J.R.R. Tolkien 1962 BBC Interview - Colorized (subtitles)

[@fgdj2000]

You just gotta love his shrug on the question, why he created this world 😊

[@dagmichael]

Something millions of people have enjoyed (and some even studied) - something people are debating and speculating about to this very day. A shrug.

[@EAGLEOFJAX]

@@dagmichaelbecause if you know you know, he was basically getting asked why are you good.

[@squamish4244]

@@EAGLEOFJAX I think he was more being asked why people even want to create in the first place, which no creator has ever had an answer for. Why do we create at all? Why? Why anything? And also consequently where all these ideas originate. Authors and creative people can cite this or that influence, but they can't tell you 'where' their ideas ultimately come from.

[@bobdole7451]

Jeepers! You dont see interviews like this anymore. They were getting deep down and all kinds of philosophical.

[@fgdj2000]

Yeah, the language also. "Apotheosis", a few years back I wouldn't have any idea what that meant, though to be fair, I'm not a native speaker.

[@RobinsMusic]

@@fgdj2000I had to look up quite a few words used in this interview as a non native speaker and I’m sad I don’t see this kind of vocabulary in the modern English language tbh

[@walterlippmann6292]

I miss western civilization already

[@iopzzza]

The intellectual level in this interview is so miles ahead of those of today's, even though we are like 60 years further ahead... Its a joke

[@wowalamoiz9489]

That's only because you are comparing it to the mainstream. This was not a mainstream interview. Hardly anyone watched it except hardcore Tolkien and literature fans.

[@mikeyb.0121]

⁠@@wowalamoiz9489 what are you talking about. The BBC is about as mainstream as you can get, ESPECIALLY in the 60s when there was only 2 TV channels… lol

[@MisaAcim]

Spirit of the times

[@squamish4244]

Tolkien didn't give a lot of interviews. He only chose interviewers whom he knew would ask intelligent questions.

[@MerkhVision]

Seeing this great man in living color is a remarkable treat! I especially liked his sly devious smiles he unleashed after making particular statements lol

[@springtime785]

I love Tolkien!

[@alexandercarder2281]

I love his quick smile after he finishes a sentence 😊

[@chem7553]

I had no clue interviews with Tolkien existed!!!

[@mattiacarvetta]

Amazing, thank you.

[@DaddyMorphosis]

Why in god's green fuck does this have so few views? It's incredible!

[@Tim_Climie]

Probably, because it's incomplete, and they're shafting us.

[@Tim_Climie]

=! ?

[@Tim_Climie]

Tools, are for small acculumations. Once, one name is becoming distinguished: to withdraw, into heaven, is the way of Heaven.

[@Tim_Climie]

You have 'challenge: Fu'

[@guillermotorres6099]

Gran aporte de esta leyenda, John Ronald Reuel Tolkien! Creo que el entrevistador no entiende la creatividad...

[@lizbethanne109]

Doesn't understand a lot of things.

[@alexandercarder2281]

5:36 O boy, don’t mention allegory in Tolkiens ears 🥹😅😅🥹

[@Workin2anEarlyGrave]

His was an aesthetic sub creation rather than a moral one is something many people who judge the LotR characters and who they represent in the real world should know.

[@zackp1717]

Watching these old interviews, you can really see how much Ian modeled Gandalf after Tolkien.

[@HangrySaturn]

Is it just me, or were interviews back then a lot more intellectual than they are now?

[@796r]

For specific reasons they make people yell and shout and not use their brains, it’s called views and entertainment

[@vulpesinculta9578]

Interviewers, still, appear to have kept to their ways.

[@EcceHumanitatis]

"... partly AUCTORIAL" not "of Torah" LOL

[@KingJorman]

thank you for clarifying this! I was wondering what the Torah had to do with it (which of course Tolkien's wide corpus does, beginning with a creation story (Silmarillion), but that wasn't what he said here.

[@rossg9361]

The made thing will not be remembered unless it says something. Tolkien had a sharp mind well into old age.

[@emmaphilo4049]

The questions are a bit stupid but whatever at least we get to hear Professor Tolkien

[@faramirkj1]

❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤❤

[@mokrypeter]

I can’t help myself but I feel like either he doesn’t like to be interviewed or it seems like he is not the author of the books. I have always this strange feeling about him. He doesn’t even say “my book”. He refers to “this book” as it wasn’t written by him. It’s a very strange. And don’t get me wrong I am a HUGE fan or LOTR lore.

[@thatguy5148]

From Wikipedia: “Tolkien presents The Lord of the Rings within a fictional frame story where he is not the original author, but merely the translator of part of an ancient document, the Red Book of Westmarch.[7] That book is modelled on the real Red Book of Hergest, which similarly presents an older mythology. Various details of the frame story appear in the Prologue, its "Note on Shire Records", and in the Appendices, notably Appendix F. In this frame story, the Red Book is the purported source of Tolkien's other works relating to Middle-earth: The Hobbit, The Silmarillion, and The Adventures of Tom Bombadil.[8]” “J. R. R. Tolkien used frame stories throughout his Middle-earth writings, especially his legendarium, to make the works resemble a genuine mythology written and edited by many hands over a long period of time. He described in detail how his fictional characters wrote their books and transmitted them to others, and showed how later in-universe editors annotated the material.”

[@igor20igor]

He wasn't the author, he was the translator.

[@thatguy5148]

@@igor20igor proof?

[@thatguy5148]

@@igor20igor he had been writing the silmarillion since the 1920s.

[@Hypogean7]

@@thatguy5148 It's the framing of the story, like how Cressida Cowell frames the How to Train your Dragon books as being Hiccup's personal journals which she just happened to find. He himself wrote that he 'translated' the Red Book.

[@Tim_Climie]

Colourised? The tabernacle, is in living colour.

[@augustsonseventy42]

Why would Tolkien agree to talk to a toad like this?

[@FuchsiaFire444]

This interviewer is trying to trap him. He is aware of it and trying to maintain his equilibrium. What an asshole. Very interesting that Tolkien infers the existence of parallel realities and then has to remind the interviewer his question was about worlds. He does it politely. I think he enjoyed the conversation which was like a swiftly moving chess game, and for him it was stimulating. You can feel his excitement as he examines the potential pitfalls and you can feel his enjoyment in his flashing smile when he cleverly sidesteps and his chess piece lands the winning move. Religious allegory and religious authority in any form by ordinary citizens was harshly condemned in those days. Lotr is filled with symbolism, and he was able to get away with it by simply denying it, saying how much he hated the idea of it. The message in LOTR is clear and was his underlying driving purpose in writing it. His soul passion was his christian values, everything else was the bricks and mortar. He could never admit openly the story had an allegorical theme without sabotaging his work.

[@KarensYoutubeChannel]

Such a hostile interviewer! I think Tolkien was quite taken aback by his rude manner and mean questioning.

[@zebdawson3687]

What an incredibly unusual take to walk away from this video with. Leave it to a “Karen” to be offended by two intellectuals having a casual conversation, in which neither of them are offended by the other. Literally nothing he said was rude or “hostile”, I could only imagine interacting with you: someone says “oh, hi there! It’s nice to see you!” and you absolutely lose it, “how dare you be so rude to me! You’re being hostile and mean!” Would you like to speak to that interviewer’s manager? Really living up to that garbage “Karen” stereotype, I see. 👍

[@MattHoyle1]

Yes, it seems so sad that he was so confrontational in his tone. You could see Tolkien waiting for him to stop doing so.

[@dannyhuskerjay]

@@MattHoyle1not true at all. Modern day interviews sadly have become like games . Not to be taken serious. Back then interviews were more personal. It’s how we learned of the authors . Today in an interview we would never get a answer like ,”I don’t believe in absolute evil but I believe in absolute good.”

[@One.Zero.One101]

I actually like the questions in this one. If this was a modern interviewer it would be filled with inane questions like “Where did you spend your first paycheck?”.

[@daHarry-ec4ce]

I think that some of the statements the interviewer makes come across as a bit condescending (partly because of his tone), as if he tries to establish a hierarchy in the conversation, and he makes no effort to conceal it by quicker speech or by shuffling it into a subclause, like modern interviewers often seem to do when they try to do the same thing. The whole interview is also much less hurried than the interviews we might think of today. Perhaps that's part of the reason why it comes across as more rude. It also seems to ease up quite a bit from 0:47 onwards imho.

[@lacasta2]

The interviewer is insufferable 🤦🏻

[@hemslonnigum]

It seems that way, but he was asking incisive and informed questions that pried some very thoughtful answers from Tolkien, who was clearly up for the challenge.

[@mikuspalmis]

Par for the course.

[@mikuspalmis]

​@@hemslonnigumThat too.

[@Natsymir]

No, he's great, I mean, not only has he obviously read the book, he's also asking deeply intelligent questions about it. I wish we had more interviewers like that today.

[@acepierrechaka1782]

Oh yes, indeed, yes. 🙂😀