Yes, yes. You read my past entries correctly. The retrospective, featuring jan-u-wine's An Extra Ordinary Life, was meant to be my last screencap post. However, browsing the films to find the screencaps for that entry, I saw that there still were many scenes I wanted to cap, or cap in a different format, just for the beauty of them. Also, it occurred to me that images from some of the scenes might serve to highlight more of Jan’s poems.
Jan-u-wine has done many fine poems depicting Frodo as a lad, set before LotR begins, but I’ve never thought of ways to showcase these poems using screencaps. Alas, LotR’s screenwriters invented many scenes for their films, including the one below, but none of them were flashbacks to Frodo’s childhood. Nevertheless, I decided that some of the scenes, especially earlier ones, might set the poems off well.
Below are caps from the EE Party Tent scene, a scene I screencapped very early in my project, since it is a favourite scene from the trilogy. The caps are good (link provided at bottom of entry), but I thought they could be improved. I thought it would be nice to show more of Bilbo, too. So, for the sake of illustrating the poem below, I made a new set. Also, I tweaked the new set a bit more for lighting and focus.
In Jan’s poem, Dremes and Dragons, Frodo is a very young lad, musing in his parents' garden. The book his mysterious “uncle” has given him has set his imagination on fire. In the EE scene Frodo is not a lad, but a hobbit grown, just come of age. But, like the lad in the poem, Party Tent Frodo is open, eager, full of ardour and the joy of youth. He does not yet bear the burden, and taint, of the Ring. In the EE scene, and in the poem, Frodo really does seem to be the person of whom Bilbo could say, “of all my numerous relations, you were the one Baggins that showed real spirit.”~*~ Film scene:
Bilbo stands at the entrance to the tent, greeting guests. Mrs. Bracegirdle has just walked away when a strident voice is heard.
Lobelia’s voice: Bilbo?
Bilbo: Sackville Baginses! Quickly! Hide!
Frodo hustles Bilbo into the tent where they hide. The Sackville-Bagginses stalk by. When they are gone, his relief evident, Bilbo turns to Frodo.
Bilbo: Thank you, my boy. You're a good lad, Frodo. I'm very selfish, you know. [Frodo looks wonderingly at Bilbo.] Yes, I am. Very selfish. I don't know why I took you in after your mother and father died, but it wasn't out of charity. I think it was because of all my numerous relations, you were the one Baggins that showed real spirit.
Frodo: Bilbo, have you been in the Gaffer's home brew?
Bilbo: No! Well yes, but that's not the point. The point is, Frodo…. You'll be alright.
Whatever Bilbo might have said, he changes his mind, covering the transition by taking a draught from his mug.~*~
Dremes and Dragons
~ by jan-u-wine
Mumma's garden.
It is summer.
I am small enough
to hide
beneath
the grey coolness
of the bench
before the shadowed wall.
The heat-slow'd river's
deep green
whispers beyond the gate….
the sky's hot blue
winks
through the arms
of the trees.
Uncle
took tea with us today…..
In the secret stillness
of my hiding place,
I touch the book
he brought.
Soft-washed grey,
face veined
by twining letters
I cannot read.
They look like the trails of stars,
these letters:
petals,
fallen
from an over-turned
sky-bowl.
Age-worn parchment
opens
upon pictures….
Pictures which fill my mind
even as my sun-hazed eyes
close.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
The grass beneath the bench is
*very* green….
Green
and sweetly damp
with soft earth smell.
Prism'd sunlight,
like a fire's bright flame,
advances upon the path.
My hand lies,
caught
within its amber-hued
web.
It is *far* too bright,
*far* too hot,
to be the light of the Sun.
I cannot move,
can not make
even the smallest
sound.
The grey wall that holds the World
without
blushes pink with fire,
the sweet grass
crisps,
bending before flame-driven
wind.
My hand still lies
outside the small haven
of the bench.
OH.
It is beautiful.
It is terrible.
It is the Creature of the book.
Armour of burnished gold,
serpent-eyed,
scarlet-tongued,
it advances.
Is the roughened scale
of its golden hide
hot,
like the flame
it sends,
searching,
before it?
I want to touch it.
I want to look
into its eyes.
I wonder,
as the World
turns to blazed crimson
about me,
I wonder
at all it must have seen…..
All the Ages of the World….
the Stars turning from bright to dim
in ancient skies….
lands and Seas
and people
who are no more.
I want to know those things…..
I want to know…..
I want……
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Warm lips touch my forehead.
A hand, smelling of summer
and lavender,
lifts mine from where it still stays.
Oh, Mumma, I saw a dragon!
He was Red
and Gold
and Green…..
and
Fierce,
Mumma.
And Mumma just smiles,
and pulls me to her.
Tomorrow,
I think,
as her heart
beats slow against my ear,
(as the river beyond the gate
runs swift upon the rock)
tomorrow
I shall find the Dragon
again.
He waits
there….
there,
beneath the grey of the bench,
there,
where my fingers
have made
a soft diamond
of the page's edge.
Mumma?
Do you want to see the Dragon, too?
~*~
Screencaps of the same scene, posted last year:~ EE scene inside the Party Tent.
Most recent screencap entry:~ ‘An Extra Ordinary Life’: a retrospective poem by jan-u-wine, with screencaps from the three films.
Other Tables of Links:~ Entries with jan-u-wine's poems.
~ Frodo & Elijah Wood screencap entries
~ Mechtild
