Rowan Atkinson for Drood

I recently finished listening to the audio production of Drood by Dan Simmons. Drood is a fictionalized account of the last years of Charles Dickens' life as told by his friend and sometimes collaborator Willkie Collins. The title refers to Dickens' final unfinished novel, the Mystery of Edwin Drood. I was familiar with the story from the satirical musical version of the story, which has multiple possible ending voted on by the audience. The novel contains numerous running gags on Edwin Drood and other better known elements of the Dickens universe.

Dan Simmons is one of the greatest living science-fiction novelists. Simmons' work has a highly literate quality to it; things like a robot John Keats to having the gods hire classical scholars to report on the ongoing Trojan War. Drood is a literate, historical novel that often goes into the realm of the fantastic. The narrator, Willkie Collins, is an opium addict, who hallucinates. The novel dips in and out of the occult (Collins and Dickens may have mind controlling beetles stuck in their skulls, implanted by a criminal mastermind and Egyptian cult leader.) and we have no idea what is to be believed. Simmons needs to be congratulated for his ability to present the world of nineteenth century England where there is no aspirin or reconstructive surgery to deal with the aches and pains liable to accumulate in the body of a middle aged man. Hence opium. Think of Rush Limbaugh's addiction to Oxycodone just with hallucinations to make things more interesting.

For what it is worth, Guillermo Del Toro is down to direct a film version of Drood. My proposal would be to have Rowan Atkinson play Collins. Not that Atkinson looks like the real life Collins, but this is the sort of role that requires heavy doses of smug superiority even in the face of a contrary reality, something that Atkinson does better than just about anyone. Collins spends most of the novel venting his hatred of Dickens, gripping about the absurdities in Dickens' fiction and how he is truly the better writer. This is one of those characters who charms by simply being a horrible human being.

Guillermo del Toro and Lord of the Rings

I just got back from Hellboy II: The Golden Army. Once you get past the ridiculous plot, it is an excellent film. The actors do a remarkable job creating characters that seem real, even if the story does not, and which you can actually care about. The star of the film, though, is, without question, Guillermo del Toro and his film work and special effects. Del Toro channels the work that he did in Pan’s Labyrinth into Hellboy II, many of the creatures that he uses are quite similar, creating visual effects that are not just spectacular, but stand on their own as works of art.

In certain respects, del Toro exceeds even Peter Jackson in his ability to use special effects in such a way as to add life and personality to film instead of taking it away. So it is befitting that del Toro is now working with Peter Jackson on a film version of The Hobbit, the prequel to Lord of the Rings. Watching Hellboy II, I was struck by how del Toro, even in this film, tipped his hand toward the Lord of the Rings as if he were already preparing for it. In the opening scene of the film, there is a flashback to a battle from “mythological” times between men and elves. This battle sequence, artfully rendered by del Toro with stick figures, closely mimics the opening battle sequence in Lord of the Rings. The plot of Hellboy II, or the nonsensical dribble that takes its place, is very similar to Lord of the Rings. It involves elves and a dark object of power, in this case, a gold crown that can be used to summon and control an indestructible golden army of robots. This golden army is a force of such destruction, that the elves that had it made in order to fight humanity, shrank back from it and hide it away. The villain, Prince Nuada, an elf sporting some wicked blades and Matrix-like moves, wishes to gain control of the crown and take revenge on behalf of his people against the entire human race and it is the task of Hellboy and company to stop him. Luke Gross, who plays Prince Nuada, to his credit, manages to actually give some nuances to his character; he is probably among the most decent screen villains, out to destroy the world, that you will ever meet.

Lord of the Rings fans take heart; The Hobbit is in good hands and, if you are in need of a Lord of the Rings fix, I heartily recommend getting over to see Hellboy II.

The Fantastic Faith of Guillermo del Toro

USA Today has an article on director Guillermo del Toro about his upcoming film, Hellboy II: The Golden Army. While del Toro is best known to American audiences for such action movies as Hellboy and Blade II, he also directed the Spanish language film, Pan’s Labyrinth. To those of you who have not heard of this film or who might have been put off by the fact that it is in Spanish, Pan’s Labyrinth is probably the most religiously profound film to have come out in recent years. In certain respects it did a better job at channeling C. S. Lewis than even the recent Narnia films.

Del Toro seems to have a complicated relationship to religion. He was raised by a grandmother who was a deeply religious Catholic and rebelled against it. That being said his films have a deeply religious side to them as if they are attempts by del Toro to come to terms with his own faith or even to salvage it. In explaining the nature of his work, del Toro comments that: "The fantastic is the only tool we have nowadays to explain spirituality to a generation that refuses to believe in dogma or religion. Superhero movies create a kind of mythology. Creature movies, horror movies, create at least a belief in something beyond."

This should serve as a heads up to those who would diminish fantasy and fail to understand its importance to religion today. We do not live in a world in which one can demand belief, certainly not by mere authority. Fantasy is a useful spiritual outlet precisely because it does not demand belief; one is free to take it as it is, as a mere piece of fiction, to do with as one wills. Though, as Harry Potter demonstrated, such mere fiction has the ability to radically alter people’s lives, by awakening a longing for something outside of themselves. No religion can survive on authority alone. The Bible is meaningless simply as the word of a god, who will throw you in a lake of fire if you do not believe in him and his book. As a book which one is free to take nourishment as one wills, the Bible can sustain like no other. Yes, even more so than Harry Potter.

I look forward to seeing del Toro’s future projects, particularly his adaption of the Hobbit, which is slated to come out in 2011.