Rob Engliss's interpretation of the melodies for the
Speaker 3: Tom Bombadil songs is actually quite haunting and interesting. Yeah, Hey,
Speaker 3: dol Mary dol ring a Dingadillo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, like the lyrics are fun.
Speaker 3: Like.
Speaker 1: One of the things about reading Tolkien is, of course
Speaker 1: you get a lot of songs, and if you're reading
Speaker 1: them to yourself, you don't. I find myself kind of
Speaker 1: reading quickly through the especially the multi page song lyrics.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: And then if I'm reading them aloud, say to my son,
Speaker 1: as we did with the Hobbit, I'm not I'm I'm
Speaker 1: fairly musically inclined, but not enough to wear. I can
Speaker 1: just randomly sing these lyrics to a tune. So the
Speaker 1: audiobook is is a real treasure when it comes to
Speaker 1: these songs, because he does a Yeah, he does a
Speaker 1: great job bringing them to life, and and they even
Speaker 1: you can kind of get earwormed by Tom bombadill find
Speaker 1: yourself humming this song through the rest of your day.
Speaker 3: I listened to part of these audio books on an airplane,
Speaker 3: and the next day I was wandering around London in
Speaker 3: a in a fog of jet lag, just singing no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: He's a merry felloo. Yeah, but it was bright as
Speaker 3: jacket is and his boots are yeah hello, Yeah.
Speaker 1: A lot of lyrics about just how merry he is
Speaker 1: and what he is wearing and then.
Speaker 3: The rhythm daughter about goldberry, goldberry, Ye, fatty lumpkin, all
Speaker 3: about the ponies. Yeah, I love a song about a pony.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So it's really good stuff. And yeah, and when
Speaker 1: you're reading Lord of the Rings, it is a weird
Speaker 1: and counter because he's just this merry, godlike and mysterious character.
Speaker 1: Like there's still scholarly articles that are that are trying
Speaker 1: to tear apart exactly what Tom is and what he
Speaker 1: you know, what he descends from in you know, the
Speaker 1: actual annals of mythology. And then the barrel Whites are
Speaker 1: just super creepy as well. They are these when you
Speaker 1: get into the Morn of the lore, there are these
Speaker 1: tortured spirits that have fled the witch kingdom of Angmar
Speaker 1: and hid in the ancient bodies of human warriors that
Speaker 1: were buried during the first Age of the Sun. And
Speaker 1: so they're just like will crushing darkness. And we have
Speaker 1: that wonderful creepy scene where the Hobbits wake up in
Speaker 1: the barrow mounds and they're there, they've been laid out
Speaker 1: and covered in the gold of the dead. Its fabulous stuff.
Speaker 3: But if I were doing an adaptation where I was
Speaker 3: trying to render a barrow white, I would not have
Speaker 3: thought to dress him as a creepy clown. Yes, And
Speaker 3: so the barrel white, I think in this movie I
Speaker 3: could be missed, but I believe is played by a woman,
Speaker 3: but is voiced by like a like a raspy, deep
Speaker 3: voiced man, and the person playing the barrow white is
Speaker 3: dressed in full like mime makeup or like I don't
Speaker 3: know what you call that classic clown makeup that goes like,
Speaker 3: you know, the old style.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. It is not something I would have
Speaker 1: chosen for the barrow white scenes.
Speaker 3: They're very creepy.
Speaker 1: It's creepy, but in a way that is perhaps a
Speaker 1: little off brand. I don't know, But I don't know.
Speaker 1: There's just one detail in the film. There's other stuff
Speaker 1: that works a lot better, and I guess, I don't know,
Speaker 1: maybe given the budget here, this was a good choice.
Speaker 1: Hard to say, I guess one of the problems. And
Speaker 1: I'd be interested to hear if you say about this.
Speaker 1: Like one thing that I've read about the exclusion of
Speaker 1: the barrow white scene from other adaptations is that not
Speaker 1: only is there pacing issue, not only is this a
Speaker 1: whole encounter that can be easily removed. But potentially if
Speaker 1: you put the Barrel Whites on screen, they might be
Speaker 1: confused with the Black Riders, oh yeah, the nine Yeah,
Speaker 1: and or even if you're not confused with them, they
Speaker 1: might take some of the heat away from them. And
Speaker 1: so if you take them out, the Ring Raths remain
Speaker 1: the primary supernatural antagonist in this phase of the book.
Speaker 3: I can see that. I mean, the other main criticism
Speaker 3: that I've encountered, and I know we've talked about this before.
Speaker 3: I think what Peter Jackson said is the reason Tom
Speaker 3: Bombadil and the Barrow Downs and all that is not
Speaker 3: in his version of the movie at all, is that
Speaker 3: it does not advance the plot, like you can cut
Speaker 3: it out and nothing is really changed.
Speaker 1: Yeah. The only criticism I've seen of that is people say, well,
Speaker 1: this is where the Hobbits get their initial weapons from
Speaker 1: the trove of the Barrel Whites. You know, Tom Bombadil
Speaker 1: picks stuff out for them, and without that, you just
Speaker 1: have Strider randomly handing out Hobbit sized weapons later on
Speaker 1: in the film. But I don't know, I think that's
Speaker 1: that's a small, small, small point to harp on.
Speaker 3: But This is interesting because it leads to one of
Speaker 3: the major differences in storytelling structure between this adaptation of
Speaker 3: Fellowship and say Peter Jackson's. I mean, it's funny in
Speaker 3: many ways to compare them.
Speaker 4: Though.
Speaker 3: Another thing that's funny is that they only came out
Speaker 3: about ten years apart. Yeah, if you can fit that
Speaker 3: in your brain.
Speaker 1: Ten years and however many millions and millions of dollars.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's also so. The Peter Jackson movies
Speaker 3: were a multimillion dollar production, and from what I can
Speaker 3: tell I was reading. Actually, there's a very good article
Speaker 3: in Variety about the production of Chronatelli that interviews some
Speaker 3: of the actors who were originally involved in it. They're
Speaker 3: still alive, still working. They talked to Georgi Steel, who
Speaker 3: played Bilbo Baggins in this production, who I think is
Speaker 3: like eighty nine now or something. He's still acting and
Speaker 3: he's a great actor, by the way. I mean. One
Speaker 3: of the funny things about this is, despite how threadbear
Speaker 3: the production is a lot of the actors in it
Speaker 3: are legends of the Leningrad Saint Petersburg theater scene.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it shines through playing Bilbo is great. The
Speaker 1: actor playing Gandalf is great. Some of the others I
Speaker 1: have notes on, but those two in particular are wonderful.
Speaker 1: And yeah, don't dismiss this title on the acting love.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, some of the acting may come off a little weird,
Speaker 1: especially if you have certain expectations for some of these characters.
Speaker 1: But there are a lot of talented people involved in this.
Speaker 3: Well, I've got thoughts about that. I'm going to get
Speaker 3: two in a second, but sorry, I started to introduce
Speaker 3: this article and then I didn't fully put it out there.
Speaker 3: So it's an article in Variety by Rebecca Davis called
Speaker 3: Inside the Soviet Lord of the Rings cast details their
Speaker 3: epic TV movie Uncovered after thirty years I was published
Speaker 3: a few months ago, I think, And this is a
Speaker 3: really great article, like I said, because it manages to
Speaker 3: get a number of people who were actually involved in
Speaker 3: this obscure production on the record to explain what was
Speaker 3: going on. And so one of the things emphasized by
Speaker 3: several actors here is that this movie had essentially no
Speaker 3: budget at all. It was made I think over the
Speaker 3: course of an estimated nine hours total of shooting that
Speaker 3: took place in a few sessions in less than a week. So,
Speaker 3: you know, one of the actors was explaining that they
Speaker 3: know they'd sort of come together. They'd rehearse a scene
Speaker 3: very quickly, and then they just shoot it and they
Speaker 3: do no second takes, and then they just move on
Speaker 3: to the next thing. And like all of the stuff
Speaker 3: was sourced from just what was lying around the Leningrad
Speaker 3: TV stations. With the costumes, the sets, the props, almost
Speaker 3: all of them were just repurposed whatever they could borrow
Speaker 3: from other previous productions. I think maybe the most complex
Speaker 3: things we get in terms of filmmaking are the shots
Speaker 3: of people riding horses out in the snow, and so
Speaker 3: you get several shots of that that are supposed to
Speaker 3: be the nine the Ring Raiths who were hunting the Ring,
Speaker 3: and then you also get some shots of the Hobbits
Speaker 3: riding ponies out in the snow. And one of the actors,
Speaker 3: i think Sergei Shelganov, who played Mary brandy Buck, talks
Speaker 3: about how he'd never ridden a horse before shooting that
Speaker 3: scene and never he's never ridden a horse since, and
Speaker 3: it was the coldest he's ever been.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is one thing we should point out about
Speaker 1: this film is that there is there is intense, an
Speaker 1: intense feeling of winter in this and in fact, there's
Speaker 1: a point in the film where Gandalf tells, I think
Speaker 1: he's telling Frodo, right, He says, Frodo, winter is coming back.
Speaker 3: Yeah. They keep saying winter is coming over and over.
Speaker 3: This also long predates the Germ and it's a it's
Speaker 3: an interesting cultural adaptation of Lord of the Rings because
Speaker 3: you know, so Lord of the Rings is very much
Speaker 3: about weather and landscape and and and traveling across the
Speaker 3: terrain and experiencing nature as you're on a hard journey,
Speaker 3: but winter and snow don't play that big of a
Speaker 3: I mean, the snow is a big part of their
Speaker 3: attempt to get over the Karadhras when they're you know,
Speaker 3: trying to go over the mountains, and then they fail
Speaker 3: doing that and have to go back down into the
Speaker 3: minds of Moria. But overall, I don't recall snow being
Speaker 3: a big part of the journey in the books. No,
Speaker 3: But hey, you know that you got to adapt to
Speaker 3: the local terrain, so if you need to shoot locally,
Speaker 3: that's what you're doing. But then the other thing is
Speaker 3: this this film actually does while it's mostly just shooting
Speaker 3: actors doing a first take of a scene on a
Speaker 3: set at this Leningrad TV station or maybe at some
Speaker 3: other locations around town. I'm not sure. They They actually
Speaker 3: do have a couple of scenes that have special effects
Speaker 3: in them. For example, there is one scene where the
Speaker 3: four Hobbits are dining at the house of Tom Bombadil
Speaker 3: and Goldberry, and they recast Bombadill and Goldberry as giants.
Speaker 3: You know that they're like not just a little bit
Speaker 3: bigger than the Hobbits, but they're like enormous compared to them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's which I don't think they're that big in
Speaker 1: the book there, like he's supposed to be kind of shortish,
Speaker 1: actually stout but short. But yeah, they're titans in this.
Speaker 1: But it's an impressive shot. That's pretty good.
Speaker 3: Some of the articles have not agreed with you there,
Speaker 3: but I don't know, I bought it. I was there.
Speaker 1: I mean, taking into account the zero budget. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: also just kind of the charm of the production, like
Speaker 1: there is there is this made for television like decayed
Speaker 1: quality h charm to it, and yeah, you know you
Speaker 1: don't want to see a perfect special effect in that.
Speaker 1: And then also if I'm going to be more critical there.
Speaker 1: There are far lousier special effects in this film, like
Speaker 1: that's not the one to really, that's not the hill
Speaker 1: to die on, the giant tom bomba Delf scene.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I would say on the on the worst side
Speaker 3: of the visual effects present. There's one thing where it
Speaker 3: seems like sometimes that we're trying to evoke a sense
Speaker 3: of mystery or kind of I don't know, the the
Speaker 3: general visual obscurity of fantasy and the deep past by
Speaker 3: doing what looks like smearing the camera lens with the
Speaker 3: translucent gel of some sort. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's something we've seen. I've seen this in other
Speaker 1: productions as well, but they're they're definitely doing it here.
Speaker 3: Oh but sorry, I wanted to come back to something
Speaker 3: we brought up a minute ago, which is that, you know,
Speaker 3: I want to be generous to this, but but I
Speaker 3: think it is clear that a lot of the performances,
Speaker 3: the acting performances in this are way off base. They're
Speaker 3: just bizarre renditions of these now well known and now
Speaker 3: beloved characters, despite the fact that a lot of the
Speaker 3: actors in this production are actually great actors of the
Speaker 3: stage at least, you know, people who have done a
Speaker 3: lot of work before and since in the Leningrad Saint
Speaker 3: Petersburg theater scene, and they're highly trained, well respected actors,
Speaker 3: So what's going on here? I think actually a lot
Speaker 3: of the bizarre performances are a result of confusion about
Speaker 3: the characterizations themselves, Like something is getting lost in translation
Speaker 3: of how to understand what these characters' personalities are and
Speaker 3: how we should feel about them. So I would say
Speaker 3: one of the big examples is, again I don't want
Speaker 3: to single him out because I think he's I think
Speaker 3: he's actually a good actor. But the actor who plays
Speaker 3: fro Do makes some really strang like in this movie,
Speaker 3: especially towards the beginning, is this insufferable alfredy Newman brat,
Speaker 3: Like he looks like he should be wearing a sailor
Speaker 3: suit and have a lollipop in his mouth.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, they are shades of got a hint of
Speaker 1: Alan Cumming, a hint of mister Bean, Yeah, hint of
Speaker 1: pee Wee Herman.
Speaker 3: Yeah, mister Bean and Pee Wee Herman. Absolutely, but with
Speaker 3: like a red wig on and a wet mouth.
Speaker 1: Yeah he's so. I mean Frodo and Bilbo too. You know,
Speaker 1: there are certainly times where they're written and they come
Speaker 1: off as kind of, you know, wimpy and not up
Speaker 1: for the journey, and they have to overcome that. But man,
Speaker 1: this fro Do, like he has this one line where
Speaker 1: at least it was translated as he's talking to Gandolf
Speaker 1: and he says, you've spoken for so long it makes
Speaker 1: me hungry. And I was like, oh my god, you're
Speaker 1: not going to get out of the shire alive. Frodo.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, the worst, but yeah, yeah, what are
Speaker 3: his epithets? Frodo worst heart, Frodo, Frodo underwhelm, Frodo underwhelm,
Speaker 3: Frodo cries a lot, Frodo lollymouth.
Speaker 1: But even this actor is still around, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think so. At least one of the articles I
Speaker 3: was reading about it mentioned something about him, though I
Speaker 3: don't think he was interviewed. But yeah, again, I don't
Speaker 3: want to chalk that up to like the actor being
Speaker 3: a bad actor. I would say instead, we now, I think,
Speaker 3: especially since the Peter Jackson movies, we have a more
Speaker 3: cemented idea of how each of these characters should be received.
Speaker 3: What's sort of the canon appearance and tone for their
Speaker 3: representation on screen and at the time and place this
Speaker 3: was being made. I think something was just getting lost
Speaker 3: because even though there has for a long time been
Speaker 3: great love for Tolkien's works in Russia and even in
Speaker 3: the Soviet Union, there's obviously some difficulty in the adaptation.
Speaker 3: You know, there's a translation process going on, and it's
Speaker 3: not even always a totally like a free and organic
Speaker 3: translation process.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, on that note, let's just start with the obvious.
Speaker 1: The title Kronatelly. What does this mean? Well, I believe
Speaker 1: it translates from Russian as the keepers and as in
Speaker 1: like the keepers or the guardians of the Ring. Incidentally,
Speaker 1: this is also the translated title for the Russian release
Speaker 1: of the two thousand and nine Zack Snyder adaptation of Watchmen.
Speaker 3: Oh, Chronatellio, Okay, I see yeah yah.
Speaker 1: So if you do start doing a search for Chronatelly
Speaker 1: or for the actual cyrillic of that, you'll suddenly get
Speaker 1: all these pictures of Watchmen, and you may find yourself confused.
Speaker 1: You think I'm looking for Lord of the Rings and
Speaker 1: instead here is a you know Borshakh.
Speaker 3: Wait a minute, though, so how do so? Obviously the
Speaker 3: Peter Jackson movies, once those were made, were actually released
Speaker 3: in Russia, what do they call the Fellowship there.
Speaker 1: I believe the title in Russian is Brastavo Kortsa, which
Speaker 1: means Brotherhood of the Ring.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, that seems like a fairly faithful rendition.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah. Now, as for Russian translations of the book itself,
Speaker 1: this is all very interesting and I think is also
Speaker 1: something to keep in mind when we're talking about like,
Speaker 1: how are these characters framed, et cetera. Fellowship of the
Speaker 1: Ring has an interesting history in Russia. It was originally
Speaker 1: published in the West, of course, in nineteen fifty four,
Speaker 1: and so you know, naturally English reading Russians could have
Speaker 1: conceivably read it as early as that, but the first
Speaker 1: Russian translation didn't occur till nineteen sixty six, a short
Speaker 1: retelling that didn't see the light of publication until nineteen ninety.
Speaker 1: And the translation we see in the film here is
Speaker 1: it's apparently based on a nineteen eighty two translation that
Speaker 1: was a bridge to comply with Soviet censorship.
Speaker 3: Okay, so what we're getting is a Leningrad TV teleplay
Speaker 3: adaptation of a censored and abridged translation of the original novel.
Speaker 1: Right right, And for a while this was there have
Speaker 1: been subsequent translations in Russian of The Lord of the Rings,
Speaker 1: but for the longest this was the only official version
Speaker 1: you could get in the r Now, according to Mark Hooker,
Speaker 1: the author of Tolkien Through Russian Eyes, cited in Alan
Speaker 1: Juhas's excellent New York Times article on this film, the
Speaker 1: major stalling points stalling, not Stalin points. The stalling points
Speaker 1: that the hang ups surrounding the original text for the
Speaker 1: Soviet censors were perceived quote religious themes or the depiction
Speaker 1: of desperate Western allies uniting against a sinister power from
Speaker 1: the east.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can see how the Soviet censors might not
Speaker 3: have been keen on a book that's about allies coming
Speaker 3: together to fight an empire in the East.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, I mean, so to say the least, Russia
Speaker 1: has a different history with Lord of the Rings compared
Speaker 1: to other parts of the world, certainly compared to England
Speaker 1: and America. The work itself, of course, has an appeal
Speaker 1: that defies borders and nationalities, though based in the mythology
Speaker 1: and literatures that Tolkien himself was most familiar with, and
Speaker 1: these these include mostly non Russian and Slavic influences. Apparent
Speaker 1: I was reading Tolkien had tried to learn Russian at
Speaker 1: one point and it didn't take. Here's what he had
Speaker 1: to say in one of his letters, quote, I love music,
Speaker 1: but have no aptitude for it. Slavonic languages are for
Speaker 1: me almost in the same category. I've had to go
Speaker 1: at many tongues in my time, but I am in
Speaker 1: no ordinary sense of linguist, and the time I once
Speaker 1: spent on trying to learn Serbian and Russian have left
Speaker 1: me with no practical results, only a strong impression of
Speaker 1: the structure and word aesthetic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that seems correct. I mean, based on my experience
Speaker 3: with Tolkien, it seems like most of the language and
Speaker 3: mythology that he tends to draw from is what you
Speaker 3: would say. I think mainly like Northern Europeans, sort of
Speaker 3: like Scandinavian, Germanic and Celtic.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm. Yeah, that's my understanding as well. So we
Speaker 1: have that going on, and then we have this added
Speaker 1: layer of censorship state suspicion of the work, and it's
Speaker 1: been sieminglarly longer lasting mixes of both the rich enthusiasm
Speaker 1: for Tolkien. I was reading that Moscow has or had
Speaker 1: a Tolkien museum of sorts. The photos were not I
Speaker 1: mean they looked fun. It looked fun, but it also
Speaker 1: looked kind of small but still dedicated Tolkien Museum in Moscow.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Now, one thing that I'm sure of, though I
Speaker 3: don't know if this particular question was ever asked to him,
Speaker 3: I think other similar questions were put to him. I
Speaker 3: know that Tolkien strenuously objected to any attempt to read
Speaker 3: Lord of the Rings or any of his works as
Speaker 3: allegory for real world or historical events. In fact, he
Speaker 3: made clear that he hated allegory, and he thought that
Speaker 3: it was stupid and insulting to the audience to like
Speaker 3: write a fantasy tale that was supposed to be an
Speaker 3: allegory for I don't know, world War two, I think
Speaker 3: would be the more often thing. People would be, Oh,
Speaker 3: is Mordor supposed to be the Nazis or whatever. I
Speaker 3: think his attitude was more, No, I'm writing an original story,
Speaker 3: and you may see elements of it that make you
Speaker 3: think about things that have happened in the real world,
Speaker 3: but that's your prerogative. This is not meant to be
Speaker 3: taken as an allegory for any events past, present, or future.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and yet once you certainly have say, state
Speaker 1: suspicion concerning the work. I guess that's kind of hard
Speaker 1: to completely eradicate, and I feel like this is probably
Speaker 1: best encapsulated in a book by Russian author kiro Eskov
Speaker 1: came out in nineteen ninety nine, at least in parts
Speaker 1: of the world in Russia, titled The Last Ring Bear,
Speaker 1: which spins the story of the Lord of the Rings
Speaker 1: by taking the view of Mordor as a state misunderstood
Speaker 1: by the victors who wrote the history.
Speaker 3: Right, So it's kind of a sequel to Lord of
Speaker 3: the Rings, but it says, Okay, you've read Lord of
Speaker 3: the Rings, but now consider this. Lord of the Rings
Speaker 3: is the version of the story you're getting from the elves, basically.
Speaker 1: Right, the idea that the elves have a grudge in
Speaker 1: all of this, and of course they're going to depict
Speaker 1: more Door as this awful, stinking, you know, death realm,
Speaker 1: as opposed to what The Last Ring Bear frames it
Speaker 1: as as the cultural and the technological center of Middle Earth.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think the way this novel reframes it is
Speaker 3: that Mordor is a place that kind of eschewes magic
Speaker 3: and is trying to create a scientific and technological civilization
Speaker 3: and it almost casts Again, I don't know how much
Speaker 3: the author would agree with this, but just having read
Speaker 3: summaries of the plot and some of the themes in it,
Speaker 3: it seems to me almost like the Elves and Gandalf
Speaker 3: might be somewhat equivalent to the Axis powers in World
Speaker 3: War Two, and that they're, you know, trying to promote
Speaker 3: this kind of fantasy, romantic mysticism view of the world
Speaker 3: and trying to destroy the society and culture and people
Speaker 3: of Mordor before they can grow too powerful through scientific
Speaker 3: and technological means.
Speaker 1: Yeah, as a thought experience, it sounds fun taking, like
Speaker 1: essentially doing what some would accuse Tolkien of having done.
Speaker 1: But that being said, yeah, I don't think Tolkien would
Speaker 1: have approved of this, and I know the Tolkien estate
Speaker 1: would not approve of this, and that's one of the
Speaker 1: reasons you'll find no official translation of this in the
Speaker 1: US now.
Speaker 3: As for other film or TV adaptations of Tolkien's works,
Speaker 3: in the Soviet Union, I was reading, I think there
Speaker 3: was an adaptation at some point of The Hobbit that
Speaker 3: has some major plot changes but does involve Ballet. And
Speaker 3: I've never seen this, but I would like to. But
Speaker 3: I was also reading an article in The Guardian by
Speaker 3: Andrew Roth, who I think is one of their Moscow correspondents,
Speaker 3: that was about this release of chron and Telly, this
Speaker 3: adaptation of Fellowship from nineteen ninety one. And Roth notes
Speaker 3: a couple of other interesting things about the history of
Speaker 3: film adaptations of Lord of the Rings in Russia. So
Speaker 3: one of them is that he mentions there was a
Speaker 3: nineteen ninety one animated version of The Hobbit that was
Speaker 3: going to be called something like The Treasure under the
Speaker 3: Mountain that was partially animated, but it was never finished.
Speaker 3: But he links to this clip that somebody has put
Speaker 3: on the Internet of allegedly what is like six minutes
Speaker 3: of what was going to become this movie, and I
Speaker 3: checked it out, and this is gorgeous. I wish they
Speaker 3: had made this whole adaptation. I mean, it looks phenomenally
Speaker 3: beautiful to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is. It does have a lot of charm
Speaker 1: to it, and in a way it makes one wonder
Speaker 1: what it will be like when, when and if? Who
Speaker 1: knows how Copyright laws could potentially change in the future,
Speaker 1: But at what point Tolkien's work becomes the you know,
Speaker 1: the property of the people at large, you know, and
Speaker 1: when you reach the point where just about anybody can
Speaker 1: can do some sort of retelling or spin on Tolkien,
Speaker 1: you know, what would it be like if you had
Speaker 1: What would a Japanese Lord of the Rings be like?
Speaker 1: What would a Mexican Lord of the Rings be like?
Speaker 3: Oh, I'd love to see that. Yeah?
Speaker 1: What would say a Minds of Maria horror film be like?
Speaker 1: I mean, there's so many different directions you could go
Speaker 1: in in Middle Earth where you know right now, certainly
Speaker 1: if you're putting out any kind of like major production,
Speaker 1: it needs to be very much in line with what
Speaker 1: the estate will approve off. I understand.
Speaker 3: There's another really funny thing noted in that article by
Speaker 3: Andrew Roth about this concern is something we were talking
Speaker 3: about earlier tone getting lost in the translation to the
Speaker 3: Russian version, which is that when the Peter Jackson Lord
Speaker 3: of the Rings movies were released in Russia, there was
Speaker 3: one version of them, one dubbed version that was popular,
Speaker 3: that was dubbed by somebody who was a translator named
Speaker 3: Dmitri Puchkov, operating under the pseudonym Goblin, and allegedly, according
Speaker 3: to Roth, I've never heard this myself. His dubbed version
Speaker 3: of Lord of the Rings was noted for being filled
Speaker 3: with profanity that was not there in the original text,
Speaker 3: and other funny things like, for example, Frodo in it
Speaker 3: is called Fiodor, and Legolas has a Baltic accent, and
Speaker 3: like aer Igorn is like yelling, like is like cussing
Speaker 3: at his troops.
Speaker 1: All right, well, I don't know if I approve of
Speaker 1: cussing in the Lord of the Rings, but that's interesting.
Speaker 3: Nonetheless, that really would change the tone for me. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, we don't have a trailer per se, but I
Speaker 1: think it's high time we give everyone just a little
Speaker 1: taste of the sonic wonder is to be found in
Speaker 1: this film.
Speaker 3: Oh you know what we should play is the is
Speaker 3: the opening music. We haven't even talked about the music yet,
Speaker 3: which is like the how do we go this far
Speaker 3: without the music? The music is like one of the
Speaker 3: greatest selling points of this right.
Speaker 1: The music in this film is not what you might
Speaker 1: expect from a Lord of the Rings adaptation. It is
Speaker 1: in no way traditional. It is all over the board
Speaker 1: there so I kuint of it. Something like five different
Speaker 1: genres of music used to tell the story, and I
Speaker 1: have to say, I love it. It's very liberating. You
Speaker 1: don't know what you're gonna get.
Speaker 3: Okay, let's get that opening song. That is I think
Speaker 3: that the words in this song are a Russian translation
Speaker 3: of the inscription on the ring that's in the book.
Speaker 3: So you know, seven to the dwarf floors in their
Speaker 3: halls of stone, nine immortal men doomed to die. That
Speaker 3: kind of thing.
Speaker 4: Here you go, easier.
Speaker 1: Do I love it? Russian folk rock?
Speaker 3: This movie is full of Russian folk rock also, though,
Speaker 3: I love the way that, like you said, it just
Speaker 3: pulls in every possible genre. One of my favorite musical
Speaker 3: touches is that Gandalf's wizard word powers include the ability
Speaker 3: to cast spells of folk music.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, that is one of the great sequences that
Speaker 1: if you don't watch the whole thing. I'll also include
Speaker 1: the highlight reel that somebody put together. I'll include that
Speaker 1: on the some moody music dot com yeah blog post
Speaker 1: for this this episode, because in that you'll see a
Speaker 1: lot of the points we're talking about here, including the
Speaker 1: funky magic of of Gandolf the Gray.
Speaker 3: Now, we would normally do a section here where we
Speaker 3: go in depth about a lot of the people involved
Speaker 3: in the production of this, especially the cast. That's going
Speaker 3: to be harder to do in this case because a
Speaker 3: lot of these people didn't do a lot of films
Speaker 3: and are more kind of in the say, Leningrad or
Speaker 3: Saint Petersburg commune theater community. And to the extent that
Speaker 3: they did do films, they're not really films that we
Speaker 3: would be that we're familiar with. There are a lot of,
Speaker 3: you know, Russian movies.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so certainly, I know we have some listeners out
Speaker 1: there who are who are who are Russian or have
Speaker 1: have a greater understanding of Russian cinema. So if if
Speaker 1: if you have any notes on people that we're mentioning
Speaker 1: here or not mentioning at all in any detail, certainly
Speaker 1: ride in and let us know. But we'll try and
Speaker 1: we'll cover some of the high points and at least
Speaker 1: a couple of the people that are connected to Western
Speaker 1: films of note or Russian films that are of note internationally.
Speaker 3: So the director was somebody named Natalia Cerebryakova, who I
Speaker 3: think she went by Natasha. Actually is Natasha like a
Speaker 3: normal and a nickname for Natalia. I'm not sure I
Speaker 3: would assume that, but she One of the main things
Speaker 3: I was reading about her was that several of these
Speaker 3: articles mentioned that she was really insistent about getting the
Speaker 3: shots of the horses riding outside to really like heighten
Speaker 3: the heighten the sense of place in the movie. And
Speaker 3: because and it's good that you did, because otherwise almost
Speaker 3: the entire thing would be shot indoors in these closed sets.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I think this was a great choice on
Speaker 1: her part, because, yeah, those were some great scenes arrative.
Speaker 3: Like, well, the greatest thing about them actually is that
Speaker 3: so when you saw the nine, you know, there weren't
Speaker 3: nine of them in the production. Sometimes there'd be like
Speaker 3: two ring raids. You'd see them riding through the snow
Speaker 3: and they've got these black hoods on, and it is
Speaker 3: playing synthesizer sequencers like I think, I don't know if
Speaker 3: they're Mogus or like Moge sequencers, Like you know that
Speaker 3: that kind of like thrumbing, pulsating synthesizer music that actually,
Speaker 3: I mean, you wouldn't think normally, Yeah, yeah, put electronic
Speaker 3: synth music in Lord of the Rings. But hey, it works,
Speaker 3: it's good. I like it.
Speaker 1: I Yeah, I absolutely loved these these moments where they
Speaker 1: dropped in this ring rais synth because it has this again,
Speaker 1: this kind of like ninety early nineties TV synth vibe
Speaker 1: to it. It really gave me the warm feels and
Speaker 1: it actually reminds me of some of the sounds that
Speaker 1: Boards of Canada were using in some of their early works,
Speaker 1: some of their their their early tracks have this exact
Speaker 1: same sort of vibe. So it really got me. In fact,
Speaker 1: let's not just talk about it, let's have a quick
Speaker 1: sample of these vibes. You so good, so good.
Speaker 3: I love that. Watching a production like this, actually it
Speaker 3: makes you question things that you had not even realized
Speaker 3: were assumptions you had made, like the assumption that the
Speaker 3: proper musical aesthetic for a fantasy film is like classic
Speaker 3: is orchestral classical music basically, or you know, liv Tyler
Speaker 3: singing somber a cappella dirges for for elf kind. But
Speaker 3: it makes you actually ask the question, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: why shouldn't Lord of the Rings have electronic music? Why
Speaker 3: why shouldn't it have mode sequencers and funk bass and
Speaker 3: weird saxophone and stuff. And it makes you you say, Okay,
Speaker 3: is there a reason or is this just the received
Speaker 3: aesthetic that I never even bothered to think about. I
Speaker 3: respect the boldness of these musical choices, and I'm not
Speaker 3: even sure if the people who made this realize they
Speaker 3: were bold. Maybe they were just working without some kind
Speaker 3: of mental shackles that we've put on ourselves about fantasy here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, they were making this film without these
Speaker 1: other expectations. And I mean I'm one certainly to say, yes,
Speaker 1: any film is better off with an electronic score, even
Speaker 1: if it's not very good, it's better. But then again,
Speaker 1: like we recently talked about regarding Cannibal Apocalypse, you know,
Speaker 1: there are also certain standards within a given film culture.
Speaker 1: There are certain expectations about the music and what you
Speaker 1: can do with music. So you know, maybe that's the
Speaker 1: answer here.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, Well, like we talked about in Cannibal Apocalypse,
Speaker 3: if you watch Italian horror thriller movies from the seventies
Speaker 3: and eighties, one thing you'll notice is that for some reason,
Speaker 3: the Italian directors seem to think that funk is scary
Speaker 3: or the disco music heightens tension, and American audiences don't
Speaker 3: seem to agree with this, like it feels incongruous, it
Speaker 3: doesn't fit, but it just kind of proves to you
Speaker 3: that the moods evoked by certain genres or sounds of
Speaker 3: music or not universal, they can be highly culturally contingent.
Speaker 3: For some reason. To the Italians, it makes sense for
Speaker 3: the funk music to kick in while somebody's creeping up
Speaker 3: with the knife. But to American audiences that sounds funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And perhaps for Russian audiences, or at least for
Speaker 1: the filmmakers involved here, an accordion is the appropriate instrument
Speaker 1: to play when Frodo is stabbed by a ring wraith.
Speaker 3: Oh my god? Yes, yeah that was true, wasn't it. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 3: maybe this brings us to somebody else we should definitely
Speaker 3: mention as being involved with Cronatelli. And this is Andre Romanov.
Speaker 3: I think he may have gone by Diusha, but Romanov
Speaker 3: had several roles with this film. He was a composer,
Speaker 3: so I think he did all or most of the
Speaker 3: music for the movie. I'm almost positive he did the version,
Speaker 3: the musical version that you heard earlier. That's the adaptation
Speaker 3: of the inscription on the ring that somber haunting, almost
Speaker 3: kind of like old church chant folk rock. But in
Speaker 3: this he's also the narrator of the film. This is
Speaker 3: another choice that it makes that I really like this.
Speaker 3: Lord of the Rings has a fully embodied narrator, like
Speaker 3: you know Masterpiece Theater. He just sits there and he
Speaker 3: smokes a pipe and talks into the camera telling you
Speaker 3: the story.
Speaker 1: And sometimes he does just sit there. There are times, yeah,
Speaker 1: he doesn't seem to be in a particular hurry to
Speaker 1: tell you the story of the Fellowship of the Ring.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. You see Gandalf chase down Gollum and
Speaker 3: he's like, hey, stop lying to me, pal and galums squirming,
Speaker 3: and then it might cut to him and he's just
Speaker 3: sitting there packing a pipe for a couple minutes, and
Speaker 3: then he'll start telling you what happens next.
Speaker 4: Oh.
Speaker 3: But the other thing I didn't mention is that Romanov
Speaker 3: was a member of the famous Russian rock band Aquarium
Speaker 3: or Okvarium, which I think was based out of Leningrad.
Speaker 3: Was first formed in the early seventies, when I think
Speaker 3: it was tough being a rock band in the Soviet
Speaker 3: Union in the early seventies, but I think as Glasnos
Speaker 3: came on in the eighties, they had more musical freedom,
Speaker 3: and now this is one of the most famous Russian
Speaker 3: rock bands. I know they you know, they played Leningrad
Speaker 3: clubs all the time, and they've got a ton of albums.
Speaker 3: I was listening to some Akvarium while I was making
Speaker 3: my coffee this morning, and it definitely made me want
Speaker 3: to like Hugh Wood with Grandfather Mushroom. I think they've
Speaker 3: done a bunch of different genres, a kind of eclectic
Speaker 3: musical group, but a lot of it sounded basically to
Speaker 3: me like electric acoustic folk rock.
Speaker 1: It reminded me a lot, and I don't know if
Speaker 1: this is a fair comparison. Reminded me of the music
Speaker 1: of Al Stewart to a certain extent.
Speaker 3: I don't think I really know Al Stewart, so.
Speaker 1: Oh, you know, he did well, I guess ironically. He
Speaker 1: did a song called Roads to Moscow that's rather good.
Speaker 1: But he else did You're the Cat Old Admirals. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But he did a lot of tracks that had hit
Speaker 1: a track titled Nostrodamus, so he had a try a
Speaker 1: lot of number of tracks that were kind of lengthy
Speaker 1: and had historical settings to them. Good stuff. I like
Speaker 1: Al Stewart. I fire him up every now and then.
Speaker 3: Okay, well, I'll say I not only love Romanov's music
Speaker 3: in this movie, but I love him as the narrator.
Speaker 3: I really enjoy the way he makes us sit and
Speaker 3: wait for him to tell us something else.
Speaker 1: While we're talking about the music. I also want to
Speaker 1: go ahead and drop one more audio sample, and that
Speaker 1: is some of the excellent Galam music. Because the Galum
Speaker 1: music is also seemingly in a slightly different genre. It's
Speaker 1: our kind of creepy vocal reverb kind of soundscape. I
Speaker 1: don't know how you would describe this, Joe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know. It's very echoey. Gollum growls in
Speaker 3: this movie. He growls like a dog, and then Gandalf
Speaker 3: growls back at him.
Speaker 1: And it should we have to stray us. Gollum kind
Speaker 1: of dances kind of has extended dance sequences that that
Speaker 1: that should you have to see them to believe them.
Speaker 1: They're pretty wonderful. Let's have just a sample of that.
Speaker 1: Isn't it dreamy? That's one. I mean, that's almost like
Speaker 1: I'm the reminded of stuff like Nurse with wound or
Speaker 1: robbing gristle there.
Speaker 3: This movie has a number of so I watched it
Speaker 3: with Rachel and she she said that the movie was
Speaker 3: hypnotating her it does.
Speaker 1: I fell asleep once during it in a very pleasant way.
Speaker 3: The Gollumn sequence was one of the most hypnotody of
Speaker 3: the entire movie for.
Speaker 1: Me, absolutely all right. So I'm I'm not gonna really
Speaker 1: spend a lot of time on any of the other
Speaker 1: cast members, but I do want to mention two actors
Speaker 1: that are in it because they have some interesting connections.
Speaker 1: First of all, there's Sergei Parshon, who plays Tom Bombadill.
Speaker 1: He was born nineteen fifty two. I believe he's still around.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if he's acting or not. He's known
Speaker 1: for such films, at least in Russia as The Plane
Speaker 1: Flies to Russia from ninety four the Fall of the
Speaker 1: Empire in two thousand and five, but he's been in
Speaker 1: some titles with a bunch of Western names in them
Speaker 1: as well, and these include Bernard Rose's nineteen ninety seven
Speaker 1: adaptation of Anna Karenina that stars Sophie Marceau, Sean Bean,
Speaker 1: Alfred Molina, Fiona Shaw, and Danny Houston. So this actor
Speaker 1: is our bridge, the bridge we need to connect this
Speaker 1: film to Peter Jackson's two thousand and one adaptation.
Speaker 3: That's amazing, and this reminds me so Sean Being, of course,
Speaker 3: plays Borimir, the hero of Gondor in the in the
Speaker 3: Peter Jackson adaptation, and Sean Bean absolutely wonderful in that role.
Speaker 3: You know, the best Boromir you could hope for. But
Speaker 3: there was something I think it was in that Variety article.
Speaker 3: If not, it was in one of the other ones
Speaker 3: I was reading that had an interview with the actory
Speaker 3: of Guiney Solyakov, who plays Borimir in the in Kronatelli
Speaker 3: and so Yakov apparently is a big fan of the
Speaker 3: Peter Jackson adaptations, and I think they caused him to
Speaker 3: wish that he had portrayed Borimir differently than he did.
Speaker 3: So there's I just want to read. From that article
Speaker 3: and Variety by Rebecca Davis. Here, quoting Soyakov, she writes,
Speaker 3: watching the film for the first time last month, he
Speaker 3: felt he perhaps hadn't been quite ready to take on
Speaker 3: the complexities of the flawed hero. Quote. I don't think
Speaker 3: I played the role to the fullest. I wish I
Speaker 3: hadn't been so emotional when I was trying to explain
Speaker 3: why I wanted the ring. I should have remained very
Speaker 3: composed and I think that's interesting. So seeing like actors
Speaker 3: who were in this having watched later movie at as
Speaker 3: and saying like, oh, okay, I didn't really understand the
Speaker 3: character I was supposed to be playing. But like, now
Speaker 3: that I saw the Peter Jackson adaptation, like saw Sean Bean, like,
Speaker 3: Borimir makes more sense to me, And here's how I
Speaker 3: should have done it. You know, you should have. Like
Speaker 3: one thing that's great about Borimir is you know, Borimir
Speaker 3: has a point. Borimir in a way like his heart
Speaker 3: is in the right place. He's saying, give me the
Speaker 3: weapon of the enemy, so that I may defend the
Speaker 3: world against it.
Speaker 1: M hmm.
Speaker 3: But of course in this movie, it's quite funny actually,
Speaker 3: because they're having the counsel of el Ron where everybody's
Speaker 3: you know, they're talking about what to do with the ring,
Speaker 3: and Borimir just starts going like, give me the ring,
Speaker 3: give it, give it to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that doesn't doesn't work quite as well, does it.
Speaker 3: Yeah. It kind of makes you think, like, well, why'd
Speaker 3: they bring him along if in the initial meeting he's like,
Speaker 3: it must be mine.
Speaker 1: Now, I know what a lot of you are wondering.
Speaker 1: You're you're thinking to yourself. All right, you guys have
Speaker 1: been able to find an actor in this film that
Speaker 1: connects it to the cinematic universe of the Peter Jackson
Speaker 1: Order of the Rings movies. But can you connect it
Speaker 1: to the cinematic universe of Eli Roth? And yes we can. Okay,
Speaker 1: that's because we have an actor by the name of
Speaker 1: Lillian Malkina who plays I believe the matriarch of the
Speaker 1: Saxville Baggins is.
Speaker 3: The Sackville Torbens is.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's the Sackville Tourbinson's.
Speaker 3: Well, no, no, no, it's the same thing, because in
Speaker 3: this it's Bilbo Torbins and Frodo Torbins. I don't know
Speaker 3: what that change means, but they didn't go with Baggins.
Speaker 1: Well, at any rate, she's the matriarch. She has several
Speaker 1: notable scenes here standing around with Bilbo. She was in
Speaker 1: Eli Roth's hostel too, and she was in his Thanksgiving short,
Speaker 1: the fake trailer for Thanksgiving Like a Thanksgiving nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: slasher film, in which she plays the grandmother.
Speaker 3: Oh, so I think she gets murdered and then like
Speaker 3: dressed up like a turkey.
Speaker 1: I think so. Yes. Yeah, Now, another actor in this
Speaker 1: that went on to appear in some some Western productions.
Speaker 1: Galadriol is played by Elena Solive, who appeared in the
Speaker 1: Lost City of Z and also in The Sopranos. And
Speaker 1: on top of this, she won an award for Best
Speaker 1: Supporting Actress in the film Factas at the nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: one Cans Film Festival. So that's pretty cool.
Speaker 3: In The Sopranos, I believe she plays Junior's nurse, taking
Speaker 3: care of him when he's under house arrest. It's not
Speaker 3: a major role. I think she plays the cousin of
Speaker 3: one of Tony's girlfriends.
Speaker 1: But she's perhaps the only actor from the Sopranos to
Speaker 1: appear in an adaptation of The Lord of the Rings.
Speaker 3: Right, as far as I know, what if.
Speaker 1: You had to had to recast The Lord of the
Speaker 1: Rings using only actors who appeared in The Sopranos, Now
Speaker 1: there's a challenge.
Speaker 3: Okay, Robert Loja as Saar Ruman, I'm gonna go with
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go with James Gandolphini rest in peace. But
Speaker 3: assuming they're all still James Gandolfinis, Borimir perfect Bormar.
Speaker 1: You're not tempted by the Gandolphini Gandolf connection.
Speaker 3: There No, and he's not Gandalf like, but he is
Speaker 3: like Bormere. He's got that kind of that kind of
Speaker 3: reckless complexity. Hm hm oh oh oh oh. Seth just
Speaker 3: chimed in with the best possible suggestion, which of course
Speaker 3: is Steve Bushmi as Gollum. There you go. Oh man,
Speaker 3: my name's Meatl.
Speaker 1: Hello, Fellow Ring Bears. So many awesome directions you could
Speaker 1: go in. You sho't's wonderful. He would have he would
Speaker 1: have been able to nail it for sure.
Speaker 3: So good. Okay, the guy who plays Furyo, that's that's
Speaker 3: our lego less I believe. Anyway, Okay, we got to
Speaker 3: move on. I figure at this point we should just
Speaker 3: mention a few things that we took notes on while
Speaker 3: we were watching this. I mean, obviously we're not going
Speaker 3: to recap the story because you know, either you you
Speaker 3: basically know the story of Fellowship the Ring, or if
Speaker 3: you don't, you've probably stopped listening at this point already.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's see, So we'll just touch on some things
Speaker 1: that that struck us. I will say, the Hobbit scenes,
Speaker 1: the Hobbits partying at Bilbo's birthday party, pretty great. I
Speaker 1: feel like they helped to convey the sort of universal
Speaker 1: fulkiness that is found in the Shire. You know, just
Speaker 1: about any culture can relate to that on some level,
Speaker 1: though I don't know. The Hobbits felt perhaps drunker than usual,
Speaker 1: Like there was kind of a dwarven level of drunkenness
Speaker 1: to the Hobbits. And I didn't think we had dwarves
Speaker 1: at all in this adaptation, did we?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 3: Dwarf and I had Gimley, we had Gimbley.
Speaker 4: Was Gimmy there?
Speaker 1: I just thought Gimley was absent? No, Gimley was Gimley Gimley.
Speaker 3: He was the guy in the Red Cape and Hood
Speaker 3: after the Fellowship formed. He has a Gimley And legalists
Speaker 3: are almost non existent in this adaptation the Fellowship. So
Speaker 3: we mentioned the strange plot structure. It crams about half
Speaker 3: of the Fellowship of the Ring into the last fifteen minutes,
Speaker 3: so the Fellowship is not formed until there are like, yeah,
Speaker 3: like fifteen minutes left to go out of this two
Speaker 3: hour production, and instead it decides to spend almost all
Speaker 3: of its time with things going on with the Hobbits
Speaker 3: at the beginning, and then Tom Bombadill and the barrel
Speaker 3: whites and explaining the story with Gandalf, and then the
Speaker 3: scenes at the ends at like Brie and with Farmer Maggot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like they really started acting like they needed to
Speaker 1: land this thing in a hurry, which, as we know
Speaker 1: from Peter Jackson's treatment of the films, that's just not
Speaker 1: how you do Lord of the Rings, right, start acting
Speaker 1: like you're in a hurry, you're just not going to
Speaker 1: be able to tell it. So, yeah, the pace of
Speaker 1: the pacing is weird here.
Speaker 3: Well, the other thing. I was going to mention this earlier,
Speaker 3: but I guess we got sidetracked. One of the things
Speaker 3: about this is clearly that they made a choice to
Speaker 3: emphasize scenes that could be shot with people like standing
Speaker 3: around or sitting around not moving and discussing things, and
Speaker 3: any sequences that would have involved major action or movement
Speaker 3: or outdoor sets. Those things they try to skip over
Speaker 3: as lightly as they can, and so most of the
Speaker 3: stuff that gets cut is the more adventury stuff, you know,
Speaker 3: where you know, you don't get really much of anything
Speaker 3: about crossing the mountains, going through the mines, fighting the orcs.
Speaker 3: I mean, there's a little bit of fighting the orcs,
Speaker 3: but Mostly it's just they reuse some footage they shot,
Speaker 3: or maybe not even footage. I think it's just a
Speaker 3: series of still images of people in these costumes with
Speaker 3: horns on their helmets, and these are the Orcs, and
Speaker 3: you see them going ah at the camera, and then
Speaker 3: you see the actor playing Aragorn swinging a sword for
Speaker 3: a minute, and then the battle's over.
Speaker 1: Now. One thing I applaud it for is that they
Speaker 1: they made the choice to genderflip Legoless's character. Oh so
Speaker 1: Legoless is a female elf for a how do they
Speaker 1: refer to the female elves in the Hobbit prequel movies
Speaker 1: from Peter Jackson women? Else elf women something like that.
Speaker 1: At any rate, we have a female Legoleiss in this,
Speaker 1: and I feel like it was actually a pretty good choice,
Speaker 1: because otherwise you have a very male oriented tail here.
Speaker 3: Yes, a long observed about Lord of the Rings. I mean,
Speaker 3: this is a very duty story. But yeah, so I
Speaker 3: like the idea of making Legalists a woman, but Legalists
Speaker 3: and Gimley have basically I don't think either of them
Speaker 3: has any lines in this adaptation. I mean, again, they
Speaker 3: don't show up until there's like something like twenty or
Speaker 3: fifteen minutes left and then they say nothing. They just
Speaker 3: you see them standing there. Though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to point something out that it took
Speaker 1: me a while to realize what I was comparing it to.
Speaker 1: But Gandolf in this looks so much like Vincent Price
Speaker 1: in The Witchfinder general. Yeah, it's like a very similar
Speaker 1: hair and facial features, and I mean also his facial feet,
Speaker 1: Like he has a very Vincent Price esque knows this.
Speaker 3: Actor very good observation. I would not have caught that myself,
Speaker 3: but you're so correct.
Speaker 1: And we've already talked about Frodo and what he looks like.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know what, I bet that actor who plays
Speaker 3: frod is great. I'm convinced now that it was just
Speaker 3: like he had the wrong type of character in mind,
Speaker 3: and that's the problem here.
Speaker 1: I feel like casting Hobbits is probably a very difficult task.
Speaker 1: I mean they I think Peter Jackson's productions were able
Speaker 1: to pull it off, but there's so many ways it
Speaker 1: could have gone wrong, you know, if you weren't going
Speaker 1: with actors like like I mean, Ian Holm of course
Speaker 1: was terrific, but also the younger Bilbo whose name is
Speaker 1: eluding me at the moment, and also the kid playing
Speaker 1: fro Do in the actual Lord of the Rings films
Speaker 1: by Peter Jackson. They're altered, terrific, and they're able to
Speaker 1: pull off this character that I think could be mismanaged
Speaker 1: in so many ways.
Speaker 3: You mean Elijah Wood, the kid playing fro Do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Elijah would. Oh yeah, he's great to say.
Speaker 3: Is he a kid? I think he's older than me.
Speaker 1: Well, at the time, he was younger and had a
Speaker 1: very youthful uh comparence, and technically and technically he was
Speaker 1: a hobbit though he was what thirty three at the time.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's like, I don't know what for hobbits.
Speaker 3: That's like being sixteen, isn't it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm maybe screwing up my hobbit math here, But
Speaker 1: at any rate, he's terrific, and of course he's gone
Speaker 1: on to produce a lot of really cool stuff as well.
Speaker 3: Well. Another thing is that it's not just fro Doo.
Speaker 3: I mean generally, other than Bilbo, the Hobbits in this
Speaker 3: movie are grotesque the whole party. This movie really deemphasizes
Speaker 3: Samwise Gamgee. He has maybe like three lines in it,
Speaker 3: but they did make the choice to give him purple hair.
Speaker 3: He has a purple ponytail, and he has additional eyebrows,
Speaker 3: so he's got his eyebrows, but then he's got big
Speaker 3: eyebrows drawn on on top of his real eyebrows.
Speaker 1: Is he which one is the one with the giant sideburns?
Speaker 3: I think, well, I think there are multiple ones with
Speaker 3: giant side But this movie is a very mutton choppy movie.
Speaker 3: Like Bilbo has mutton chops that are clearly not human hair.
Speaker 3: They're like some kind of animal fur. They look like
Speaker 3: a mink stole, but they're glued to the sides of
Speaker 3: his face. And several of the Hobbits in the Fellowship
Speaker 3: have mutton chops. Maybe they all do, except Frodo or
Speaker 3: I don't know. At least I think Took does, or
Speaker 3: as they call him in this movie.
Speaker 1: Pin have we talked about sarmon the White yet we
Speaker 1: have not.
Speaker 3: So one of the things we get in this movie is,
Speaker 3: of course, the sequence where you know it's famously in
Speaker 3: The Lord of the Rings, Gandalf disappears for a while,
Speaker 3: what's going on, and then he meets the He meets
Speaker 3: the characters back when they get to Rivendell, the Land
Speaker 3: of the Elves, and you find out what happened to Gandalf.
Speaker 3: It's that he went to talk to Sarimon the White,
Speaker 3: the great wise Wizard, the chief of his order, and
Speaker 3: Sarruman reveals a great betrayal that Sarmon has concluded that
Speaker 3: it is impossible to stand against the armies of Mordor,
Speaker 3: so you have to join them or else die. And
Speaker 3: Gandalf is like, no, I'm not going to join them
Speaker 3: with you. So Saramon's like, well, I don't like that,
Speaker 3: you know, So it's it's paying time for you, and
Speaker 3: I guess.
Speaker 1: You're going on the roof.
Speaker 3: Yeah, You're going on the roof until you change your mind.
Speaker 3: So Sarimon the White, the greatest of the Wizards, is
Speaker 3: supposed he's supposed to be like the guy you can
Speaker 3: really count on, but he is a betrayer and he
Speaker 3: join the enemy. And it's one of the great parts
Speaker 3: of the book. It's great in the it's great in
Speaker 3: the the Peter Jackson movies, of course, with Christopher Lee
Speaker 3: playing Soomon.
Speaker 1: Christopher Lee was always the Even before these films were
Speaker 1: in any way put together, I was like, Christopher Lee
Speaker 1: should play Saramon, Like this is the only person to
Speaker 1: play this role. Yeah, and he's terrific and he in
Speaker 1: him those films. He looks like so many of these
Speaker 1: classic illustrations of the character. I'm thinking about the Hildebrandt Brothers.
Speaker 1: They did a wonderful version of Soromon that I've absolutely
Speaker 1: loved for ages.
Speaker 3: In this movie, Saruman looks like he would have been
Speaker 3: Hans Gruber's Hinchman and die Hard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like thirty five and is clean shaven and
Speaker 1: has kind of a kind of a manic energy to him,
Speaker 1: like a cocaine Yeah, like he should be this character
Speaker 1: should be a drug dealer in a nineties action film,
Speaker 1: Like he should be about to get his next snapped
Speaker 1: by Jean Kles That damn bizarre choice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's like sweaty, so he's kind of damp and
Speaker 3: he's he's freaking out. He doesn't have that Saruman composure
Speaker 3: where he's like, you know, you will join or die. Instead,
Speaker 3: he's like, oh, give me the ring.
Speaker 1: He's kind of like bora mirror is yeah, yep.
Speaker 3: Now there's another choice that I really took issue with,
Speaker 3: which we've talked many times about how much we love
Speaker 3: the weird music in this but one musical choice that
Speaker 3: was very strange to me is that Tom Bombadil does
Speaker 3: not sing. Instead, Oh yeah, he has theme music that
Speaker 3: plays every time he appears, but he doesn't sing it.
Speaker 3: It sounds like some kind of I was trying to
Speaker 3: think what band it sounded like. It's almost kind of
Speaker 3: like a nineties sound is like very Reverby on the vocals.
Speaker 3: It's got that kind of like rushing sound effect on them.
Speaker 3: It's almost a little bit like nineties U two vocals.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's it's it's weird because Tom Bombadil finally
Speaker 1: shows up in an adaptation, you expect him to sing,
Speaker 1: because he sings a lot in the book. It's it's
Speaker 1: like this amount. Yeah, that's like that's what he does,
Speaker 1: So it is it's an interesting choice that he does
Speaker 1: not actually sing. It makes me wonder what the reasoning
Speaker 1: for that was. Was this actor not a singer? Did
Speaker 1: did it get cut for time? I don't know. I
Speaker 1: mean music is also key to his power. Tom Bombadil's like, hey,
Speaker 1: if you get into any trouble, you need to sing
Speaker 1: this song and I'll show up and I'll sing my
Speaker 1: heart out and defeat whatever is bothering you.
Speaker 3: Essentially does Frodo actually sing the song, though, I think
Speaker 3: he's just in the barrow down. He's like under the
Speaker 3: barrow and he just goes like Tom Bombadil Bombadil, and
Speaker 3: then he shows up and he's like hello.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean it's still great that Tom Bombadil shows
Speaker 1: up at all, yes, but but yeah, it is weird
Speaker 1: that he doesn't sing.
Speaker 3: Man, there's so much that I'm not even remembering at
Speaker 3: this point. But one of the things that I think
Speaker 3: is a very strange choice. Like I said, they really
Speaker 3: they really shorten the adventure part of the story, like
Speaker 3: once the fellows it gets together, that part's just on
Speaker 3: like fast forward to the max, jumping over everything, and
Speaker 3: they completely cut out the death of Gandalf. There's no
Speaker 3: there's no bell Rog. I think they're just they go
Speaker 3: into the minds of Maria for a minute, and we're
Speaker 3: to understand that they're fighting orcs because they show those
Speaker 3: orcs going with their horn helmets and Aragorn's swinging his sword,
Speaker 3: and then they're like leaving the minds and they say like, hey,
Speaker 3: what happened to Gandalf? He must have gotten lost somewhere
Speaker 3: back there. That's it. No Bellrog, no bridge of Kaza
Speaker 3: Doom or wait, no, there is a bridge because you
Speaker 3: see er Gordon like trying to balance on it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Oh and Aragorn is like fourteen by the way.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he has a big scar on his face. Yeah.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, there's no that Gandalf doesn't doesn't die
Speaker 1: like that is That's that's an interesting choice as well,
Speaker 1: because this is one of the most emotional moments in
Speaker 1: the entire saga. Yeah, really one of the most emotional
Speaker 1: moments in I would say like like Western fantasy, like
Speaker 1: modern fantasy literature in its entirety.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like it's a great storytelling choice because up
Speaker 3: until then everything has been about Gandalf is the person
Speaker 3: who knows what to do. Everybody else is confused and
Speaker 3: they're scared, and Gandalf is always the person who can
Speaker 3: figure out what to do next, and so you always
Speaker 3: look to him. And then he suddenly he's dead, He's gone,
Speaker 3: and what are you supposed to do? Then it's like
Speaker 3: it's so great. It really heightens the tension of the story.
Speaker 3: And I guess he does disappear from this story, but
Speaker 3: there's only like ten minutes left when that happens, and
Speaker 3: they don't even say what happened to him. They're just like, oh,
Speaker 3: I don't know. I guess he got lost back there
Speaker 3: or something.
Speaker 1: He had to take a leak or something. That he's back.
Speaker 1: That's okay, We're good to go.
Speaker 3: And then immediately they're just in Loath. Laurian and the
Speaker 3: elves are dancing around. There's just people in like wearing
Speaker 3: garlands of flowers and wearing white robes and they're doing ballet.
Speaker 1: This is when I almost fell asleep for the second time.
Speaker 1: This is a very hypnotic sequence as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then of course we do get the sequence
Speaker 3: with Galadriel being tempted by the ring and passing the test,
Speaker 3: and she does pass the test. She's a very good
Speaker 3: Elf queen. And then basically it's pretty much over. I
Speaker 3: think we very quickly get bora Mer saying again like, hey,
Speaker 3: give me the ring, and Frodo's like no, and then
Speaker 3: he will.
Speaker 1: Then we also have sorrow and uh, I mean sorry
Speaker 1: saarn himself. Oh at least the eye of sorrow on. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: that part shows up very funny and has exactly the
Speaker 1: same energy as all of these uh, these these these
Speaker 1: ring junkies. Because Saarron's just like you're gonna give me
Speaker 1: that ring. That's basically what he does, like this oozing
Speaker 1: eye with like purple ooze behind it. Yeah and yeah,
Speaker 1: exact same tone as everyone else who wants to ring.
Speaker 3: But it ends extremely abruptly because Borr is like, give
Speaker 3: me the ring and Frodo's like nah, and then uh
Speaker 3: and then he starts to walk off, and then Sam
Speaker 3: Wise Gamsey shows up with his purple wig and says like, hey,
Speaker 3: I gotta go with you, and Frodo's like nah. And
Speaker 3: then he says he says, well, who's gonna cook your
Speaker 3: food and light your fires for you? And Frodo's like okay,
Speaker 3: and then they're just on horses and then it's over.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is kind of the riding off into the
Speaker 1: disc and it's kind of like the end of an
Speaker 1: incredible Hulk TV episode from the old days. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: then I think we hear the theme song again, so.
Speaker 3: I don't know in the end. Obviously, this is a
Speaker 3: you know, beyond micro budget production. I mean it's essentially
Speaker 3: a no budget production that was made you know, made
Speaker 3: on the fly, shot in less than nine hours, according
Speaker 3: to one of the actors, and given what they had
Speaker 3: and also working on source material that was through several
Speaker 3: several different filters of derangement. I got to say, obviously,
Speaker 3: like it's funny what we're looking at on the screen,
Speaker 3: but I respect their work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and it's again just knowing they were working
Speaker 1: with no budget. I feel like they did a pretty
Speaker 1: good job. And it makes more wonder like what would
Speaker 1: have happened had had the same energy gone into this
Speaker 1: film as had gone into previous Soviet fantasy epics. Because
Speaker 1: we should of course drive home that that there are
Speaker 1: some tremendous Soviet and Russian fantasy epics that have come
Speaker 1: out in the years since, but certainly in the years
Speaker 1: before this, including the Jack Frost movie Rozoko from nineteen
Speaker 1: sixty five, but also films like Sampo or The Day
Speaker 1: of the Earth Froze, the nineteen fifty nine Soviet Finnish
Speaker 1: film that is based on the Kalevaga. Both of those films,
Speaker 1: even though you many of you might be used to
Speaker 1: sort of a decayed copy of the film that given
Speaker 1: the Mystery Science Theater three thousand treatment, if you find
Speaker 1: restored footage of these motion pictures, it's incredible. These are beautiful,
Speaker 1: high budget just beautifully rendered films. So I can't help
Speaker 1: but imagine, like, what would it have been like had
Speaker 1: the energy that went into into Frosty or into the
Speaker 1: Sampo film, what if they had gone into this into
Speaker 1: the creation of the Fellowship of the Rings.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that would have been so magical. And apparently in
Speaker 3: Russia the interest was there. Like I was reading an
Speaker 3: article for the BBC that included an interview with somebody
Speaker 3: named Irena Nazarova, who they identified as a Russian artist
Speaker 3: who saw Chronatelli on TV when it originally aired in
Speaker 3: ninety one, and they say like, well, wait a minute,
Speaker 3: Like is Tolkien a big thing in Russia anyway? Like
Speaker 3: what you know, would people have been into this? And
Speaker 3: I want to read her response, He's massive. After Jackson
Speaker 3: made his great trilogy Interests soared Back. Russia is full
Speaker 3: of fans, cosplay and everything. A friend of mine was
Speaker 3: out looking for mushrooms in the countryside near Moscow and
Speaker 3: she ran into a band of elves with bows and arrows.
Speaker 3: I know a blacksmith who makes a fairly decent living
Speaker 3: from hammering out swords and helmets, and he told me
Speaker 3: about a gangster who'd ordered gates for his mansion. Quote
Speaker 3: like in Mordor. Oh my god, so some like Russian
Speaker 3: oligarch crime lord is also a lord of the rings
Speaker 3: and has outfitted his datcha to be I don't know,
Speaker 3: the barador or something.
Speaker 1: Oh m hmm, okay.
Speaker 3: Okay, maybe we need to wrap it up there. But Rob,
Speaker 3: I have so enjoyed going on this, uh this, this,
Speaker 3: this hero's journey with you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this has been a lot of fun and uh,
Speaker 1: you know, a chance just to discuss token adaptations in general,
Speaker 1: but also this, this particular attempt. It's it's pretty it's
Speaker 1: pretty interesting. So again I advise folks out there who
Speaker 1: are interested, even if you don't have it in you
Speaker 1: to watch the entire two hours, you should at least
Speaker 1: check out that highlight reel. Though that highlight reel is
Speaker 1: not going to give you everything.
Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, especially some of.
Speaker 1: The musical qualities we've been talking about.
Speaker 3: If you don't have it in you to watch the
Speaker 3: whole two hours, you just you're weak. You know, you
Speaker 3: don't you don't have you don't have intellectual will power,
Speaker 3: you don't have the courage the heart. Come on, if
Speaker 3: Sam and Frodo can journey across all of Middle Earth.
Speaker 3: You can watch this two hour Weirdo stage production.
Speaker 1: Absolutely so uh yeah again, I'll put I'll put embedded
Speaker 1: versions of these videos up at Samouda music dot com,
Speaker 1: along with some of the music we were talking about
Speaker 1: the aquarium music for example, so you can check that
Speaker 1: out as well. All right, well, yeah, we're gonna go
Speaker 1: and close it out then, But if you want to
Speaker 1: listen to other episodes of Weird House Cinema, it publishes
Speaker 1: every Friday in the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast feed.
Speaker 1: We're primarily a science and culture podcast. Our core episodes
Speaker 1: come out on Tuesdays and Thursdays. You'll also find an
Speaker 1: artifact episode on Wednesdays, as well as a listener mail
Speaker 1: episode on Monday. So certainly right in if you have
Speaker 1: thoughts about this particular film, if you have, especially if
Speaker 1: you say watched it on Russian television back in the day,
Speaker 1: or you have you have, I know, we heard after
Speaker 1: we watched Teens in the Universe or Children in the Universe,
Speaker 1: we heard from at least a couple of listeners who
Speaker 1: who had Russian backgrounds, and we got to learn so
Speaker 1: much about about the viewing of that film and interpretations
Speaker 1: of that film. I would love to hear what you
Speaker 1: have to say about this one as well.
Speaker 3: Huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer, Seth
Speaker 3: Nicholas Johnson. If you would like to get in touch
Speaker 3: with us with feedback on this episode or any other,
Speaker 3: to suggest topic for the future, or just to say hello,
Speaker 3: you can email us at contact at stuff to Blow
Speaker 3: your Mind dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 2: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.