There is a New Yorker essay on Wagner and the film version of Lord of the Rings. We can consider this part of the long-needed correction of film studies' underappreciation of music and other sound.
Ross focuses on the Wagnerian and Wagner-ish Shore-Jackson collaboration in supporting the narrative and visuals with musical forms.
I would take issue with his too-brief contrast of Tolkien's implied politics with a supposed trace of Wagner's earlier anarchist interest. The books' love of the Shire is very much an anti-nationalist, anti-bureaucratic affair. It's a small world, automously and collectively run, which many anarchists would have loved.
(Fwiw. he also notes one of my favorite lines from the books, the despairing: “Ride to ruin and the world’s ending!")
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