Peter Jackson’s film adaptations of J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings are wonderful. Howard Shore’s music has tremendous atmosphere, Jackson’s direction is emotionally perceptive, and the scripts (penned by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens, and Jackson himself, with Stephen Sinclair also contributing to the second film) are skillful. The performances also dazzle; Elijah Wood’s Frodo Baggins is haunted, Sean Astin taps into the sweetness of Samwise Gamgee, Andy Serkis is horrifying as Gollum, and Ian McKellen’s Gandalf is compassionate and comforting.
There are, of course, Tolkien fans who are displeased with the changes made to the original text, but I actually think most of the changes work very well, such as Eowyn (Miranda Otto) having more of a presence in the second film. (In the books, it felt like she only came into her own in The Return of the King.) The one area where I find myself most disappointed with Jackson’s take, however, is his handling of the character Faramir in the theatrical release of The Two Towers.
Tolkien’s Faramir is dignified and morally sound, and doesn’t come close to giving in to temptation for Sauron’s ring. He does show suspicion towards Frodo and Sam due to their secrecy, but eventually he discovers their goal (to take the ring to Mordor in order to destroy it) and releases them. In Jackson’s theatrical adaptation, however, Faramir (depicted by David Wenham) has a colder, threatening presence. In his very first scene, he does two things; shoots one of his enemies, and then orders Frodo and Sam to be taken prisoner. There is no discussion, no questioning. He simply takes them and the scene ends.
When he does finally question them, they find out that he is the brother of their former fellowship member, Boromir (Sean Bean), and that Boromir has died. We later see Faramir sitting in darkness and staring into the distance, but we have no idea what he’s thinking about; Jackson leaves this open to interpretation. In the middle of the night, his men discover Gollum, and Faramir threatens to kill him until Frodo hesitantly steps in. After questioning Gollum, Faramir confronts Frodo and Sam, and is seemingly intent on taking the Ring. It’s a chance, he says, for “Faramir, Captain of Gondor, to show his quality.” Without any context, this comes across as simply egotistical and a way of showcasing the Ring’s power to seduce. (In an interview with Jackson and Boyens, Jackson explains that they did this to maintain the sense of tension in the film; having Faramir ignore any temptation for the ring wouldn’t make sense for that goal, he argues.)
Faramir takes them to the city of Osgiliath, which is under attack, and despite Sam and Frodo pleading with him, he still orders them taken to his father, with the message that he is sending a “mighty gift.” (An important phrase, as I’ll touch on.) After Sam’s speech about holding on to goodness in the world near the end of the film, Faramir (watching from a distance) tells Frodo that, at last, they understand one another. He releases them, even though he is warned by his men that his life will be forfeit, and that is the last we see of him in the film.
This version is the live-action Faramir that became known to the world through the cinematic release of The Two Towers. For much of the public who never watched the extended versions or read the books, it is the only Faramir that they know. This is a terrible shame because the Extended Edition version of Faramir is not only much more nuanced, but also one of the best parts of Jackson’s adaptation.
Let’s return to his very first scene, but this time looking at the Extended Edition. There is already a crucial difference on display: Sam protests that they are innocent travelers when Faramir’s men capture them, and Faramir, with the haunted look of a man always at war, observes that there are no travelers in that land, only servants of the dark tower. When Frodo sternly tells him that people who oppose “The Enemy” would do well to aid them, Faramir targets his use of ‘enemy’ immediately, as he stares at a dead man on the ground that he has just shot:
“The enemy? His sense of duty was no less than yours, I deem. You wonder what his name is, where he came from, and if he was really evil at heart… what lies or threats led him on this long march from home… if he would not rather have stayed there in peace. War will make corpses of us all.”
(This is a mildly altered version of a passage in Tolkien’s books, which originally comes from Sam’s thoughts.) In the context of the film, we see from this dialogue that Faramir is thoughtful, empathetic, and perhaps deeply tired of war. We are given moral nuance for the story as a whole, too. I have seen Sam’s original passage used during discussions over Tolkien’s handling of good and evil in The Lords of the Rings. The absence of this moment in the theatrical edition is staggering, not just for Faramir’s character, but for the moral texture of the tale itself.
When he reveals that he is Boromir’s brother, we are also shown how he found Boromir’s body drifting in the water, which gives us a snippet of his own perspective instead of keeping us outside it. After this we see him holding Boromir’s split horn, in a pose that will mirror one his father takes in the final film, and then we are allowed to see what he was thinking about in that moment from the theatrical edition where he was sitting in darkness. It’s a flashback sequence, entirely new and absent from Tolkien’s text and the theatrical version, which is one of the best scenes in the entire film:
Boromir stands high above the men of Gondor, triumphant and charismatic as he proclaims that they have retaken the city of Osgiliath from enemy forces, and that it will never again fall into evil hands. The mood is ecstatic, and when Boromir comes down to mix with the men, Faramir finds him and they share a warm moment where they drink together. “Remember today, little brother,” Boromir says. “Today, life is good.”
This is when their father enters; Denethor, the steward of Gondor, played by John Noble. Denethor embraces Boromir with real pride, but when Boromir points out that the victory also belongs to Faramir, Denethor is callous. It’s Faramir’s fault that Osgiliath was taken in the first place, he notes. “Always you cast a poor reflection on me.”
Boromir and Denethor move away and talk together, Boromir trying to tell Denethor that Faramir loves him, while Denethor is unimpressed. He urges Boromir to go to Rivendell and bring him the Ring, “a mighty gift,” before Boromir walks away again. Faramir overhears them when they return, and he offers to go to Rivendell instead. Denethor is distasteful at the very suggestion, and then we get dialogue from him that is crucial for Faramir:
“You? Oh, I see. A chance for Faramir, Captain of Gondor, to show his quality. I think not. I trust this mission only to your brother—the one who will not fail me.”
Faramir watches Boromir leave for Rivendell, and Boromir’s final words to him are, once again, reminding him to remember that day. His tone has changed now, though; he’s almost mournful. Always recall the warm moments and victory we had today, he is silently saying. He senses that darkness awaits in the pursuit of Isildur’s Bane, but even he doesn’t know that this will be the last time they see one another.
This is a revealing scene. It gives us more of an idea of Gondor’s history in the war, we see the actual relationship of Boromir and Faramir and the contrasting dynamics they both have with their father. It shows us Osgiliath, which is key not just to Faramir’s arc in this film, but also to his character in the next one. It gives us more context for Boromir’s actions in the first film, helps us to understand Faramir in this one, and paves the way for Denethor’s cruelty in the final film, thus covering past, present, and future. Denethor’s line where he scoffs about Faramir wanting to show his quality is particularly important because, later on, we suddenly grasp the proper context when Faramir repeats this line in front of Frodo and Sam. It’s not egotistical at all; it is a sad yearning to please his father and prove himself. That, it seems, is what the Ring is particularly preying on.
The scene near the end of the film with Faramir telling his men to deliver Frodo and Sam to Denethor also calls back to this flashback, as Faramir uses Denethor’s exact phrase to Boromir (“mighty gift”) as a message for him. Did Faramir somehow overhear that full conversation, or is this mere coincidence? Either way, it is a reminder of what is motivating him, context absent from the theatrical edition. The important thing here is that the film gives us Faramir’s perspective. While the theatrical cut observes Faramir in a detached way, keeping him mysterious and less fleshed out, the extended one captures him intimately and sympathetically.
When Faramir decides to let Frodo and Sam go, he doesn’t simply vanish from the film as in the theatrical cut. We see him showing them a way to the woods, and wishing them well, with the most important part being Sam telling Faramir that he has shown his quality — the very highest. Now that we know the struggle Faramir has endured, and why he was tempted, this line is the perfect end for his arc in the film. (Leave it to Sam to have the most touching dialogue.)
Faramir in the Extended Edition shows his “quality” as a character, you might say, and Faramir in the theatrical edition is undeniably damaged from a narrative perspective. What makes this situation more complicated is that this also has an impact on Faramir’s depiction in the final film, The Return of the King. While my focus here is The Two Towers, there is one scene that I can’t help but reference in the third film, which is the one where Denethor and Faramir are together in Gondor, and Denethor is deeply displeased that Osgiliath has once again been taken by enemies. He clearly wants Faramir to retake it, but Faramir justifiably points out that it is simply overrun, and they are at too big a disadvantage. Denethor ignores him. Faramir then slowly asks the one terrible question: Does Denethor really wish that Faramir had died instead of Boromir?
Denethor pauses, and then simply says that yes, he wishes that. Faramir, with tears in his eyes, says he will do his best to retake Osgiliath, and only asks that if he returns his father might think better of him. “That will depend on the manner of your return,” Denethor says.
It always seems to come back to Osgiliath for Faramir, doesn’t it? I wonder if, at this point, he views it as his own Waterloo. This once again shows how important the flashback scene in the extended second film was, as we saw Denethor accuse Faramir of being responsible for losing this exact location before. In a way, this scene feels like an essential sequel to that one.
This specific scene, which is thankfully in both the theatrical and extended versions of the third film, really seems to make an impact on people. It’s Wenham’s performance, his look of overwhelming hurt, and even the way he slowly walks away. Roger Ebert, who complained about what he felt was a lack of psychological depth in the films, said he only felt “truthful emotion thoughtfully paid for” twice out of all the moments in the trilogy: the endings for Faramir and Gollum. (In Faramir’s case he seems to be specifically talking about the way Denethor breaks down and attempts to burn him alive.) That twisted relationship between father and son works so well due to scenes like the one I described above, and it must surely work even better if the viewer has seen the Extended Edition of The Two Towers and the Osgiliath flashback there.
There is one thing both versions of the film Faramir, theatrical and extended, share; he seems more vulnerable, and less confident than in Tolkien’s text. Tolkien’s Faramir feels like an ideal captain; confident, wise, and morally pure. Jackson’s Faramir feels like a man trying to be a captain, endearingly so in the extended version, and mysteriously so in the theatrical. I don’t think that the fans that complain about Faramir in Jackson’s work are wrong, but they focus on the moral degradation of Tolkien’s version, while, for me, Jackson actually gave us an even more sympathetic version of Faramir but hid it in the Extended Edition. (Maybe that is fitting for a character who is supposed to have a more subtle and less visible value to him than his brother Boromir.)
Perhaps Jackson’s Faramir, even the extended cut depiction, isn’t really the same as Tolkien’s character, but I think he has, as Billy Boyd’s Pippin put it so well in the extended Return of the King, “strength of a different kind.” He’s utterly human.
Aamir Mehar is a freelance writer and a lifelong fan of fantasy and science fiction. You can find him on Twitter: @Aamirmwriter
