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Words by Ian McKellen
23 January 2001
Ian McKellen
New Zealand, 2000
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Edoras is the mountain fortress which guards the Golden Hall,
where Theoden reigns. It features heavily in the second film of the
trilogy, so it was decided to build Edoras amongst real mountains and
away from blue screens, miniatures and trick photography. A
real-looking fortress in a real wilderness of Rohan.
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Peter Jackson's team found the perfect location in the wide
gravelly valley that leads down from the alpine range west of
Canterbury Plain, right in the centre of the South Island of New
Zealand. Basically you go to the skiing resort of Methven and ask for
Clearwater Lake. 40 minutes later as the road declines to dirt-track,
ask again — everyone locally knows Erewhon. They also know it is
nearly "nowhere" backwards. They know that because of Samuel
Butler, the bisexual Victorian English author who came here to double
his capital by sheep-farming on the station he called Mesopotamia
(Greek for "between two rivers"). The now-adjacent farm
is called Erewhon after the title and setting of Butler's satirical
novel about a utopia (Greek for "no place").
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Samuel Butler
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Butler's homestead at Mesopotamia,
New Zealand 1861
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This literary bywater is, for geologists, trampers and
filmmakers, a majestic place. The river is lazy, having with its
glacier worn out the valley eons back. More dominant are the jagged
mountains that ring the plain 360 degrees: Peter Jackson needed snow
on the peaks and the early spring didn't disappoint. He wanted his
camera, whichever way it might point when filming in Edoras, to see
the distant challenge of rock and ice. On a mighty outcrop that the
glacier must have missed, there was for three weeks only the
just-built cluster of outhouses and princely dwellings contained
within a wooden pallisade whose main gate looked out on the royal
graveyard, where the Evermind grew. When I first saw it, I gasped that
Edoras was reborn and that it had only taken five months to put it
up. This was very quick, considering a road to the outcrop had first
to be driven through the tussocks and to bridge the river until it
could wind, as it were, round the back. . |
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In the film you will only
see Edoras from the east: from the west you would see the service
road and its carpark with the generators, shelters and vehicles that
hauled us all up to the temporary settlement — one day there were
200 cast, crew, extras and animals. Some of us ate in the Golden
Hall, whose interior was filmed in December at the Wellington
studios. The camera at Edoras was only interested in appearances,
the facades, not what lay beyond the doors. The actors' greenroom
was next to the Golden Hall and Peter Jackson and his team watched
the video of the proceedings in what appeared to be the stables, but
wasn't
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Acting in such circumstances is what all of us, filmmakers and
audiences, love so much about film: the sense of actually being there.
Bernard Hill as Theoden might not yet quite know what the Golden Hall
will be like, where he will be brought to his senses by a stern
Gandalf. But when Theoden chased Wormtongue off the premises, down the
stairs with that waterfall which Tolkien describes so precisely; when
his subjects parted to see the traitor stagger into exile with the
mountains snowy beyond; when he later prayed at his son's tomb and the
wind blew hard in his face — all this authenticity will provide so
much information about Theoden (and the rest of us: Aragorn,
Legolas, Gimli, Merry and Pippin) that acting was not much required,
at least for the long shots. When the camera came close (and Bernard
had some complicated emotions to live through) I'm sure he found it
easier, breathing that hardy air, feeling the rock of ages under his
feet. Certainly he acted with his usual intense naturalism. But
neither he nor I could resist twirling our robes a little as they
brushed the grass or the carved steps! After all in those long shots,
miles from anywhere, a mad utopia of a location, that really is
Theoden you will see in 2002. I know because I saw him there.
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Orlando Bloom (Legolas), Ian McKellen (Gandalf), and Bernard Hill
(Theoden) on the prowl in Wellington, 2000
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I don't know about the riggers who must have been fed up with
Edoras. They had worked through the winter with a long ride back to
their homestays, New Zealand's acclaimed guesthouses, where you are
in danger of being treated like one of the family. Some of us lodged
in Methven at the Brinley Resort Village, which looked a bit like
the last resort of a desperate accommodation manager. It had two
rows of apartments which faced inwards instead of toward the
magnificent alps 30 miles away. Their roofs sloped steeply against
the snow but otherwise the architecture was thin on style; you will
remember them from the Truman Show. It had, though, a restaurant
with a log fire and meaty menu. And the manager very cheerfully
found me some feather pillows and turned on the heating in time for
my return as if I were an hotel guest, rather than a short stay in
the self-service flats. |
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My immediate neighbours were Matt Cutfield (my ever-cheerful,
ever-ready driver) and Victoria Sullivan (Script Supervisor) who swapped me some cheese and a
drink for my home-made soup. She was surrounded by hours of homework.
She liaises between the camera team and the editor, transferring all
possible information along with the cans of film to which it refers.
Victoria says the computer has transformed her job, which must mean
that in the not-so-old days, when script supervisors, always female,
were known as "continuity girls", there was no time for
sleep or for fun. I'd always imagined continuity girls must be up for
anything. In reality, sans laptop, they worked all through the night,
neither slept nor played.
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Matt Cutfield on duty
outside Gandalf's dressing room trailer
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That sort of devotion, which Victoria still embodies, is not
unusual in the film industry. But that she can keep her
concentration and abandon all other interests for a sustained year
now is a marvel. Once she took a sunny Sunday off and she and I sat
in the back of Viggo Mortensen's car — don't ask me ever the make
of a car — and laughed at the stories from the driver and his
makeup specialist Jose beside him. It was a glorious day driving to
Arthur's Pass, a journey I'd made earlier this year. 150 years ago
Samuel Butler also approached the then unexplored pass from the west
and wondered whether he shouldn't find a companion if he were to
press on. So he rode away from the chance to have New Zealand's most
spectacular route called Butler's Pass. |
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There are lesser sites named after him, and there is Erewhon. It
is well worth finding for yourself. Our Edoras is already dismantled.
But you will imagine your own.
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Ian McKellen as Gandalf the Grey
Pierre Vinet/New Line Cinema
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