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COPYRIGHT 2004 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
This is what happened when a fellow-critic and I emerged, on December 11th, from a screening of "The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King." It had started well before noon, and the skies were practically dark by the time we staggered out. The movie, the last of a trilogy, runs almost three and a half hours, but, if you factor in the emotional buildup, the crammed ticket line, and the decompression period that will be required afterward, you are talking about an entire day ripped from your mortal life.
So there we were, fresh from the battles of Middle-earth, nursing our punished eardrums, when what did we see? A throng of youth, six or seven deep, caged behind barricades, lining the route from the movie theatre. Like pleading spirits in Dante's Purgatory, they stretched out their arms, beseeching us to sign their programs, their curling copies of Tolkien, and, for all I know, their naked limbs. Bear in mind that this was a press screening, and that these boys and girls were forcing themselves upon movie reviewers--by and large, a profession that spends remarkably little time fending off the attention of groupies. Indeed, there is a body of opinion which holds that we should carry little bells, like lepers in the Middle Ages, to warn respectable citizens of our foul approach. The question is: If this was the press screening, what the hell were the premieres like? Why did a hundred thousand people cram the route to the theatre when the film first showed in Wellington, New Zealand, on December 1st? Did the kids tear the clothes off Orlando Bloom, the svelte incarnation of Legolas? Is Sir Ian McKellen prepared to be mobbed, on a regular basis, on red carpets all over the world? In short, what is going on?
As Alfred Hitchcock said to one of his leading ladies, "It's only a movie, Ingrid." The nub...
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