February 9, 2004

They met so they could do charitable works, this 16-year-old and these emerging legends. Less than two years later, the boy would be a true member of the family, the creator of two extraordinary short films, and lost to the world, a victim of aggressive bone cancer, which he fought to the very end.

This is the story of life cut short and one last loving tribute that will last forever in the memories of millions, soon to be passed from one generation to the next, lasting not only past the life of the boy but of the songwriters, the filmmakers and even the journalists who first told the tale.

Cameron Duncan was just 17 when cancer took him. He was described by the New Zealand Herald as an “amateur filmmaker,” when they did a story on Fran Walsh’s acknowledgement of him from the stage of the Golden Globes, as she took home the award she shared with Howard Shore and Annie Lennox for the closing ballad of Lord of the Rings: Return of the King, "Into The West." But anyone who actually saw Cameron’s last two films – made after his cancer years began, the second just before his last battle ensued - would know that he was more than an amateur and sadly wise beyond his years.

Fran Walsh has two children of her own in collaboration with Peter Jackson. But when you talk to her about Cameron, she has all the passion and caring of immediate family, slightly disconnected from her pain by the anesthesia of the endless whirlwind she and her family have been in since the November delivery of Return of the King… which occurred on the very day that Cameron passed away.

Cameron Duncan became part of Peter & Fran’s life because of Peter’s support of organ donation, a movement just getting started in New Zealand. Cameron had won a number of awards for his film work in high school in the “Fair Go” program, sponsored by New Zealand’s TV One. After meeting with Peter & Fran, Cameron took on the Public Service Announcement for the cause.

Soon after he made that short, Cameron’s made DFK 6498, a short with the brazen self-assurance of a man far older than 16. Set in a jail cell, Cameron’s poetic voiceover about being “inside” was interesting enough before the metaphor of his cancer became clear.

Fran’s love for this boy…

White shores are calling
you and I will meet again.

And you'll be here in my arms
Just sleeping.

… was very much a reflection of her love for her life mate, Peter. Fran can wave things off with a “boys and their toys” laugh. But the joy in her eyes at the thought of their delight tells the greater truth. Her art is not the same as theirs. But her passion is. You can feel her pain from across the room at just the thought of the end of a brightly burning light.

Throughout 2003, Cameron and his mother, helped along by Fran’s inexhaustible efforts to learn about the disease and the possibilities of its cure, fought for a breath of fresh air, quite literally. The bone cancer had moved to Cameron’s lungs, battling for its sad survival with all the strength of the boy who would battle it to the death.

Wrecked by the various bouts of Chemo, Cameron got a second wind for a short period and made Strike Zone, editing on his Mac from the hospital bed to which he soon returned. In the film, Cameron (portraying himself), too ill to play for his softball team, leads them with his words instead, and in the end, dies the death that he knew was coming. He shot his own funeral, with his mates as pallbearers, and his mother leading the procession to his grave.

Soon after finishing the film Cameron returned to Texas, in the care of the best bone cancer specialist in the world, trying to complete his heroic journey by accomplishing the nearly impossible. The cancer was growing at a speed normally left to sci-fi movies. It cleared one lung, but left it so debilitated that it was literally blown apart by one strong cough by Cameron. Tumors pressed the outside of Cameron’s body, knotting on Cameron’s chest and back. The pain was overwhelming and the war was all but lost. But Cameron and his mother returned to Texas, agreeing to radical experimental treatment, rarely used on humans before. The pain of breathing in the chemicals, which Cameron described as a burning sensation, was, amazingly, a relief from the pain of the cancer itself.

Fran couldn’t go to Texas to be with Cameron and his mom. Return of the King was already delivering a little late. And while the work went on in New Zealand, she and Peter had to be in London to finish the scoring with Howard Shore. As Cameron fought for the last shards of his life in Texas, Fran joined in on a collaboration with composer Howard Shore and singer/musician Annie Lennox, writing "Into The West." On the surface, the song that was about Frodo’s journey into the light at the end of the Rings trilogy… but was also about this young man who was just lost to Fran and her family, to New Zealand and to all of us.

“Lay down
your sweet and weary head
Night is falling,
you have come to journey's end.

Sleep now,
and dream of the ones who came before.
They are calling
from across the distant shore.”

Cameron’s body came home on an Air New Zealand airplane that was covered by a massive image of Frodo. Life continued to trail art was just days after Cameron’s death, as he was buried in that same place, high on a hill overlooking his home, a view to last longer than a lifetime. "Into The West" was played for the first time in public that day. The song assured that Cameron’s wish not to be forgotten, expressed in Stroke Zone, would be upheld.

“Gandalf: End? No, the journey doesn't end here. There's another path; one that we all must take. The gray rain-curtain of this world rolls back, and it will change to silver glass, and then you see it.

Pippin: See what?

Gandalf: White shores; and beyond them, a far green country under a swift sunrise.”

To learn more about Cameron Duncan, go to this website.

INTO THE WEST
Music & Lyrics by Annie Lennox, Howard Shore & Fran Walsh

Lay down
your sweet and weary head
Night is falling,
you have come to journey's end.
Sleep now,
and dream of the ones who came before.
They are calling
from across the distant shore.

Why do you weep?
What are these tears upon your face?
Soon you will see
all of your fears will pass away,
safe in my arms
you're only sleeping.

What can you see
on the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea
a pale moon rises --
The ships have come to carry you home.

Dawn will turn
to silver glass
A light on the water
All souls pass.

Hope fades
into the world of night
through shadows falling
out of memory and time.
Don't say,
"We have come now to the end."
White shores are calling
you and I will meet again.

And you'll be here in my arms
Just sleeping.

What can can you see
on the horizon?
Why do the white gulls call?
Across the sea
a pale moon rises --
The ships have come to carry you home.

And all will turn
to silver glass
A light on the water
Grey ships pass
Into the west.