THH’s readers are a smart set — well informed and willing to stretch their imaginations. I’ve always imagined that we come from a tremendously wide variety of ages, backgrounds, philosophies and worldviews. I’ve also figured, in the last few days, that many of us have at least been distantly aware of the turmoil in Iran. It is not my intention to get political here, and please do not take this post as such.
But, I sometimes find myself reminded of the power of a word, description, or scene. It’s easy to read a scene like Harry’s walk in the woods with his family to what he knows will be his death, and understand that he has accepted it. But, an honest mea culpa: as much as I love literature, it’s sometimes easy for moments like these to remain somehow abstract in my mind. Again, I understand so well what that scene is after. But, I always tell my students that the true power of literature is its ability to make the reader feel what it’s after. [click to continue…]
by Dave
Part I of this series: Why Joker Succeeds and Voldemort Fails
“Behind the scenes” is a trope of long standing tradition in many forms of literature. In a recent essay on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Terry W. Thompson argues that the violent deaths occur off the page as a direct result of Shelley’s love of classical Greek drama in which decorum often dictated a strict sense of what drama could portray and what it couldn’t:
Over two millenia ago, when the plays of [Euripides, Aeschylus, and Sophocles] were performed live for theater patrons in Athens, Corinth, Epidaurus, the many acts of murder and mayhem so integral to Greek tragedy were never carried out on the state proper. Only the gruesome aftermath could — within the bounds of good taste — be presented to the audience. Blood could be shown; indeed, it frequently was to the delight of many theatergoers; but the actual spilling of it was strictly forbidden. Thus, all the stabbing and slashing, hacking and hewing was done well out of sight — behind closed doors or drawn curtains. (58)
But, this convention is not purely a matter of decorum. It also hints back to one preoccupation of Greek drama, tragedy particularly: what matters are the consequences and their causes. [click to continue…]
Deathly Hallows Might Be Two Films
January 14, 2008by Dave
I saw this article this morning at IGN. It says the last film’s script has been reportedly split into two films and that the HBP crew have already been notified of the change. Mugglenet is reporting that the original story is in The Daily Mail.
The Daily Mail article makes a [...]