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The Lord of the Feelings
One does not simply walk into Mordor without crying 39 times.
In the 20 years since The Fellowship of the Ring, The Two Towers, and The Return of the King were released in back-to-back holiday seasons, no major franchise has come close to putting its actors through as much gorgeously shot, evocatively lit, and soul-shatteringly funereal pain and tears as Peter Jackson’s adaptations of J.R.R. Key to LOTR ’s enduring appeal is its all-in approach to its characters’ feelings: Amid the tumult of widespread war, Jackson and cinematographer Andrew Lesnie honor how all this danger, destruction, and death is affecting the worlds of hobbits, elves, and men. The sprawl of this story, the magnitude of the losses, the suggestion that “whatever end” is waiting for the men and boys being forced to fight at Helm’s Deep for the survival of Rohan — this scene’s operatic grandeur captures all that through Bernard Hill’s exhausted line delivery.
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