Towards the end of last year I was able to indulge a passion, long in the planning, to visit Middle Earth, or should I say that Middle Earth envisaged by Sir Peter Jackson with his inclusion of perhaps the star of his trio of films that was The Lord of the Rings, that star being the country of New Zealand.
JJ's Wargames - New Zealand 2022 |
If you saw the series of posts covering our trip, as well as exploring several of the film locations chosen for the film, we also included a trip to Hobbiton and The Weta Workshops where much of the magic that brought the film so vividly to life was conjured up.
The Lord of the Rings films, and of course I am talking about the extended versions and not those put out in the cinema with cuts, are probably some of the finest films ever made and are well at the top of my list of all time favourites that include, The Shawshank Redemption, The Matrix, Saving Private Ryan, Master & Commander and Zulu, to name a few.
All these films left a marked impression when I first saw them and they are films that of course have lost some of the magic they had when I first saw them but still have enough to allow me to sit and watch them again when the fancy takes.
Along with New Zealand, Sir Peter Jackson also managed to recruit a stellar cast of actors to play the characters so masterfully described by Professor Tolkien with one of the most memorable performances being that of the late Sir Christopher Lee, an actor of remarkable ability to hold centre stage, be that as Francisco Scaramanga in The Man with the Golden Gun, a classic James Bond villain or as I first came to know him, as Count Dracula in the Hammer House of Horror series of films produced in the 60's and 70's.
As I first came to know Christopher Lee, as Count Dracula in the Hammer House of Horror |
An interesting man of great depth, Christopher Lee volunteered in WWII for flight training with the RAF, which he was unable to complete due to poor eyesight, only diagnosed nearing the completion of his training.
Saruman the White, so gloriously portrayed by the late Sir Christopher Lee |
He would later move into intelligence and planning work achieving the rank of Flight-Lieutenant before demobilising in 1946, having worked in Allied Command through North Africa and into Italy, with work carried out with Special Forces that he never disclosed.
Of course his role in Lord of the Rings as the conniving and deceptive Saruman the White, the wizard that became corrupted by power, brought his talents to a new generation of film goers, and the fact that he was an avid fan of the books no doubt fed into his brilliant portrayal, even though had he been younger he would have been very keen to have played the role of Gandalf, equally masterfully played by Sir Ian Mckellan.
This particular sculpt immediately drew my attention, purely because of how well the figure captured the look of Sir Christopher Lee in the film, complete with the detail on his gown, the shading of his beard and the obligatory wizards staff and the determinedly clutched Palantir, with the Eye of Sauron blazing forth from its depths.
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