First, I’m honored to be on the Blogengamot. To be seated amongst such an erudite group is amazing. And the funny hats aren’t as bad as I feared.
So, on with the post….
We now have six Harry Potter books filmed and microscopically examined/debated here and elsewhere. Only Deathly Hallows remains to be interpreted through a filmmaker’s vision and viewfinder.
During a recently-revived discussion on Dave’s post, Voldemort is a Failed Character (Part II), Red Rocker (in comment #78) wrote: “Rickman’s Snape is one of the characters who has successfully overwritten his/her book analogue in my mind. File Save, with Replace Existing File. Other such complete writeovers are Watson/Hermione, Shaw/Petunia, Smith/McGonagall and Staunton/Umbridge.”
A short discussion ensued over whether film!characters had replaced the book!characters people had previously envisioned. For example, for me, Richard Griffiths completely became Vernon Dursley. Staunton, despite her brilliant portrayal, hasn’t overwritten book!Umbridge to me, but I agree about Rickman, Watson, Shaw, and Smith, and Evanna Lynch’s sublime Luna, as well as others (not him, revgeorge).
This got me thinking. Deathly Hallows, my favorite of the series, is the only book still “unsullied” in my mind by film interpretation, so it has a kind of purity to me. Therefore, I’ve wondered if I want to see the two films being made of it. I’m a very visual person and film treatments can have a tendency to stick. Do I want Heyman and Yates tromping over the untouched images in my mind?
How faithful will the film be and how bothered will I be by it? What will the filmmakers reinterpret, leave out, or add in that will drive me crazy? While I liked the Draco storyline in the HBP film, the titular Snape story was trimmed to incoherency, unnecessarily shortened to make room for the widely-panned and execrable Burrow Flambé. By expunging the Hogwarts battle and Harry’s explosive confrontation with the Potions master at the end, the film closed with a quiet thud. The same team produced the “trailer for the book” version of OotP, which also excised critical elements.
Do I really want to see The Silver Doe, Godric’s Hollow, The Prince’s Tale, and The Forest Again butchered? And then have those images in my head forever?
Honestly, I shudder to think.
The films don’t completely overwrite the books for me, but they do have some impact on my reading. On the upside, they help me visualize the kids’ maturation, and I love many of the character portrayals. The Quidditch is fun, and Chris Columbus’ costumes and sets for Hogwarts, Hogsmeade, and Diagon Alley are fabulous.
Have the films and character portrayals overwritten the books for you? Do you look forward to the upcoming Deathly Hallows films with trepidation or enthusiasm?
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{ 49 comments… read them below or add one }
Arabella, this is a fantastic discussion starter! And, btw, you got a funny pointed hat…?! I didn’t… =(
But, to your question, which I think is an interesting one. I certainly understand the need to avoid “sullying” one’s initial impressions of a story, whatever medium s/he first encounters. I know some who first saw the films and have refused to read the books until after the final frame passes on-screen!
For me, I understand the connections between the HP films and books as an example of increasingly poorly executed media convergence. Convergence is the concept of multiple media spaces coming together to create some kind of experience for audience members. HP has certainly been successful in many respects — WB, Scholastic, Bloomsbury, and Rowling have all piled up enough coin to make a Gringotts goblin’s jaw drop.
But, to discerning eyes, the latest films have taken on a problematic relationship with the books. The producers want to stage and film some scenes as though the screenplay was nearly a word-for-word copy from the books. Other elements deviate in ways that are difficult to understand, a la the Burrow attack in HBP. The other that sticks out in my mind is Harry flirting (successfully!?) with the waitress in the tube station. Harry is a lot of things — a budding James Bond is not one of them.
And so, if you’re looking for a fully formed story from either the OotP or HBP movies, reading the book becomes almost a pre-requisite. The films come to rely on the books, only to turn around and undercut that connection by cutting significant plot points and changing character portrayals (yes revgeorge, I’m talking about that one…
).
While media producers want these experiences to converge, I’m not always sure that those overseeing HP’s different media channels really understand the experiences each one creates. They want films to do things that the books do, instead of taking full advantage of the rich textures possible only in filmic experiences. For instance, when Harry walks through the woods to face Voldemort at the end of DH, I think a brilliant filmic choice there would include quick and close cuts to a documentary-style over-the-shoulder perspective — something like Saving Private Ryan. And they might do that, but they haven’t done it yet. The film producers always want to utilize intense visuals, but they insist on keeping the viewer more distanced from Harry and his perspective than I think they need to.
Another example is the use of that first-person perspective with respect to Nagini. When Harry sees Arthur being attacked via Scar-o-scope, it’s a powerful moment. But the real power is how shaken Harry is, and that could have been conveyed so much better had they maintained the perspective, or a close analog, with Harry as he “awakes” disoriented, frightened, and desperately alone.
I like the character portrayals (generally) because the actors can mine things from the characters that I wouldn’t have foreseen. For instance, Rickman often gives Snape a layer of exasperation that I don’t pick up on as readily in the book. But he’s still Snape. Gambon on the other hand…
I always like to hear people’s opinions on this but I don’t have much I can add. I’m a total anomaly in that I’ve never seen any of the HP movies, cause I’m a very visual person too and I know that if I saw them the movies they would take over in my head. Plus I first discovered the books not too long before the first movie came out and the reviews didn’t really do a lot to make me want to go see it.
It’s weird though because usually I expect there’s going to be some bastardization in book adaptations and I don’t think it’s that big a deal most of the time: I can appreciate something like Coraline without getting bent about the story being changed up, and most comic book movies don’t bug me much either.
Obviously with so much content HP movies have to be drastically different from the books unless you’re going to make a miniseries out of every novel, but overall I don’t think good books ever translate well into film-okay books do. I just wish that they could have at least waited till the last book was out before they started with the movies.
Great post, Arabella! I’m totally with you on Rickman’s Snape and Lynch’s Luna. Felton’s Draco might be another one, and definitely Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid.
Emma Watson has not successfully become Hermione to me. In fact, none of the trio really have pulled off the switch. I thought that Radcliffe, Watson and Grint looked a lot like I had their characters pictured in the early years, but they couldn’t act; now that they can act, they don’t look like the characters to me.
I go through what you described every time I set myself up to watch a movie adaptation of a book. “Do I really want these images in my head forever?” But it’s Harry Potter (or Pride and Prejudice, or Lord of the Rings, or Twilight)–and I can’t resist. And the A&E Pride and Prejudice is the only one of those adaptations that I really love without qualification.
Dave, I’m with you on the waitress scene. Also on the idea that it would be nice if they put the story more from Harry’s perspective.
This is a post I can sink my teeth into. Art -reinterpreted has been around with different mediums for centuries. Whether it’s Robert Schumann taking Heine’s poems and turning them into a song-cycle, “Dichterliebe”, or Mozart taking a little french play from a trilogy and turning it into an Opera “Le Nozze di Figaro” and then Chopin re-re-interpreting that into a piano concerto, in gesamtkunstwerke all across the board there seems to be an uneasy, yet general and inevitable, acceptance.
Film auteurs are no different and have mined troves of books, art and music for sometimes faithful and othertimes, fanciful re-construction.
I soooooo understand your visual affinity. Most artists are visual thinkers. And therein lies our connundrum. No matter how hard I try to respect the director’s vision of a given re-interpretation, (sometimes I see something new that I like and sometimes not) I like my own best most of the time.
Being faithful to the source of the re-interpretation is not a prerequisite in art and never has been. To this day, whenever I hear the Barber of Seville or go to the Ring Cycle – I (like it or not) think of Bugs Bunny. Disney has this way of creating images burned in your brain that crop up unexpectedly when hearing music hundreds of years old (and had nothing to do with dancing pink elephants, by the way) in Fantasia. And – oh boy, don’t get me started on how many times some auteur has busted out Beethoven’s 5th for a background to visuals. Even poor Bach, whose compositions were written for the Glory of God, now have a creepy connotation because of the filmic visuals used.
Books turned into film can either be a replication or an interpretation. But Characters in the book are always an interpretation. And your post touches on both. The structure of a symphony by Mozart stays the same. A conductor would never dream of adding notes or more measures of his own to re-interpret. However, the musicians themselves can. They can add ornaments, emphasis on phrasing, even cadenzas with the full blessing and complete expectation of the composer! Dave the Long-winded (whose moniker I am now challenging) pointed out the additional flourishes into Snape’s character that he never saw in the book (and a good one I might add).
The actors in these films have been remarkable in their fealty of the books with two notable exceptions in my mind’s eye. The Black sisters. Bellatrix (deliciously played by Bonham-Carter) looks nothing like the hard Bellatrix of my mind and Narcissa in Spinner’s End, the same. The problem with the last OotP and HBP films is that, though we might loooooove to see a replication, we getting a reinterpretation inherent in the structure. Added silliness of Harry flirting etc., taking out of vital tropes, and what seems like a teenage-ticket-buying-mollification and a senseless omission of Snape. Snape has been reduced to an aside almost, not a counter subject in the structure. What power there would have been to actually have seen and heard the struggling, unfair anger in Snape’s voice or face when he bellows “Don’t call me coward!” When reading the book, that line was like an entire aria!
Ah well, I am writing too much. So sorry.
In my opinion, a really glaring omission in the HBP movie is the absence of so many of the memories. Two of the absent ones, it seems to me, are essential for the story line. These two memories are:
1. The memory featuring the three Gaunts and which showed the [unbroken] ring that DD was wearing when he came for Harry at the Dursleys as well as Slytherin’s locket; and
2. The memory featuring Hepzibah Smith, which showed Hufflepuff’s cup and again the locket.
We already know that the ring was a horcrux and in the discussions between Harry and DD they decided that it was probable that the cup and locket were also. The absence of these memories means that the final movie(s) are going to deviate more strongly than usual from the text in order for the trio to decide that these articles are horcruxes.
The more time I have between reading the book and watching the movie, the less write-overs I have. My images of the trio, the Weasleys, Dumbledore, and Hogwarts were nearly all rewritten by the first two movies, which I saw almost immediately after reading the books. There are some characters, such as McGonagall and Umbridge, whose film versions are so close to what I’d envisioned that the rewrite went unnoticed.
Some characters I’d imagined are now slightly changed by their movie counterparts, like Snape, Hagrid, and Slughorn. Dobby, Lupin, Rita Skeeter, and Luna were all brought to life for me by the movies; I hadn’t had a very clear image of them beforehand. And there’s a few characters who don’t match my visualizations at all, such as Pettigrew and Lavender.
The teenage Voldemort was so set for me by Coulson’s portrayal that I was actually shocked when I saw Frank Dillane in HBP. I lost my suspension of disbelief during that scene. (Curious that unless I’ve already seen the character portrayed by an actor, I’m not shocked out of believing.)
The only rewriting I’ve been particularly upset with is Moaning Myrtle. I find her even more annoying in the movie than I’d imagined.
I find I can compartmentalize the movies from the books. Maybe I just don’t think visually. More often than not the Mary Grandpre’ illustrations are in my mind when I read the books because they are right in front of me, not the film characters (possible exceptions: Watson, Broadbent and Lynch). I like the movies for what they are: elaborate semi-official fan fiction that tells a more or less parallel story with familiar characters in an alternate universe.
The books have gotten so large from GoF on that it is impossible fit enough in to keep everyone happy. Maybe that’s why I like the PoA movie the best (besides its wonderful soundtrack).
There are even a few episodes in the movies that rival the books: the teen angst stuff in HPB, the second task in GoF, the time-turner sequence from PoA, for example.
At least Rowling has been able to keep the movies somewhat in check. Her work is far better served by the films than Tolkien’s was with Peter Jackson’s New Zealand travelogues.
“Let me show you around, maybe play you a sound
You look like you’re both pretty groovy
Or if you want something visual
That’s not too abysmal
We could take in an old Steve Reeves movie”
Sorry, couldn’t resist the Rocky Horror reference since there’s lots of visual talk going on.
I really haven’t had my readings of the books or pictures of the characters overwritten by the movies. The only ones that even come close are David Thewlis’ portrayal of Lupin & Evanna Lynch as Luna. But for the most part, and korg will probably be disgusted with this, if I have a picture of a character in my mind as I read, it is one of Mary Grand Pre’s illustrations.
But I don’t think I prefer any characterizations in the movies over any in the books. Certainly the Trio in the films do not have any resemblance to the Trio from the books in my mind; Grint is the only one that may come close. Staunton is brilliant in the film but I don’t picture her when I read OOTP. And then there’s…well, let us not even speak of the person who has butchered, I mean portrayed Dumbledore from movies 3 to present.
So, to the point of your question, yes, I’m looking forward to the DH movies, but with a little trepidation. I can live with things being left out, unless they’re really important to the story, and I can live with slight changes being made. But what I can’t stand is the director & screenwriter substituting their vision & scenes of their own making over the vision of the author & over the material already open to them. So, the Burrow flambe is a great example! That was wonderful, Arabella! The flirting scene. And then especially the misuse of Snape’s character. So, if they butcher certain scenes in DH, all it will mean for me is that I fast forward through parts of the movie. Kind of like I do with large sections of Goblet of Fire.
Ah, deacondon, I was trying to avoid mentioning the Jackson travelogues. I suppose that’s a nicer word than the ones I use for them, though.
Revgeorge, I solemnly swear that I will not mention them again in this thread.
I saw the first 5 movies before reading the books. So all the characters were set in my mind from the movies. I had no trouble seeing those characters as the characters in the books. I guess if something was contradicting I ignored it. There are few minor scenes from the movies I found better than the book. Hermione fixing Harry’s glasses for example. Arther Weasley and Lucius Malfoy throwing punches was pretty silly in the book. Maybe it would be better to base books on movies instead of the other way around. You can always add back story and depth to the movie even adding scenes. But going from the typical book to movie is maybe more problematic.
After having seen the scene with the magic birds where Harry/Radcliffe comforts Hermione/Watson, and the scene where Slughorn/Broadbent tells Harry the story of the magic fish, and the aerial shots of Diagon alley, and Felton’s sneering, anguished take on Draco, and the ring of fire that Harry swims up to in Voldemort’s grotto, I have very pleasurable expectations for the last two movies. Even the prospect of Gambon – me, I name names – misreading and otherwise butchering his lines doesn’t take away from the frisson of excitement with which I anticipate Deathly Hallows. And I’m glad that there’ll be two movies: twice as much to enjoy.
As I’ve explained before, I don’t expect the movies to match the books at all closely, as long as the overall storyline and character development is intact. And since I am not a visual person, movies always bring in for me the added visual element. I know some people (Dave?) require that there be a coherent, stand alone storyline, meaning someone can watch the movie with no advance study or exposure and understand what’s going on. My own need for a coherent storyline is inversely proportional to the beauty and the strength of the imagery. If the cinematography is lousy, there had better be a darn tight plot. On the other hand, if the cinematography is good, I’m content to float around in a sea of beautiful images and piece together bits of plot.
Red Rocker, yes, the moment with Broadbent reminiscing over the goldfish is a fantastic example of what I’m talking about with movies! That scene is so beautifully paced, shot, and acted. It’s one of the most touching moments I’ve seen in a movie in a while.
I would actually often agree with you regarding a film’s visual aesthetic versus its plot. After all, I was really rather satisfied with several movies I’ve seen recently purely because they were thrill rides full of stunning visuals, or amazing music. But, for me, HP is such a plot-driven experience that story trumps all.
This looks like a really interesting discussion. Frankly, I found the Mary GrandPre illustrations(at least those on the book covers) rather cartoonish, and not at all like what I envisioned when reading the books. It wasn’t until GOF where there was more of a portrait head of Harry, that I started liking the covers more. I have no quibbles with the casting in the first two films. I thought Robbie Coltrane was(and still is!) a brilliant choice as Hagrid, and Maggie Smith has done a great job as McGonagall. As far as the trio, well, I agree with Red Rocker. I don’t expect the films to fit my personal vision of what goes on in the books. having said that, though, Alan Rickman as Snape is a close to perfect as it’s possible to get, I think, and the Weasley family actors all seems to fit their roles quite well. Madam Hooch and Madam Pomfrey–great. Professor Sprout–likewise. Kenneth Branagh was not like what I had envisioned for Gilderoy Lockhart, but he did a brilliant job portraying the irritating nuances of that character. For me, several of these actors have overwritten the characters to a certain extent; that is, I can accept them in their roles on screen, but still retain my vision of the character from the book. In some places, actors were an improvement over my imagination. For example, one choice that I thought was a major improvement over the GrandPre illustration was Miranda Richardson as Rita Skeeter in the fourth film. She was so delicious in that role! In contrast, David Thewlis, and Gary Oldman, as talented actors as they are, are nothing like my vision of Lupin and Black. I didn’t dislike MG so much in the third film, but he was just so off in that key scene in GOF that it’s hard to forgive him for mucking up. The casting of the students from Durmstrang and Beaubatons did work for me, with some reservations. One area that I think the producers messed up on is the failure to get John Williams to continue with the soundtracks. There’s one scene, and I can’t remember now if it was in GOF or OOTP, where we see Hedwig flying in the sky, but there’s no Hedwig’s theme playing. I felt a real pang at that. I only went to see HBP once, and like Arabella Figg, I’m seriously considering not seeing either of the DH films in theatres. What I’ve seen of David Yates’ directing thus far does not make me look forward to the films with any anticipation. I hope this makes sense and is not too disjointed! Forgive me if it is.
Good question, A.F.
There’s not too many from the movies I see when I read the books. The movies really irk me. The last one I saw was Goblet. That fixed me for life.
I do see Daddy Walrus from Astro Boy when I read Vernon Dursley:
and almost Mrs Kravitz from Bewitched for Petunia.
Beorn from The Hobbit and Hagrid are interchangable to me.
It has been talked about that Rowling has final script approval rights for the movies but I cannot see that she has actually exercised these rights. If I’d written the stories there’s no way I’d have let the movies corrupt my work like that.
Fricka, you are so right about Robbie Coltrane and yes, I yearn a little bit for John Williams’ tradmark leitmotifs as well. I must say though, that now I see Snape in the films as perfect, but when I read the book before I saw the film, I didn’t see him this way at all. I actually saw Snape as unfortunately very unattractive (greasy, dirty, stringy hair, sallow complexion, pale skin, black flat eyes, walked like a jerky spider, flapped like a bat, yellow crooked teeth, etc.). But when I saw the movie – and heard “There will be no foolish wand waving and silly incantations in this class!” come out of Prince Valiant/Alan Rickman’s lips, uh-oh, the sex-o-meter went off the seismic charts! Who knew Snape’s alliteration extended to Sexy?
My Harry and Ginny are Mary Grandpre’s drawings. However I never liked her drawings of Snape which seemed to give him a flat head as if it were chopped off at the level of his eyebrows. Rickman is certainly a sexier Snape than described in the book, but I think they have his hair too short in the movie. It should fall down over his shoulders more; it’s supposed to be “curtains” of greasy hair. Hagrid from the movie and Uncle Vernon probably have overwritten my images of them from the book. Hagrid in particular because I wasn’t sure how to pronounce his lines from the book with the right accent.
I always thought Felton as Draco was EXACTLY like I pictured Malfoy in the book.
Oh, Fred and George from the movies also overwrote my images of them from the books, especially as the movie versions are slender and good looking whereas in the book they are supposed to be stocky.
Harry, Ron and Hermione in the first movie looked how I pictured them, but their older selves don’t seem to match the books.
Too bad that Nicholas Hooper will not be scoring the DH movies. I liked his understated style. Seems properly British to me. If John Williams is back, I hope he doesn’t channel Erich Wolfgang Korngold again. Korngold could pull off a symphonic score. John Williams is best when he doesn’t try, like PoA. The scores to the first two HP films can be awfully distracting. (Korngold’s complete score to Sea Hawk was recorded recently and it is amazing. Through composed from beginning to end with no padding or seques).
Korg, interesting you mention Alice Pearce (Gladys Kravitz in Bewitched). I just saw her this evening when my kids were watching On the Town with Gene Kelly and Frank Sinatra. She plays a much more sympathetic character in that movie.
Well, well, well. A Korngold fan. In all the gin joints in all the towns in all the world -never thought I’d meet one here. Love Seahawk. And EK is the Pater Noster of the film score, but sorry to say it’s comparing apples and oranges with John Williams. Yes, they use full orchestrations to score – but that’s about the only resemblance. JW has a slight advantage now having scored so prolifically in the last 40 odd years (Schindler’s List being my favorite) and EK has such a puny, but great, output in comparison. Personally, I wish Korngold would have stuck it out with Opera – but he was so old-fashioned at the time. I adore Die Tote Stadt. Who recorded the Seahawk recently? I’d love to listen to that on my drive to work.
Joivre, I have always thought John Williams big brassy scores with full orchestra, like Star Wars and Superman, were deliberate homages to the 1930’s golden age of film music. I’m thinking of composers like Franz Waxman, Max Steiner and especially Korngold. Maybe Williams doesn’t really compare with those guys, or rather, he hasn’t accomplished anything that they hadn’t done 30+ years earlier. Williams is far more prolific though, and rather more eclectic.
I guess we can thank the turmoil in Europe and changing tastes for Korngold writing only Die Tote Stad. It made quite a splash when it premiered in 1920, but that was all from Korngold, even before the rise of the National Socialists. His (much later) symphony is very interesting as well.
The complete Sea Hawk music is here:
http://www.amazon.com/Sea-Hawk-Deception-Alexander-Zagorinsky/dp/B000Q6ZUVM/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1253958951&sr=1-1
Sorry to wander of topic here…
Thanks for the link Deacondon. It would be great to have a thread on the film scores of Harry Potter. We’ll have to wait.
This has been a great discussion, everyone!
I don’t mind character portrayals overwriting my original visions in the books (although I missed McGonagall’s square glasses/square striping around the eyes). I’m just going to use character names in my lists.
The only portrayals that simply don’t match and I discard when reading: Lockhart (no long locks and not flamboyant enough), Ron (I’ve never liked Grint in this role and how he’s been directed), Umbridge (not toadlike enough), the HBP teen Riddle (too creepy to believe in his popularity), Remus, Sirius (just visually not the one), Ginny (portrayed too much as a caretker and looks–I too, like the GrandPre version), Narcissa (where did they get that awful bifurcated wig?), Bellatrix (weird), and (worst on the list) Gambon’s Dumbledore, although I thought he was much better in HBP.
In addition to the ones I mentioned above, I like Radcliffe as Harry. I think he does very well with such an iconic role, although I haven’t liked his hair much in the last two films. Malfoy is spectacular, I ditto on Draco, Lily Luna; Hagrid, Snape (although I don’t consider him sexy, even if Rickman’s voice is stunning–he had me with the clipped “Clearly, Potter, fame isn’t everything.” I never liked the GrandPre Snape, either), McGonagall, Trelawney, Skeeter, the Weasleys (excpet Ron) and many others.
I dread, though, the scenes I mention being ruined. When I think of OotP and how they handled the Snape/James pensieve scene, and excising the Harry Gone Wild scene in the Headmaster’s office, and what was done with HBP, I wonder if the purity of those special chapters above will be wrecked. And that would be horrible.
I know they’re making these films for a “general audience.” And I wish I could just sit back and enjoy the great visuals (puh-leeze add color!), but it’s hard limit myself to that.
One thing I think we can be sure of in the DH films: there will be no polyjuicing. They haven’t used it except in the most plot-critical places–COS to get info from Draco, and GoF with Moody/Barty–because, they need the audience connected to the characters. So we can expect big changes and excisions in the Ministry infilitration, and Harry & Hermione lookimg like themselves (perhaps muffled up with hats and coats) in Godric’s Hollow.
DH is such an interior novel, I imagine they’ll focus most on talking/action sequences. I expect the camping trip to not seem as long as it did.
There has been some great stuff in the films–the visuals, most character portrayals, the effects, the bringing out of certain story points, such as the Hermione bird/Harry comforting scene. I guess you could say the things I like have enhanced my reading and the things I haven’t have been problematic.
But, when it gets down to it, I suppose, when I sit down with the books, I’m lost in the book world, inserting what I like and excising what I don’t from the films. But when I think of the books at a remove, I think of the films, if that makes sense.
Feel the need to caution people that the last two films may not follow the narrative sequence of the book. I see from the IMDb that they have cast both a young Dumbledore and a young Grindelwald. These two may appear in flashback; but there are no pensieve scenes for them together, so the format will be challenging. It’s possible that the Dumbledore-Ariana-Grindelwald scenes will be presented as a kind of prequel, i.e. the past will happen first, the present later.
As well, and possibly more tragically for lovers of the Potions Master, Snape’s role in the proceedings may be reduced. Or his death scene may be changed. Rather than go through the penseive/flashback route, the writer and director may choose to pursue a more direct form of exposition: Snape and Harry may get that last conversation which so many of us (well, me) had hoped for. Messing with the text, yes, but probably to good effect.
Bottom line: the movie may take liberties with the order of events and how they are presented. None of this would bother me. But you need to be prepared, that’s all.
Thinking of the books at a remove – and drawing in the visuals of the films are natural in visual thinkers. It not only makes sense Arabella, it is a natural occurrence. This is precisesly why I think adaptations and re-interpretations are a just a tiny bit dangerous in art. Definitely room for debate in my last statement.
Arabella, your post is so visually dependant. And I am actually surprised at the amount of people who are hooked on the Mary Grandpre for their own personal visuals! I just fluffed those by – and now I’ll be examining them more closely. I must be missing something! So I will investigate and study them more closely. I don’t why and I certainly don’t denigrate them in any way. Perhaps because they were just not featured so prominently in the book.
For those who are out there who don’t know if they are visual thinkers or not, try this experiment.
Turn on your webcam and train it on your eyes. Press record and then solve this problem….
What is four hundred and ninety two minus 57, plus 32?
The mathematical answer doesn’t matter. Right or wrong. What counts is this….
Did you look away from the screen to see the numbers? Or did you dissect it all right away? If you looked away – you are a visual thinker. You saw the equation in your head.
I really am enjoying your post Arabella Figg.
Oh no. Red Rocker, how have you deduced this?
Red Rocker you must have posted right when I was writing my own. I looked on IMDb and don’t see your connections. Are you a subscriber/trade insider/spy to it?
Arabella, one of the fan sites last spring had an article about Helena Bonham Carter on the set of Shell Cottage shooting DH. That would indicate the films are going to have her play Polyjuiced Hermione for the Gringotts sequence. There was also some fluff about Bonham Carter interrogating Emma Watson about adopting Hermione’s mannerisms so that Bonham Carter could play a convincing Hermione/Bellatrix. (Gee, I hope that last sentence made sense!)
The movie Harry crying over his parent’s grave in Godric’s Hollow while being comforted by Hermione should be a great scene–a kind of super reversal of the Harry/Hermione/bird sequence in HBP. In the book, Polyjuice is fine, but in a film we need Radcliffe/Watson playing this scene undisguised and not some other actors.
I’m a very auditory person, so the actors’ faces haven’t overwritten the images in my head. My problem has been with the voices because many of them, most notably Harry’s, Hagrid’s and Ron’s, have been overwritten by the movies.
The one image that I use from the books are the pictures of Sirius Black. I thought they fit him perfectly.
I totally have a problem with the movies overwriting the books. I found myself using my DVDs as a drug, so I could get a quick fix of Harry drama. And like your typical quick fix, I found it to be disappointing, and those DVDs always left me wishing for more. Then I’d return to the books and found myself surprised by the depth of the story and plot lines! This wasn’t altogether bad, since it’s fun to discover the real story all over again, but I realized how much watching the movies was damaging my understanding of the stories. We have a very nice used bookstore in town that does a great trade in movies, so my copies went there. I had to get them out of my house in order to quell the addiction.
Since I got rid of the movies, I’ve found that if I watch a movie maybe two or three times, it doesn’t affect me too badly. There is enough value in them that I want to squeeze out what I can from them. I just have to know when to say when!
Arabella, I feel the same way about McGonagall’s glasses! Those glasses are so distinctive! It’s been a long time since I’ve seen them in my mind.
The only other character that got overwritten for me was Snape, and I don’t mind seeing Rickman too badly. I think after Tom Felton’s performance in HBP, though, I might see him more often. I like the less whiny Draco, and it might stick.
Regarding the Polyjuicing in DH, it seems like I heard about a scheme for how they’re going to do the Seven Harrys. Maybe it was just hypothesizing, but someone is talking about it. I am really curious to see Helena Bonham Carter’s portrayal of Hermione pretending to be Bellatrix. I think I might feel a little like Harry did when he saw her at Shell Cottage.
Joivre, thanks for your kind words about my post; I’m really enjoying everyone’s thoughts. I pretty much fluffed by the GrandPre drawings, too. But I do like the drawing of Ginny and Harry.
Regarding the visual/math challenge. I don’t have a webcam, yet did not look away. I have synesthesia, where graphemes are colored. So I’m staring at the numbers and seeing them colored, and computing with the number colors in my mind.
deacondon, I forgot the Gringott’s polyjuicing. Seeing Carter as Hermione ought to be quite funny. And I agree about the graveyard scene–where would the impact be in seeing strangers, espeically as Harry at his parents’ grave? I had a hard time with this in the books.
Rowena Tonks, voices for me, too.
SchoolMarm, slap forehehead, duh! I forgot about the Seven Harrys. Of course there will be Polyjuice there!
Red Rocker, how can they cut Snape more? Aaarrgh! I suppose they can give him a long death scene where he tells Harry about his enduring love for Lily since they were children and how her death turned him from Voldemort, and that he sent the doe Patronus. He could even expand on Dumbledore’s plans. But this is exactly the kind of thing I’m talking about. It makes me think of the movie Tootsie, where the play director wants Michael Dorsey to stand up and walk to the center of the stage, declaiming, while his character is dying.
As for the young Grindy/DD/Ariana/Aberforth (if they even include him), these scenes could be shown while Auntie Muriel is talking (if they even have her). See what a cynic I’ve become?
After suffering some disappointments with Order of the Phoenix and Half-Blood Prince, I’ve come to appreciate the Potter movies less as fully realized works in their own right and more as treasure troves of visual and character moments that enhance and deepen the appreciation for these stories. I find that the movies and books interact almost seamlessly to shape the vision I have in my head of the world Rowling created. And while I certainly agree that there are many occasions where the books are superior to the movies, I find there are also occasions where the movies capture or present something I appreciate as being better than it was in the books.
The main case would be Snape. While the movies, especially the more recent ones, have unfortunately cut key scenes and moments for the character, if it wasn’t for Rickman’s portrayal of Snape in the movies, I’m not sure I would have ever become as big of a fan of this character–or the books (my first exposure to anything Potter was the movie for Prisoner of Azkaban).
As I’ve stated before, I think Snape emerged more as a plot point for Rowling than a character she appreciated in his own right. And the character we get in the book feels like less of a true adult character and more like an adult as viewed through a child’s eyes. Of course, most, if not all of the adults in the book has this quality as they are written through the eyes of Harry but I find this effect particularly frustrating with the character of Snape who to me seems to have far more going on inside of him than a child could ever appreciate.
But then in comes Rickman to save the day, embodying the character with far more adult dignity, gravitas, and complexity than we ever see in the books. I find that all of the adult characters seemed to have benefited from having on-screen portrayals by good actors that give them nuances we don’t see in the books. In the movies, because of the nature of the medium, we get more of a chance to see simultaneously Harry’s view of these characters and these characters as they exist more fully outside of that view. That alone makes even the more flawed of the Potter films very valuable for me in my appreciation of these characters and stories.
Joivre, I have no special status with IMDb – I refuse to pay whatever they charge for the “extra” stuff. If you look at the cast for DH Part 1 you will see listed Toby Regbo as Young Dumbledore, Jamie Campbell Bowen as Gellert Grindelwald, and Ciaran Hinds as Aberforth. I looked up the ages of the actors: Regbo was born in 1991, Bowen in 1988, and Hinds in 1953. It’s not too much of a logical deduction to conclude that Bowen and Regbo will depict the teen-age Grindelwald and Albus D. respectively.
You can speculate further about how the movies will deal with the plot by looking at the casting for Part I vs Part II.
Part I includes Bathilda Bagshot, Dobby, Grindelwald, Griphook, Aberforth, Gregorovitch and Teenage Dumbledore. Part II includes Dobby, Grindelwald, Aberforth, Slughorn, Gregorovitch and Teenage Dumbledore. Slughorn’s appearance in Part II suggests that a strict chapter by chapter order will not be followed (he dies off camera in Chapter 9), as does the appearance of the older Aberforth in both parts I and II (we don’t see him until chapter 28). As well, Dobby’s appearance in both Part I and Part II suggests that his death might be the bridge between the two movies.
There are no casting credits for young Aberforth or for Ariana, suggesting the fire fight will happen off camera.
Most intriguingly, for me, is that Gambon isn’t included in the cast list for either movie (although the status of both is listed as “filming”). I don’t want to make too much of this, since King’s Cross is right at the end of the book and presumably of the movie, so there’s a while yet for the contract to be signed. Do you suppose Gambon is asking for more money?
And a final note: just read that although he’s acting in a film of Jane Austen’s book Emma, Gambon is on record as having said he hasn’t read that either. Now not having read the book that your movie is based on is one thing. Not having read Jane Austen is another. The man sounds uncultured.
God forbid you should let the original work impact your own vision regarding your portrayal of iconic characters.
RR, I bet they’re only listing speaking roles. As in the book, not a peep out of Ariana. But where was Dobby before Malfoy Manor? They’re beefing up his role (finally!) to give his death more impact.
Snape fan, I really like what you had to say!
RR, Slughorn doesn’t die at all. He is in several scenes in the last third of the book, including dueling Voldemort along with McGonagall and Shacklebolt at the very end before Harry unveils himself.
LL, I made a mistake: I meant Scrimgeour, not Slughorn. It’s Scrimgeour who’s listed in the case for both Parts I and II. And I can’t understand what he’d be doing in Part II unless the order of events was different. (Slughorn only appears in Part II, which matches the book).
Agree with Snape fan, the fine acting in the movies has brought out nuances in the characters that the books didn’t quite. Good point, too, about the limitations of a child’s point of view.
On the plus side the films can draw people to read the books.
Here is one example I came across recently (among quite a few over the years); it is a 25 September posting on the HBP comments section of imdb.com (I have left out the users id):
SeaJay, glad you’ve joined the discussion. Absolutely, the films are gateways to the books. I’d love to know how people introduced to Harry through the films have perceived the books, how they have then weighed the books against the films, and how the films have impacted (and how) their imaginative reading experience–were the films their visuals/audio, or did the books overwrite the films.
My 8 year old daughter read through the series last spring after having seen the movies many (many! many!) times on DVD. She was tired of me telling her that the books were far better than the movies, and wanted to see for herself. This may be one of the few things she agrees with her Old Man about now.
Arabella – it might interest you to know that Mozart thought of keys in color! If I remember correctly, he thought of D major as yellow and F major as brick red. It’s amazing to me how you and good and kind Wolfgang Amadeus do that!
Joivre, how interesting! I’ll have to ask my husband (two degrees in music theory and composition) if he’s familiar with this.
Synesthesia is not something you do, it’s something you’re born with, and it’s as natural as breathing. All this complex stuff in your head is going on simultaneously without thought. Synesthesia does tend to have a higher proportion in the artistic population, though. Thanks for the info!
OK, I’m weighing in on this topic VERY late. I had an experience with my 8-yr-old great-niece (what is it about age 8?) similar to deacondon in post 40. She’s just starting book 3 and loving it all. She held up her copy of C0fS & said “This contains all the deleted scenes!”
On another note, I was disappointed with Fleur’s depiction in GofF (the film). While the actress portraying her is pretty, the book describes her as (magically, since she’s part veela) DAZZLING. So I was picturing something like a young Deneuve with a slight glow, always filmed in slow-motion, and a fan blowing her hair at all times. I didn’t get it. Oh, well…
gustovcarl, never to late to add input! I agree about the film Fleur. With all the really gorgeous actresses out there, it was a disappointing pick. She should have been a knockout.
Great story about your little girl’s “deleted scenes.” I’ll have to remember that one.
I think what I was a little disappointed with wasn’t the choice of actor for Fleur. She was very pretty. But you’re right gustavocarl – It was the fact that she didn’t look Veela enough for me. That’s a hard thing to put across on screen. You run the risk of looking like an alien vamp from Star Trek. Perhaps they could have used some special effects on her hair or something. I guess there are some things that can never translate to film. I’m sure many of male fans of the book-Fleur were disappointed.
I think the actress who plays Fleur is fine, thank you very much. The movie GoF has far larger problems than her. OTOH, some say Emma Watson is too pretty to be Hermione. I don’t agree with that either.
Well, as the old saying goes, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I don’t think film!Fleur distracted from the film, although she’s not overwritten book!Fleur for me. Perhaps Veelas (Veelum? Veelim?) could even be plain, and their Veela-ness still lure males.
I love the idea of a plain Veela. Maybe in my next life I’ll get to be one!
There is a story by Barry Hughart called Bridge of Birds which tells the story of Jade Pearl, a very ordinary looking peasant girl who evokes instant and undying love from the men who meet her. Of course Jade Pearl has a mythical backstory – and features in a very interesting take on reincarnation and karma. But she is how I imagine a plain Veela would be like.