Customer Reviews

J.R.R. Tolkien and the Birth of The Lord of the Rings

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I bought yhis DVD because I own just about everything that is commercialy available on DVD. I will admit while it was very insightfull I was a bit dissapointed. It is not so much of a story of the Lord of the Rings but a very in depth biography of Tolkien with quite a bit of time centered around his years as a Professor.

Buy this if you are a die hard tolkien fan, avoid it if not as it may bore you.

If you are a Tolkein fan or someone who would like a video highlighting JRRT's life, you will probably enjoy this documentary. I know I did.

This DVD is a bio of the man himself and the experiences that shaped his life as well as influenced his writing. I found the story of how he and his wife met and fell in love to be both touching and instructive of understanding Tolkein as a romantic who would write stories that had a romanticism that is beloved by many despite being out of favor in the modern world.

The video chronicles his early childhood, his youth in the english countryside from which "The Shire" and its Hobbits derive. The DVD shows the heartbreak he and his brother felt when orphaned and how their guardian, A Roman Catholic priest, was very much a father-figure for the boys. The DVD continues with his life as a student trying to enter Oxford, his service in WWI, his years teaching at Oxford, friendship with fellow romantics such as CS Lewis and his writing. It also shows his later life as a reluctant celebrity.

There are little tidbits of information that any Tolkein fan will find interesting. When Tolkien was a youth, the farming family that employed his brother took them both on a walking tour of Europe. In Switzerland, the gret mountains seemed to stir his creativity. For years after, he kept a little postcard with a mountain spirit on it which he had written "origin of Gandalf". In Birmingham, there are two towers JRRT would have seen each and every day as he walked. The origin of "the Two Towers" perhaps?

This video is not perfect. The musical score, for some reason, sounds like a collection of dirges. The video contains footage of telephone booths and other random shots that have little to do with the subject. The narrator was just OK.

On the whole, for the price, I found it a good bio of the man and the influences in his life that helped produce his stories. I do reccommend it.