Ben Gunn and Frodo, the Elijah connection and The Sea-bell
O hai!
So I watched Syfy's "Treasure Island" and while it wasn't the most riveting miniseries ever (personally I thought Disney's animated adaptation of the book, set in a futuristic world with space travels and aliens, and suitably called, "Treasure Planet" was far more engaging, though it was probably the Emma Thompson factor. I. Love. Her.) and I found the first part disappointing because of the lack of Elijah Wood, it was, nevertheless, unsettling.
I found Elijah's portrayal of Ben Gunn very captivating, and not because of his blue eyes alone. The emotions that he conveyed from under all that fake tan and face paint and dreadlocks and ratty beard are amazing, visceral and almost disturbing, even more so than Kevin, the altar boy-faced cannibal he played in Sin City. In this Huffington Post interview he described how the character he played had not been elaborately described in the story, giving him and the production team a blank canvas on which they can pretty much paint anything from the bewildering spectrum of isolation-induced semi-insanity.
But Elijah's acting aside, what made the second part of the miniseries painful to watch was the thought that, OMG... This could be Frodo. Tolkien's poem "The Sea-bell" was subtitled Frodo's Dreme, and I've read some discussions as to how this poem is interpreted, including, most painfully, the possibility that like Frodo's dream in Bombadil's house it is a foretelling of the sense of detachment, loss and alienation that he will feel in the Undying Land. Which is unacceptable. Because he has to be happy there or what's the point of leaving his home and country and beloved friends, Y/Y?
And then I saw Elijah playing this role of a society-deprived young man who lives in an island of ghosts. This is...too close to the haunting imagery of The Sea-bell for comfort. Even when I tried to make light of the situation by thinking up what, if he were in the same kind of predicament, Frodo would want from the visitors to his island, a slice of heaven as he called it. Ben Gunn was partial to cheese, which he hasn't eaten in three years. Elijah mentioned the need for music. Frodo would want strangers to bring him...what? Pipeweed? Ale?
Still, it's too painful a conjecture to make.
You can read "The Sea-bell", or "Frodos Dreme", which according to WH Auden is the best of Tolkien's poetic oeuvre, HERE.