In this interview from archived BBC footage, J.R.R. Tolkien offers his thoughts on world-building, and insight into how he created the Lord of the Rings.
Bowen: So that you had invented, literally invented the world before you even wrote the Hobbit? Tolkien: Oh yes indeed. Bowen: Why? Tolkien: Because it's so much fun, Bowen!
Perhaps because evil is a measure of chaos, disorder, entropy, which is hard to define in itself as it doesn't know itself. Goodness on the other hand has a strong sense of knowing. It's like darkness isn't a thing in and of itself, just an absence of light.
@@jackbeckett2838 ... God bless you, god bless you, you found me, you found the younger me I've been tryna find for myself god fucking bless you, you reminded me! It's not disorder, but order, not chaos but stability is what the immoral and amoral is, for it can know itself, but never feel, feeling is higher and greater than knowing and logic has failed us emotional beings... Oh hell, I will share everything I deleted from my last comment before posting: "I truly believe we are at our best when we are irrational, because selfless action, sacrifice, perhaps for someone you love or for a complete stranger, you're not thinking when you do that, you're feeling. If you were thinking more than feeling, that's when you see either opportunity or something that doesn't effect your own self interest. You're going back to before civilization when you do that. Because instinct is the purest form of logic. To give yourself up for something greater than you is courageous, and courage is stupid. But that is what makes it beautiful. That's what we spent millions of years developing in nature to do, is to think beyond ourselves or immediate family unit." Look at Lord of The Rings itself: Sauron's ultimate goal was a perfectly deterministic world absolved of all free will. To make all who live and breath serve their one assigned role in his machinations. To be so reliably constant as to serve as jewels, cogs and springs and screws in the clock he sets on his time. And what the fellowship and the free people of middle earth represent, in all their glory, their beauty, their love and courage and sacrifice, in all of their manifestation of their collective will, there it was: The chaos required to unravel a perfectly logical plan for all that would logically, rationally, ultimately lead toward entropy. What can only be felt, against what could only be known.
@jackbeckett2838 ... God bless you, god bless you, you found me, you found the younger me I've been tryna find for myself god bless you, you reminded me! It's not disorder, but order, not chaos but stability is what the immoral and amoral is, for it can know itself, but never feel, feeling is higher and greater than knowing and logic has failed us emotional beings... Oh hell, I will share everything I deleted from my last comment before posting: "I truly believe we are at our best when we are irrational, because selfless action, sacrifice, perhaps for someone you love or for a complete stranger, you're not thinking when you do that, you're feeling. If you were thinking more than feeling, that's when you see either opportunity or something that doesn't effect your own self interest. You're going back to before civilization when you do that. Because instinct is the purest form of logic. To give yourself up for something greater than you is courageous, and courage is stupid. But that is what makes it beautiful. That's what we spent millions of years developing in nature to do, is to think beyond ourselves or immediate family unit." Look at Lord of The Rings itself: Sauron's ultimate goal was a perfectly deterministic world absolved of all free will. To make all who live and breath serve their one assigned role in his machinations. To be so reliably constant as to serve as jewels, cogs and springs and screws in the clock he sets on his time. And what the fellowship and the free people of middle earth represent, in all their glory, their beauty, their love and courage and sacrifice, in all of their manifestation of their collective will, there it was: The chaos required to unravel a perfectly logical plan for all that would logically, rationally, ultimately lead toward entropy. What can only be felt, against what could only be known.
@jackbeckett2838 ... [word] bless you, [word] bless you, you found me, you found the younger me I've been tryna find for myself [word] [word]ing bless you, you reminded me! It's not disorder, but order, not chaos but stability is what the immoral and amoral is, for it can know itself, but never feel, feeling is higher and greater than knowing and logic has failed us emotional beings... Oh [word], I will share everything I deleted from my last comment before posting: "I truly believe we are at our best when we are irrational, because selfless action, sacrifice, perhaps for someone you love or for a complete stranger, you're not thinking when you do that, you're feeling. If you were thinking more than feeling, that's when you see either opportunity or something that doesn't effect your own self interest. You're going back to before civilization when you do that. Because instinct is the purest form of logic. To give yourself up for something greater than you is courageous, and courage is stupid. But that is what makes it beautiful. That's what we spent millions of years developing in nature to do, is to think beyond ourselves or immediate family unit." Look at Lord of The Rings itself: Sauron's ultimate goal was a perfectly deterministic world absolved of all free will. To make all who live and breath serve their one assigned role in his machinations. To be so reliably constant as to serve as jewels, cogs and springs and screws in the clock he sets on his time. And what the fellowship and the free people of middle earth represent, in all their glory, their beauty, their love and courage and sacrifice, in all of their manifestation of their collective will, there it was: The chaos required to unravel a perfectly logical plan for all that would logically, rationally, ultimately lead toward entropy. What can only be felt, against what could only be known. [this is the third time I have tried to say this]
"Would you rather be remembered as a man who has said something or as a man who has made something?" "I don't think you can distinguish. The made thing unless it says something won't be remembered."
It’s fascinating watching Tolkien try to explain modern fantasy and secondary worlds to a society and time that was completely confused yet curious to what it was.
Oh, not at all; fantasy was already an established and respected genre at the time with authors like Dunsany, Mirlees, Ashton Smith, Eddison, Peake, Howard, etc. It's just that the genre has grown stale and dull as a consequence of Tolkien's LoTR, which inspired lesser authors to write more 'worldbuilding' into their already unoriginal stories, which is just an euphimism for all details that don't add anything to the story, characters, tone, etc., resulting in badly written, unnecessarily long volumes. I would even go as far as to say that people understood fantasy better back then than now.
@@WillyWobbles-u7q Not the kind of fantasy Tolkien was making, it was rather niche to the public at large, even Dunsany though he was quite popular. To most people at the time, fantasy meant children's fairy tales.
@@LordVader1094 No, pulp fantasy for example was very popular at the time as it was often reached millions of people. Fantasy was also a rather respected literary genre, without the dreary escapism that spoils the fantasy shelves nowadays. Lovecraft, Burroughs and Leiber were already writing very popular fantasy, and the genre would have boomed without the Tolkien-explosion in the middle of the 1960's. If you look at how Tolkien inspired so many bland rewrites and unoriginal, dull monsterously big volumes, because he inspired lesser writers to use his meticulous but essentially meaningless and time wasting 'worldbuilding' techniques, which resulted only in more pages, you come to realize that the genre could have done very well without Tolkien.
The great writers of fantasy were Charles Kingsley, Lewis Carrol, James Barrie, A A Milne, Kenneth Grahame… C. S. Lewis. None of them of course could rank alongside Tolkien for rounded genius… And yet they were also giants and some of these artists created worlds, if less rounded and full, of equal power and magical allure. There is a fabulous book on the mastery of imagination and fantastical invention of these literary giants called ‘Secret Gardens’ by Humphrey Carpenter, which is a trip back into these mystic gardens of potent childhood nostalgia. Nothing written since has ever matched the potency of the spells cast in that last golden era.
@@matthewstokes1608 Tolkien doesn't really match that, does he? Tolkien's writing is rather dull, conformist, allegorical, simplistic and convoluted. He did spend a lot of time on it to gather details that wouldn't add anything, and they didn't. I like JG Keely's review and articles on the subject, and would definitely suggest them. PS: the authors you name wrote primarily children's literature, making the list quite incomplete without names as Dunsany or Eddison (or Peake in that regard).
I do not think I’ve ever seen Tolkien speaking before, and certainly not for this long. I’ve know he was a professor and extraordinarily intelligent, but it’s a giddy pleasure to hear him speak and see him talk with such thoughtfulness, composure, and sharpness. And his answers are so earnest and quick that I’m flabbergasted. This was so cool to see
I know I sound foolish, but in 2024, even beyond the subject of discussion, it's just refreshing to hear two intelligent people having a conversation. I'm a huge fan of Tolkien's work and the content they're discussing is also fascinating, but it reminds me how simplified discourse has become in media.
I came to post almost the same thing verbatim. If this had taken place around current times there would have been at least 10 jokes, 3 drum solos, 1 commercial break, and 5000 twitter (sorry, X) comments before the damn thing had finished. It's apparently a falacy to state that olde times were better, but sometimes we must come to terms with reality, and I, for one, wish we could go back to 90s. Silly, yes, but better overall (for the 1st world at least).
@@blastard8980 Absolutely. I do feel some hope that things will reach a point where people are ready to listen and not feel the absurd necessity to constantly interject themselves into a conversation that they're not a part of.
@@blastard8980while I can be sympathetic to this view, I'm of the belief that looking backward with rose tinted glasses is the first step toward dying, really. One must look ever ahead or be doomed to the perceptions of a reality that never truly existed in the first place. Sure our time has many problems, but there is a great opportunity in the present to influence the future
I'd much rather listen to a modern day podcast than this interviewer with his silly, affected accent and his smug sense of public-schoolboy superiority.
All he really did was ask questions from an adversarial perspective. Its not good journalism, there's no need to attack an author like that. I do agree though in the sense that the conversations are more intelligent and not "dumbing down" to reach a mass audience.
Bowen: Is this another word for what Freud would call the unconscious? Tolkien: No. Bowen: No I didn't think it was. A+ pivot there, modern journalists would be proud XD
This seems like a sorrowful relic from a bygone era; when a creator and an interviewer were both on a vastly higher intellectual plane than any and all media nowadays. (Sorry for the hyperboly.) And what is most surprising: The creation - the Middle Earth mythos with its centerpiece being the Lord of the Rings - STILL holds up in the face of intense intellectual scrutiny - even when compared to what came after it in popular culture. In the era of Fast Food Media like Marvel and Harry Potter, this truly shines a light on the greatness of Tolkien and his peers. (Edit: Spelling errors corrected. Yes, I'm aware of the irony. 😉)
@@ChadKakashi They said this was on a vastly higher intellectual plane than "any and all" media today. That is absolutely hyperbole, and it betrays the commenter's own lack of engagement with intellectual content.
No, didn't like him at all. He spoke from Christian bias, he scrutinised him as if he had to detect something wrong in this weird man, fellow 'civilised' Brits would need to be warned against. That was his undertone I felt.
@KootFloris 🎉 I see where you're coming from, but remember that Tolkien was a very devout christian, and his books are allegory for the struggle between good and evil. I think that's what slanted the interviewers questions. That and, at that time, most people wouldnt admit they weren't a christian.
@@breeinatree4811 Interesting as I think for a moment the interviewer also seems to think he's defending Christianity and wonders if Tolkien is on God's side. 4:07
An interview with intellectual questions. Nothing about his favourite colour or if he identifies with his characters. Someone actually discussing his work on an existential and philosophical level.
Agreed. Bowen's thoughtful engagement with Tolkien's work has been an inspiration for how we ask questions in our forthcoming podcast series. Props to Bowen!
Tolkien in general is to often forgotten as one of the most greatest contributers to our collective understanding of art of all time. He is right up there with Shakespeare
Why? There are many interviews with very intelligent and well educated people; my favourite is one with Stephan Fry This interview is special, because Tolkien was special; however at that time they couldn't know what impact his writing would have on the future generations We cant know which modern authors will be consider great in the future
You're watching the wrong things then. There are far more in-depth, thoughtful interviews now than at any other point in history! Just by the sheer volume of things out there. Plenty of it is superficial but lots of people are interested in this depth.
Only the mental capacity of John Ronald. Tolkien was simply amazing, I am glad to be even born close to that same century that this fantasy legend master was born too.
Tolkien seems so incredibly kind and intelligent! the way the interviewer asked his questions - so forcefully - was wild to me. a different time perhaps.
Find me a modern interviewer who knows and uses words like apotheosis. This is another example of how much the quality of media has been degrading for decades.
truly... I was watching Dick Cavett interviews the other day and was really impressed by his maturity and sensibility. That, and the intelligent academic sort of interviewer in this video are opposites of the babbling clowns on tv today
Using recondite words doesn't make you sound intelligent. It's because of the quality of questions that the interview is good not because of the words used per se.
If you watch scholarly discussions and debates you'll find plenty of moderators and interviewers who know such words. Obviously you won't find it by watching random celebrity interviews.
The interviewer - of whom other commenters here have mixed opinions - is John Bowen, writer of some of the most imaginative, bizarre and unsettling television drama of the 1960s and 70s.
Great interview. Hilarious seeing all the comments of people who think interviews should be asinine chatter about the latest TikTok trend. Two gentlemen clearly enjoying a meaningful conversation
Not at all. Hes direct with his questions thats what makes him a good interviewer and can spark interesting dialogue between them. Tolkien would appreciate someone who is quick yet thoughtful in his questions.
Tolkien's imagination is truly powerful to be able to create such a fantasy world as Middle Earth made up of so many good beings like Man, Elves ,Dwarfs, Wizards and other halflings like Hobbits and Harfoots and evil slithery beings like Orcs, Trolls and so on battling to take control of that world. Finally Good triumphs over Evil.
I think it can be widely understood, if not objectively acknowledged that Tolkien gave birth to what is known today as high fantasy. many authors of the past had done similar work in creating a landscape that their work work take place in like CS Lewis, and Lewis, Carroll and Dante Alighieri. But Tolkien Is attributed to having laid out the blueprints and the groundwork not only for middle earth, but what would it inevitably Become the grand landscape of all high fantasy and epic fantasy for generations. because every time you read about a landscape in epic fantasy with its own nature and its own identity, it can be traced back to this gentleman who started it all. one of the many tragic things about high fantasy is it has agency of its own, you can dance with it and play with it as you write it in your work but in a weird way, it really does have its own agency with its own speed and its own will and tragically these worlds outlive a lot of of the authors that Pen them to paper, which is the reason why writing takes so much time, especially epic fantasy.
I love the way he just shrugged his shoulders when asked why he made the world first 😂 you don't always have a reason to start. Most often i just do things and also don't know why exactly
Tolkien is my favorite wordsmith of the last 100 years, but when he speaks I can’t understand a gosh darn word he says. Imagine taking a class with him 😂
I tried reading lord of rings once and put the book down, now I know the guy writes likes he talks lol, Don’t get me wrong, I definitely wanna give his books a go someday
Man, oh, man. That i reviewer is sharp as a tack! And nowadays we have the likes of Cardi B interviewing presidential candidates “Aye so uhmmm like whatchu gon’ do ‘bout da uhmm like all da peoples prahlums an’ all dat?”
We do have it. Plenty of intellectual conversations are had every day. You just have to seek them out. It's not like intellectual authors no longer exist.
what in the world is going on with this interview? it's like the interviewer had lots of questions prepped beforehand, and had a thesaurus on hand, at all times, while he was writing the questions. But there was no follow up questions or comments that were related to the answers of the interviewee? It's like the interviewer had a plot in mind for him and the interviewee. so weird. although this interview is obviously not recent.
The ill - informed interviewer is asking all the wrong questions. He wants modern, rational justification and is missing the point that Tolkien's books come not just from scholarly labour but are works of profound soul and imagination, of love. You can see Tolkien struggling to be patient at the idiotic questions as if he wants Tolkien to ' explain' himself . Disrespectful.
Journalists are supposed to be adversarial in their interviews. An interview that is merely fawning praise is useless for informing people or for having productive and interesting conversation
I think the interviewer really doesn’t understand why someone would want to invent a fantasy world populated by creatures of his own imagination. God knows what he would have made of Lewis Carroll!
Maybe it's because I'm non-native in english, but I think this is really unintelligible (without the subtitles). Tried to listen to this audio only but I feel like Tolkien knows too many fancy english worlds and stammers and mumbles them into himself. Maybe it's also the age of the recording, or his own age. Bowen is much clearer. Anyone else feel like that?
Bowen has the perfect posh english accent that you learn in school and tolkien speaks much more colloquially so its harder to understand. that being said england has a lot of accents, half of them cant understand eachother
As Gandalf would say: Don't be so quick to judge. Tolkien, as genius as he truly was, still was also a mere human being, and therefore not above critisism. In fact, this makes his work all the more interesting: A journalist worth his salt questions the work and intent of the interviewed on a factual basis - you know, having actually read the book instead of asking "hey whats your favourite meal" sort of questions. Peace. 🙂
It’s a far cry from interviews today. They’re challenging interesting questions, maybe comes off a bit aggressive but it was an intelligent interview. Now they’d ask if Frodo and Sam were gay or if aragorn and Arwen break up, or why aren’t there more diverse charscters
Bowen: So that you had invented, literally invented the world before you even wrote the Hobbit?
Tolkien: Oh yes indeed.
Bowen: Why?
Tolkien: Because it's so much fun, Bowen!
I get the reference 🤣
J. R. R. Tarantino. 🤣
GET IT
😂😂tarantolkien
“I don’t believe in absolute evil but I do believe in absolute good”
That is bafflingly powerful.
I think I have to remember something very much in the same vein...
Perhaps because evil is a measure of chaos, disorder, entropy, which is hard to define in itself as it doesn't know itself. Goodness on the other hand has a strong sense of knowing. It's like darkness isn't a thing in and of itself, just an absence of light.
@@jackbeckett2838 ... God bless you, god bless you, you found me, you found the younger me I've been tryna find for myself god fucking bless you, you reminded me!
It's not disorder, but order, not chaos but stability is what the immoral and amoral is, for it can know itself, but never feel, feeling is higher and greater than knowing and logic has failed us emotional beings... Oh hell, I will share everything I deleted from my last comment before posting:
"I truly believe we are at our best when we are irrational, because selfless action, sacrifice, perhaps for someone you love or for a complete stranger, you're not thinking when you do that, you're feeling. If you were thinking more than feeling, that's when you see either opportunity or something that doesn't effect your own self interest. You're going back to before civilization when you do that. Because instinct is the purest form of logic. To give yourself up for something greater than you is courageous, and courage is stupid. But that is what makes it beautiful. That's what we spent millions of years developing in nature to do, is to think beyond ourselves or immediate family unit."
Look at Lord of The Rings itself:
Sauron's ultimate goal was a perfectly deterministic world absolved of all free will. To make all who live and breath serve their one assigned role in his machinations. To be so reliably constant as to serve as jewels, cogs and springs and screws in the clock he sets on his time.
And what the fellowship and the free people of middle earth represent, in all their glory, their beauty, their love and courage and sacrifice,
in all of their manifestation of their collective will, there it was:
The chaos required to unravel a perfectly logical plan for all that would logically, rationally, ultimately lead toward entropy.
What can only be felt, against what could only be known.
@jackbeckett2838 ... God bless you, god bless you, you found me, you found the younger me I've been tryna find for myself god bless you, you reminded me!
It's not disorder, but order, not chaos but stability is what the immoral and amoral is, for it can know itself, but never feel, feeling is higher and greater than knowing and logic has failed us emotional beings... Oh hell, I will share everything I deleted from my last comment before posting:
"I truly believe we are at our best when we are irrational, because selfless action, sacrifice, perhaps for someone you love or for a complete stranger, you're not thinking when you do that, you're feeling. If you were thinking more than feeling, that's when you see either opportunity or something that doesn't effect your own self interest. You're going back to before civilization when you do that. Because instinct is the purest form of logic. To give yourself up for something greater than you is courageous, and courage is stupid. But that is what makes it beautiful. That's what we spent millions of years developing in nature to do, is to think beyond ourselves or immediate family unit."
Look at Lord of The Rings itself:
Sauron's ultimate goal was a perfectly deterministic world absolved of all free will. To make all who live and breath serve their one assigned role in his machinations. To be so reliably constant as to serve as jewels, cogs and springs and screws in the clock he sets on his time.
And what the fellowship and the free people of middle earth represent, in all their glory, their beauty, their love and courage and sacrifice,
in all of their manifestation of their collective will, there it was:
The chaos required to unravel a perfectly logical plan for all that would logically, rationally, ultimately lead toward entropy.
What can only be felt, against what could only be known.
@jackbeckett2838 ... [word] bless you, [word] bless you, you found me, you found the younger me I've been tryna find for myself [word] [word]ing bless you, you reminded me!
It's not disorder, but order, not chaos but stability is what the immoral and amoral is, for it can know itself, but never feel, feeling is higher and greater than knowing and logic has failed us emotional beings... Oh [word], I will share everything I deleted from my last comment before posting:
"I truly believe we are at our best when we are irrational, because selfless action, sacrifice, perhaps for someone you love or for a complete stranger, you're not thinking when you do that, you're feeling. If you were thinking more than feeling, that's when you see either opportunity or something that doesn't effect your own self interest. You're going back to before civilization when you do that. Because instinct is the purest form of logic. To give yourself up for something greater than you is courageous, and courage is stupid. But that is what makes it beautiful. That's what we spent millions of years developing in nature to do, is to think beyond ourselves or immediate family unit."
Look at Lord of The Rings itself:
Sauron's ultimate goal was a perfectly deterministic world absolved of all free will. To make all who live and breath serve their one assigned role in his machinations. To be so reliably constant as to serve as jewels, cogs and springs and screws in the clock he sets on his time.
And what the fellowship and the free people of middle earth represent, in all their glory, their beauty, their love and courage and sacrifice,
in all of their manifestation of their collective will, there it was:
The chaos required to unravel a perfectly logical plan for all that would logically, rationally, ultimately lead toward entropy.
What can only be felt, against what could only be known.
[this is the third time I have tried to say this]
"Would you rather be remembered as a man who has said something or as a man who has made something?"
"I don't think you can distinguish. The made thing unless it says something won't be remembered."
I love the Professor's pause and consideration before answering. He knew the question was meaningful, and desired to make a meaningful response.
It’s fascinating watching Tolkien try to explain modern fantasy and secondary worlds to a society and time that was completely confused yet curious to what it was.
Oh, not at all; fantasy was already an established and respected genre at the time with authors like Dunsany, Mirlees, Ashton Smith, Eddison, Peake, Howard, etc. It's just that the genre has grown stale and dull as a consequence of Tolkien's LoTR, which inspired lesser authors to write more 'worldbuilding' into their already unoriginal stories, which is just an euphimism for all details that don't add anything to the story, characters, tone, etc., resulting in badly written, unnecessarily long volumes. I would even go as far as to say that people understood fantasy better back then than now.
@@WillyWobbles-u7q Not the kind of fantasy Tolkien was making, it was rather niche to the public at large, even Dunsany though he was quite popular. To most people at the time, fantasy meant children's fairy tales.
@@LordVader1094 No, pulp fantasy for example was very popular at the time as it was often reached millions of people. Fantasy was also a rather respected literary genre, without the dreary escapism that spoils the fantasy shelves nowadays. Lovecraft, Burroughs and Leiber were already writing very popular fantasy, and the genre would have boomed without the Tolkien-explosion in the middle of the 1960's. If you look at how Tolkien inspired so many bland rewrites and unoriginal, dull monsterously big volumes, because he inspired lesser writers to use his meticulous but essentially meaningless and time wasting 'worldbuilding' techniques, which resulted only in more pages, you come to realize that the genre could have done very well without Tolkien.
The great writers of fantasy were Charles Kingsley, Lewis Carrol, James Barrie, A A Milne, Kenneth Grahame…
C. S. Lewis.
None of them of course could rank alongside Tolkien for rounded genius… And yet they were also giants and some of these artists created worlds, if less rounded and full, of equal power and magical allure.
There is a fabulous book on the mastery of imagination and fantastical invention of these literary giants called ‘Secret Gardens’ by Humphrey Carpenter, which is a trip back into these mystic gardens of potent childhood nostalgia.
Nothing written since has ever matched the potency of the spells cast in that last golden era.
@@matthewstokes1608 Tolkien doesn't really match that, does he? Tolkien's writing is rather dull, conformist, allegorical, simplistic and convoluted. He did spend a lot of time on it to gather details that wouldn't add anything, and they didn't. I like JG Keely's review and articles on the subject, and would definitely suggest them.
PS: the authors you name wrote primarily children's literature, making the list quite incomplete without names as Dunsany or Eddison (or Peake in that regard).
"The made thing, unless it says something, won't be remembered".
I am deeply impressed. An off-the-cuff remark that explains how craft becomes art.
This is probably the most important thing ever said about art.
I do not think I’ve ever seen Tolkien speaking before, and certainly not for this long. I’ve know he was a professor and extraordinarily intelligent, but it’s a giddy pleasure to hear him speak and see him talk with such thoughtfulness, composure, and sharpness. And his answers are so earnest and quick that I’m flabbergasted. This was so cool to see
So glad you enjoyed it!
Bowen: So that you had invented literally invented the world before you even wrote the Hobbit.
Tolkien: Oh yes indeed.
Bowen: Why?
What a legend!
"Felt cute, Might revolutionize an entire genre later, idk"
@@Link2edition 😆
an absolute badass
I know I sound foolish, but in 2024, even beyond the subject of discussion, it's just refreshing to hear two intelligent people having a conversation. I'm a huge fan of Tolkien's work and the content they're discussing is also fascinating, but it reminds me how simplified discourse has become in media.
People are absolutely retarrded nowadays. Interviews like these will sound like gibberish to most. I think that is why they dumbed down media.
I came to post almost the same thing verbatim. If this had taken place around current times there would have been at least 10 jokes, 3 drum solos, 1 commercial break, and 5000 twitter (sorry, X) comments before the damn thing had finished.
It's apparently a falacy to state that olde times were better, but sometimes we must come to terms with reality, and I, for one, wish we could go back to 90s. Silly, yes, but better overall (for the 1st world at least).
Agree with every word you're saying. So rare to hear two people talking so well about a deeply complex theology and fictional wonder.
@@blastard8980 Absolutely. I do feel some hope that things will reach a point where people are ready to listen and not feel the absurd necessity to constantly interject themselves into a conversation that they're not a part of.
@@blastard8980while I can be sympathetic to this view, I'm of the belief that looking backward with rose tinted glasses is the first step toward dying, really. One must look ever ahead or be doomed to the perceptions of a reality that never truly existed in the first place. Sure our time has many problems, but there is a great opportunity in the present to influence the future
Man the interviewers back then were far superior to the ones we have today, there are of course exceptions and we deeply appreciate them
everything was better back then , Only technology progressed
Certainly high level communicator but a bit unecessarily pushy. He interviews like a former interrogator.
@@Steinmetal4 It's offputting to be sure, but it seems almost standard for British interviewers. Not the first time I've seen this.
I'd much rather listen to a modern day podcast than this interviewer with his silly, affected accent and his smug sense of public-schoolboy superiority.
All he really did was ask questions from an adversarial perspective. Its not good journalism, there's no need to attack an author like that. I do agree though in the sense that the conversations are more intelligent and not "dumbing down" to reach a mass audience.
I so wish we had more Tolkien interviews. I could listen to him endlessly.
Agreed! This is the first time I remember hearing his voice.
Bowen: Is this another word for what Freud would call the unconscious?
Tolkien: No.
Bowen: No I didn't think it was.
A+ pivot there, modern journalists would be proud XD
😄
This seems like a sorrowful relic from a bygone era; when a creator and an interviewer were both on a vastly higher intellectual plane than any and all media nowadays. (Sorry for the hyperboly.)
And what is most surprising: The creation - the Middle Earth mythos with its centerpiece being the Lord of the Rings - STILL holds up in the face of intense intellectual scrutiny - even when compared to what came after it in popular culture.
In the era of Fast Food Media like Marvel and Harry Potter, this truly shines a light on the greatness of Tolkien and his peers.
(Edit: Spelling errors corrected. Yes, I'm aware of the irony. 😉)
Exactly. Imagine these type of sentences on news nowadays.
(btw: Hyperbole. Not hyperboly.)
I don’t think it qualifies as hyperbole if it’s literally true. Books, shows and movies have devolved massively.
@@ChadKakashi They said this was on a vastly higher intellectual plane than "any and all" media today. That is absolutely hyperbole, and it betrays the commenter's own lack of engagement with intellectual content.
It's not hyperbole. It's actually true. Modern interviewers and journalists are utter trash.
That interviewer was asking some crazy intelligent questions, fair play to him 👏👏
No, didn't like him at all. He spoke from Christian bias, he scrutinised him as if he had to detect something wrong in this weird man, fellow 'civilised' Brits would need to be warned against. That was his undertone I felt.
@KootFloris 🎉 I see where you're coming from, but remember that Tolkien was a very devout christian, and his books are allegory for the struggle between good and evil. I think that's what slanted the interviewers questions. That and, at that time, most people wouldnt admit they weren't a christian.
@@breeinatree4811 Interesting as I think for a moment the interviewer also seems to think he's defending Christianity and wonders if Tolkien is on God's side. 4:07
@@breeinatree4811 he didn't say it was allegory since he disliked the concept of allegory.
@platypipope328 True, he didn't. However, in a sense, it is.
Correction: "partly Torah" in the subtitles should be "partly auctorial'.
An interview with intellectual questions. Nothing about his favourite colour or if he identifies with his characters. Someone actually discussing his work on an existential and philosophical level.
I agree. Somehow this rather over intellectual interview manages to push JRR into one of the most interesting interviews I've seen on youtube
Agreed. Bowen's thoughtful engagement with Tolkien's work has been an inspiration for how we ask questions in our forthcoming podcast series. Props to Bowen!
Old time journalism. Just the facts.
...dammit now I want to know what Tolkien's favourite colour was and a five minute psychoanalyitical discussion as to why.
"Let's avoid the word lecture for a moment because it suggests a propagandist work"
-Bowen.
If only writers today could take this to heart.
And if journalists would do, what a world it could be.
Only if we could all be a meticulous bloke. The Interviewer tried very hard to find a formula Tolkien used. But none was to be found.
Jon, excellent observation!
We don't have journalists that ask questions of this quality anymore
Tolkien in general is to often forgotten as one of the most greatest contributers to our collective understanding of art of all time. He is right up there with Shakespeare
how is Tolkien forgotten? He is pretty much everywhere you can look, even another show based on his world is coming out soon
Glazing is off the charts
0:42 that face lol.
I think its impossible that such an interview or TV program could be conducted in 2024.
Yes, I think it would be difficult to get Tolkien to agree to an interview
Why?
There are many interviews with very intelligent and well educated people; my favourite is one with Stephan Fry
This interview is special, because Tolkien was special; however at that time they couldn't know what impact his writing would have on the future generations
We cant know which modern authors will be consider great in the future
You're watching the wrong things then. There are far more in-depth, thoughtful interviews now than at any other point in history! Just by the sheer volume of things out there. Plenty of it is superficial but lots of people are interested in this depth.
This man was the epitome, of Intelligence and interlect. His voice, actually makes me feel proud to be British. Utterly charming.📚📚📚
He made sure they were good questions before attempting to answer them.
“You invented this World before you invented the Hobbit. Why?”
Tolkien: “Why not.”
This is a great video.
Only the mental capacity of John Ronald. Tolkien was simply amazing, I am glad to be even born close to that same century that this fantasy legend master was born too.
This is terrific. Thank you.
Tolkien seems so incredibly kind and intelligent! the way the interviewer asked his questions - so forcefully - was wild to me. a different time perhaps.
Find me a modern interviewer who knows and uses words like apotheosis. This is another example of how much the quality of media has been degrading for decades.
truly... I was watching Dick Cavett interviews the other day and was really impressed by his maturity and sensibility. That, and the intelligent academic sort of interviewer in this video are opposites of the babbling clowns on tv today
He knows them he's just not allowed to use them. Soon he won't know them.
Using recondite words doesn't make you sound intelligent. It's because of the quality of questions that the interview is good not because of the words used per se.
If you watch scholarly discussions and debates you'll find plenty of moderators and interviewers who know such words. Obviously you won't find it by watching random celebrity interviews.
ΑΠΟΘΕΩΣΙΣ - In its mother language.
Why don't people talk like this anymore? 😢😢. It's so beautiful and eloquent.
This interview is like a battle between the old world and the new.
I wish I could have had conversations with this man. About anything.
I wish he ran a D&D campaign.
such a humble man. such intelligent eye expression.
The interviewer - of whom other commenters here have mixed opinions - is John Bowen, writer of some of the most imaginative, bizarre and unsettling television drama of the 1960s and 70s.
Excellent, my favourite author being interviewed by a competent journalist. A rare thing in this modern age.
Talk about intelligence something we miss today
Great interview. Hilarious seeing all the comments of people who think interviews should be asinine chatter about the latest TikTok trend. Two gentlemen clearly enjoying a meaningful conversation
This is the most philosophical interview I've heard!
He doesn’t believe in absolute evil because he hasn’t seen ROP’s Galadriel.
Puts today's interviewers to shame. Man I miss the old days sometimes.
Marvellous to watch.
Tolkien is obviously cool and interesting but this interviewer is really damn good.
“The made thing has to have said something or it won’t be remembered”
That little shrug after 3:09 is clearly Tolkien thinking "Why not?"
Familiarity of the process of creation...feel this.
Tolkien was a genius.
Is it just me or does this interviewer ask questions like a cop interrogating a suspect?
No, it’s not just you.
It's not just you. When I was young, this is how journalists used to interview people. No slant, just straight questions.
@@breeinatree4811 It's not that, it seems like he's trying to catch Tolkien in a lie or trip him up.
@@MannyBrum yeah, that's how they interviewed people back in the day.
Not at all. Hes direct with his questions thats what makes him a good interviewer and can spark interesting dialogue between them. Tolkien would appreciate someone who is quick yet thoughtful in his questions.
Tolkien's imagination is truly powerful to be able to create such a fantasy world as Middle Earth made up of so many good beings like Man, Elves ,Dwarfs, Wizards and other halflings like Hobbits and Harfoots and evil slithery beings like Orcs, Trolls and so on battling to take control of that world. Finally Good triumphs over Evil.
Absolutely love how Tolkien dissed Freud 👏😎
I think it can be widely understood, if not objectively acknowledged that Tolkien gave birth to what is known today as high fantasy. many authors of the past had done similar work in creating a landscape that their work work take place in like CS Lewis, and Lewis, Carroll and Dante Alighieri. But Tolkien Is attributed to having laid out the blueprints and the groundwork not only for middle earth, but what would it inevitably Become the grand landscape of all high fantasy and epic fantasy for generations. because every time you read about a landscape in epic fantasy with its own nature and its own identity, it can be traced back to this gentleman who started it all. one of the many tragic things about high fantasy is it has agency of its own, you can dance with it and play with it as you write it in your work but in a weird way, it really does have its own agency with its own speed and its own will and tragically these worlds outlive a lot of of the authors that Pen them to paper, which is the reason why writing takes so much time, especially epic fantasy.
The made thing unless it says something won’t be remembered
Truly an amazing man way ahead of his time. A freaking genius
I love the way he just shrugged his shoulders when asked why he made the world first 😂 you don't always have a reason to start. Most often i just do things and also don't know why exactly
If only we had this kind of intellectualism in today's writers, not only would entertainment be better off, the world would be a better place for it.
Plenty of writers today are serious intellectuals. Just because you don't know about them or don't engage with them does not mean they don't exist.
And now we have rings of power, shitting on this brilliant man's dream
That last line nobody understands anymore. Most "storytelling" just vacous "entertainment" without the important part.
I really "get" the aesthetic aspect behind wanting to conjure up fantasy worlds in your head, that Tolkien is talking about here.
This is very helpful
The dude is so unapologetic. I love it.
Unapologetic about what stupid comment
amazing to think conversations that sounded like that used to be on TV. we have jimmy fallon and CNN megapanel chatter
Tolkien is my favorite wordsmith of the last 100 years, but when he speaks I can’t understand a gosh darn word he says. Imagine taking a class with him 😂
Tolkien was such a nerd and I love it
You are underrated
The master of all epos ever
Damn, didn't know I could like him more.
Imagine wanting to avoid a word like lecture like that
Take 14 years to make the story! wow
I get the impression that this guy was fantastically intelligent.
Journalism was of a much higher quality back then. Look at the morons we deal with nowadays.
"Well... he's several stages down from Lucifer." Well then.
I tried reading lord of rings once and put the book down, now I know the guy writes likes he talks lol,
Don’t get me wrong, I definitely wanna give his books a go someday
you spelled tolkien wrong
Thanks so much for catching that! We've fixed the issue.
Man, oh, man. That i reviewer is sharp as a tack! And nowadays we have the likes of Cardi B interviewing presidential candidates “Aye so uhmmm like whatchu gon’ do ‘bout da uhmm like all da peoples prahlums an’ all dat?”
Funny to think they were so appaled by the idea of what is today called outline writing...
This interviewer exists in a time when the utmost in being pretentious was not yet pretentious
The level of intelligence in this conversation is something I wish we had in the modern world today.
We do have it. Plenty of intellectual conversations are had every day. You just have to seek them out. It's not like intellectual authors no longer exist.
Anybody get Gandalf vibes from Tolkien in this?
His intelligence, deep thought out answers, delivered cleverly and in few words.
Imagine how hard people off camera were trying not to laugh when they heard him talking about Dark Lord and Orcs. :D
Brown Cynthia Anderson Deborah Brown Deborah
Reporters ask stupid questions.
Each of these questions needed a few minutes for answering. I know Tolkien rambled like few could, but the interviewer's questions were too rapid.
This interviewer sounds more like an inquisidor! 😅😅😅
Why did Tolkien say that we're not creators?
something like "god" is the creator, whereas for us he used the term sub-creators
He saw God as the only true Creator (creating something from nothing), and all other "creation" is therefore sub-creation.
The host tried very much to sound smart but the questions are so cringe
what in the world is going on with this interview? it's like the interviewer had lots of questions prepped beforehand, and had a thesaurus on hand, at all times, while he was writing the questions. But there was no follow up questions or comments that were related to the answers of the interviewee? It's like the interviewer had a plot in mind for him and the interviewee. so weird. although this interview is obviously not recent.
The interviewer did indeed have his interrogation questions ready; and Tolkien danced around them like a literary Nureyev. 🌹🌹
The ill - informed interviewer is asking all the wrong questions. He wants modern, rational justification and is missing the point that Tolkien's books come not just from scholarly labour but are works of profound soul and imagination, of love. You can see Tolkien struggling to be patient at the idiotic questions as if he wants Tolkien to ' explain' himself . Disrespectful.
H Bomb?
The interviewer seems unnecessarily adversarial.
Adversarial, most definitely; although Mr. Bowen would consider his flak-queries 'necessary'.
@@random22026 Regardless, it was interesting getting to see Tolkien.
@@Sam.Reeves Interesting, indeed! A study in maintaining composure whilst being grilled like a Burger King WHOPPER.
Journalists are supposed to be adversarial in their interviews. An interview that is merely fawning praise is useless for informing people or for having productive and interesting conversation
@@tomasjakovac7950 There is a middle ground between adversarial and fawning--and this wasn't it.
honestly I find the questioning to be obtuse and annoying.
Is he high? Or am I?
high fantasy 😁
Like for tolkien, not so much the interviewer during the second half
That Bowden guy didn't understand anything, not even while Prof. Tolkien was explaining him. Well I guess bad reporters exist in every age.
I think the interviewer really doesn’t understand why someone would want to invent a fantasy world populated by creatures of his own imagination. God knows what he would have made of Lewis Carroll!
Or maybe he was asking the question to spark a deeper conversation? People did communicate in more than 280 characters those days
Pseud smug interviewer, things haven't changed at all.
That Interviewer is rather arrogant
The interviewer was doing his job; you might as well just say the british public seemed arrogant (true).
fr
Not a very friendly sounding interviewer. It sounds like he's ridiculing Tolkien in some ways. And yet, Tolkien is smiling.
By this point, Tolkien is well aware of the game being played on the pitch (fork).
dang that interviewer is pompous and inane.
Someone had to say it--glad you did! 🙌🏻🙌🏻
Maybe it's because I'm non-native in english, but I think this is really unintelligible (without the subtitles). Tried to listen to this audio only but I feel like Tolkien knows too many fancy english worlds and stammers and mumbles them into himself. Maybe it's also the age of the recording, or his own age. Bowen is much clearer. Anyone else feel like that?
Bowen has the perfect posh english accent that you learn in school and tolkien speaks much more colloquially so its harder to understand. that being said england has a lot of accents, half of them cant understand eachother
Tolkien was notorious for speaking in mumbles like this. Plus had a non-BBC accent.
Interesting interview. Genius meets awful interviewer, sadly.
As Gandalf would say: Don't be so quick to judge. Tolkien, as genius as he truly was, still was also a mere human being, and therefore not above critisism. In fact, this makes his work all the more interesting: A journalist worth his salt questions the work and intent of the interviewed on a factual basis - you know, having actually read the book instead of asking "hey whats your favourite meal" sort of questions. Peace. 🙂
It’s a far cry from interviews today. They’re challenging interesting questions, maybe comes off a bit aggressive but it was an intelligent interview. Now they’d ask if Frodo and Sam were gay or if aragorn and Arwen break up, or why aren’t there more diverse charscters