There's no point in me even writing this essay. Sean Bean IS Boromir and that's that.
...still here?
Okay, then. Maybe there's more I could say on the matter. Let's see...
Well, let me start off by admitting that Boromir was a character I cared so much about. Like most of the hapless ye-be-fated types in "The Lord of the Rings," Boromir seemed to be another body for the infamous Tolkien Tragedy Heap (along with his pals Theoden, Denethor and Gollum).
Way back in September of 1999, I found out that Sean Bean would be playing the part of Boromir. I remember thinking of the news, "Oh, that makes sense," and then giving the matter little more thought.
I don't know if anybody remembers the INSANE rumors that were flying around in 1998. Keanu Reeves as Strider? Sean Connery as Gandalf? Bruce Willis as Boromir? (Seriously, folks, these were legitimate rumors). Anyway, even if you don't remember, you can probably appreciate how much we take the current cast for granted.
Especially Boromir.
Sean Bean is a fantastic British actor, too often cast as the polarized villain in Hollywood. If Sean's not the villain, then he's 19th-century hero Richard Sharpe. And somewhere in the middle, most fans can probably agree, lies Boromir.
Tolkien presents Boromir as a brilliantly complicated fellow. Brilliant because his complexity is so natural-seeming. Proud yet modest. Bold yet cautious. Boromir blows his horn in Rivendell, gets yelled at by Gandalf for being so juvenile, then defends it by refusing to sneak out of Rivendell like a "thief in the night."
He wants to do things as simply as they can be done, but has a real problem "going with the flow," as it were. How many people do you know are like that? Bold conservatives who don't realize the paradoxical lives they're living?
This is Boromir's character, and this is exactly how Sean Bean plays him. Credit talent, or casting wisdom, or an ambitious director's good faith, or even sheer luck, there is no other Boromir but Sean Bean's Boromir.
Need more convincing?
The next time you watch "The Fellowship of the Ring," keep an eye out for Sean Bean's Boromir. This should be easy; he's the tall guy with the shield. What you'll notice, in fact, is a character whose presence is so seamless in the setting of Middle-earth that it's virtually invisible.
I have to use Arwen for this argument, and I hate doing it, but it's the only way this works. When Liv Tyler first appeared as Arwen in "The Fellowship of the Ring," there was a big buzzer going off inside my brain that wouldn't let me forget that I was seeing LIV TYLER WITH ELF EARS instead of Arwen, the "Evenstar" of her immortal kind.
Granted, there's something to be said for using unknown actors for such anticipated characters in movies. It's why we laugh when we think of Uma Thurman playing the part of Eowyn, but why Miranda Otto is otherwise so convincing in the part.
But what about someone like Sean Bean? He's Richard Sharpe. He's Double-O-Six. He's RECOGNIZED.
Yet, in "The Fellowship of the Ring," he is so convincing as Boromir that, when I first saw him ride into Rivendell, that little buzzer in my head wasn't going off at all. All I thought was, "Hey, that's Boromir." And not much else.
Even now, when I watch the first film, I have a hard time recognizing the "Sean Bean-ness" of Boromir. It's probably just because of the wig, since I'm convinced that real-life-Viggo Mortensen and Viggo Mortensen-as-Aragorn are not of the same DNA (same goes for David Wenham). The saturated production design of the films gets loads of credit for this, I suppose, but the actors' talent certainly helps.
Anyway, you get the point. I'm pretty much out of argument. Like I said before, Sean Bean is Boromir. There's nothing remarkable about that, just honest, which, ultimately, is the best way I can think of to describe the job Sean has done with my favorite character.
