The defining moment of genius in the LOTR trilogy for me was that in the very beginning, before talk, before sight, you hear singing. Then you hear the narrator: only after awhile do you see anything on the screen.
This mirrors the development of media in the Silmarillion: in the beginning there was Song, then the Word, and only then did the singing produce things that you can see.
Is there evidence that PJ or the screenwriters did this on purpose? That would be about the coolest thing ever.
To hijack my own thread, I also think it’s neat that Howard Shore made the music of the Enemy similar to how it was described in the Ainulindale: Dissonant, brassy, and filled with endlessly repeated phrases. But this is a lesser genius because it could easily have been a coincidence. But it still rocks 