THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE FELLOWSHIP OF THE RING

Much has been written about the immense technical achievements of the film. It was as significant moment in the history of filmmaking as the opening of 'Star Wars', the dinosaur reveal in 'Jurassic Park', or bullet-time in 'The Matrix'. Watching the prologue alone of 'Fellowship' was witnessing a leap in visual effects, design, cinematography and music the likes of which arguably hasn't been beaten. Peter Jackson and his team of artists, craftsman and lunatics pushed themselves and the medium far past what had been imagined at that point, but the truth is, none of that wouldn't have mattered an ounce if it hadn't had an ounce of heart. This was the huge surprise about 'Fellowship' to me as a fifteen-year-old, and something that still hits me hard now - it's an emotionally resonant, powerful film. Amidst the enormity of the world and the events around it, Jackson's focus is entirely on the human story, predominantly the Hobbits, innocents caught in the middle of what quickly goes from an adventure to a nightmare. By resting the narrative focus on Frodo, we see it through his eyes, and what we see is a world almost too big for him to comprehend, and a burden almost too heavy for him to bear. As much as Jackson grapples with and conquers the epic, his handling of the intimate is even more exquisite. The final five minutes are utterly heartbreaking and so deeply moving, friendships tested and splintered holding together as tight as they can, looking forward to face the darkness ahead. While the emotional scale of the series would grow as it went on, it was never more specific and intimate as it was in 'Fellowship', and even now, the film still sings with an emotional resonance most traditional dramas can't seem to manufacture.

It's hard to imagine this now, but 'Fellowship' was a daring film at the time. Three hour films weren't the norm as they are now; neither were films with this many characters or fantasy films played as drama or tragedy with genuine conviction. There were no guarantees this film would work, and even less that the inexperienced team from New Zealand would even be able to pull it off. I'd argue though that this is why 'Fellowship' ended up being the masterpiece it is - it's made with no sense of ego or overburdening confidence. Instead, it's just trying to be the best it can possibly be, made with great love and care and daring. Much like Tolkien's process of writing the book itself, they made their own rules and tried things they didn't know would work. Most masterpieces are made without any knowledge that they're a masterpiece, and that innocence and genuineness is often what makes them just that. 'Fellowship' benefits from being the first, unburdened by the expectations that would weigh on the later films, both of which would then benefit from not having the time to think about how big a success they were becoming. Jackson is flying by the seat of his pants in every frame, but what guides him and everyone on and off screen is their guts, their conviction and their iron-proof belief in the power of the story they are telling. It's that belief that leads to the power we see and hear, in the resonance of the images and the operatic enormity of the score (unsurprisingly, my favourite film score of all time). That cinema could be this biblical, this enormous - both visually and emotionally - was something audiences in 2001 hadn't seen in a long while.

It was also about timing. 'The Fellowship of the Ring' was released three months after September 11. The world was a scary, uncertain place, where the images on the news were bigger than anything at the cinema. Harry Potter provided escapism, but 'Fellowship' gave us a moment to grapple with the bigger questions of the nature of good and evil, of the struggle of the ordinary against the impossible, of the enormity of life and death, within a framework that was both distant and familiar at the same time. There are moments of cathartic grief in that film that really hit home in 2001, and much like we now see 'Star Wars' in the context of the political and social upheavals of the 70s, I think we should see these films - and this film in particular - within the context of the world it emerged in, a world I would argue needed it more than it could have expected.

'The Fellowship of the Ring' was never considered a genuine Oscar contender outside of technical categories before it was released. Its jump to the front of the race for Best Picture was sudden and breathtaking, and this in itself should be enough to convince of its legacy (many still believe, myself included, that it should have won). It's a powerful piece of cinema, one that captures all the potential for what cinema can be, and while its later chapters would reap even greater rewards and acclaim, I think 'Fellowship' is still objectively the finest film in the trilogy. It's an extraordinary achievement, a perfect balance between the epic and the human, a visual spectacle that is never about its spectacle, an assault on the senses and on the heart. As Frodo and Sam walked uncertainly towards the fires of Mordor in the distance, we all collectively held our breaths in anticipation for the long wait ahead, but giddy from what we'd just seen. I know I was never the same again after I saw that film, and I doubt the art of cinema itself was either.

But if we thought we knew what was coming, we really hadn't seen anything yet.