Why Can't Movies Be Like Books?

[davem]

Originally Posted by Sauron the White

I ask again, try to imagine him in the first film spouting the lines

"Hey dol! merry dol! ring a dong dillo.
Ring a dong! hop along! fal lal the willow"

The 'ring a dong dillo'/ 'fa la la' stuff is common in folksongs (or in Shakespeare's songs - 'Hey nonny, nonny', etc) There are various explanations - old songs where certain words have been lost or half forgotten over the years so that a kind of 'chinese whispers' effect has taken place, nonsense words inserted to fill in the gaps & complete the metre (you know what I mean - its early), or imitations of musical instruments (as in the Carol 'Ding Dong Merrily On High) - in this context:

Then the voices of the Ainur, like unto harps and lutes, and pipes and
trumpets, and viols and organs, and like unto countless choirs singing with
words, began to fashion the theme of Ilúvatar to a great music; and a
sound arose of endless interchanging melodies woven in harmony that passed
beyond hearing into the depths and into the heights, and the places of the
dwelling of Ilúvatar were filled to overflowing, and the music and
the echo of the music went out into the Void, and it was not void.

I have to say that if we are to sacrifice everything in art or literature that a comedian or schoolchild may be able to turn into a joke we won't have much left...