What Cuaron will bring to PoA

[Nia]

     This subject has been touched upon before, but I thought it 
might be interesting to delve a little deeper and toss around a few 
more ideas and observations.
     The surest judge of what a director will do with a new project 
is evidenced by what he (or she) has done before. 
 
     Cuarón is not just a gifted filmmaker, he is a gifted filmmaker 
with an ability to really see people.  A think a good analogy 
between his work and Columbus' is that Cuarón sees events and people 
fully realized, with a past and a future, in other words, in three 
dimensions, but for Columbus, everything he creates is like a false 
front set you might see in Hollywood–-nothing quite rings true; 
neither his people nor the events. Everything seems fake and 
contrived.  (I'm thinking especially of movies like "Mrs. Doubtfire" 
and "Stepmom," both of which could have said some beautiful and 
poignant things about life, but instead opted for the old Hollywood 
sidestep.)

	In "Y Tu Mamá También" the clear, natural daylight of the 
majority of scenes added another dimension of reality to a picture 
which was already brutally honest.  Because there was no Hollywood-
style gloss to the film, we the audience are compelled to become a 
part of this `slice of life.'  We can't help it.  We see not only 
the major characters, the boys and Luisa, in increasing honesty, but 
also the country and the people who inhabit it all so clearly we 
feel as if we have lived it.   But, unlike the "truth"-obsessed 
young filmmakers who seem driven to bring out the absolute worst in 
everyone and everything and leave their audiences in a gothic 
angsty  funk, Cuarón's film is strangely life-affirming even in its 
saddest moments.  I think this is an extraordinary achievement and 
bodes very well for PoA.   

	I cannot say enough about the way the characters were 
handled.  Like the overall experience of the film, after a while, 
you forget you are watching actors, the characters are portrayed so 
honestly.  After seeing the wonderful work Cuarón did with the two 
young actors who portrayed Tenoch and Julio, I can't wait to see how 
he works with Radcliffe, Watson and Grint.  Daniel created a 
wonderfully believable David Copperfield, and, even with Columbus' 
misguided dirction born of his misguided concept of the Harry 
character, I thought both of Dan's portrayals of Harry Potter were 
sincere and believable—he just needed the kind of direction that 
Columbus was unable to give him.  Richard Harris himself said that 
Dan was "good, very good." In the scenes where he wasn't turned into 
a clown, Grint revealed a wealth of underutilized acting talent.  
And, of course, Watson is a natural—given the right lines.   
	In "A Little Princess," Cuaron demonstrates his talent at 
finding magic in the mundane.  Again, even though this is a 
different type of story entirely, we are drawn into Sara's world and 
into her imagination without realizing where the filmmaker has taken 
us.  Colors are used as powerful symbols for Sara's joy and her 
abuse, and little things; a gesture, a touch, a tear, have profound 
significance.  Minor characters are presented to us in vivid detail, 
and are never allowed to become *living props* for the main 
character to work around as you see in Columbus' work. Cuaron allows 
us to see their humanity and in so doing is able to touch our own.  
I don't think he is likely to abandon these techniques in "Prisoner 
of Azkaban."  If anything (depending on the script Kloves has 
offered him, *fingers crossed, toes crossed*) we are likely to see 
those tiny gestures, those looks and those glimpses of people that 
made the book so memorable in the first place.  
     Many in the fandom have been concerned about the reduction of 
screen time for Quidditch, but, in the book, it was not exactly the 
Quidditch that we responded to, (although I distinctly remember 
holding my breath as I was reading about the Dementors coming onto 
the Quidditch pitch.)  What we most responded to was Harry and the 
first stirrings of a crush as he sees Cho; his depression at having 
lost the game against Hufflepuff because of what he deemed was a 
personal weakness; his utter joy when he was able to overcome the 
influence of the Dementors and was hailed as a hero.  These are the 
things that touch us as we read because Jo Rowling managed to get us 
to connect with Harry and his friends on a deeply personal level.  I 
honestly believe that Cuaron will also be able to cause us to 
connect with whatever it is he puts on the screen next year.  I 
don't think it will be canon by rote, but we won't be bystanders as 
we have been for the last two films, we'll be participants.