Sagan om ringen (1971 film)

• 1. Introduction

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  Sagan om ringen is a 1971 Swedish television film released in two episodes. Its script did not begin with a novel but with a record, Bo Hansson's album Music Inspired by Lord of the Rings. Hansson made that album in response to J. R. R. Tolkien's 1954 novel The Lord of the Rings. How do you tell Tolkien's story through the filter of someone else's tribute, and what does the result choose to keep or leave out?

• 2. Painted Backgrounds

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  Peter Lindblom drew every backdrop the actors performed against, built by hand rather than as a physical film set. Live performers were filmed on their own and then inserted into those hand drawn scenes, joining flesh and paint into one frame. That painted world was about to carry the story from a quiet celebration among hobbits to a perilous journey toward a distant elvish refuge.

• 3. Scenes Jackson Cut

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  The film covers the first half of The Fellowship of the Ring quite faithfully, opening at Bilbo's birthday party. It closes as the fellowship leaves Rivendell, having stayed close to the shape of Tolkien's early chapters. Unlike Peter Jackson's later adaptation, this version keeps the hobbits' encounters with Old Man Willow and Tom Bombadil during the walk to Bree. Glorfindel and his horse Asfaloth also appear on screen, arriving during the attack of the Black Riders. Boromir, however, does not appear at Elrond's council in this telling of the story. Those choices, faithful in places and different in others, set Sagan om ringen apart among screen versions of Tolkien's tale.