Who Was That Robed Man, Anyway? (PS)

[Annalisa Moretti]

I have only just read the thread about the identity of the robed 
figure in the flashback of Lily's death scene in the PS movie; I'm 
reviving the subject because I've been looking into it.

First of all, my opinion on the topic:

I think there is something very strange about the scene, most 
particularly the vital shot, in which we see Lily in the process of 
shutting the door and screaming the name "James", while Mr. 
Mysterious in the black robe turns around in front of her. It is very 
hard to link a continuity between this shot and the ones preceding 
and following it. Directly before the shot, we see what I fully do 
believe is Voldemort Alohomora-ing the door (or using some other 
spell to open it). We then see the aforementioned shot. Then we jump 
to Lily running into Harry's room and being struck by whichever curse 
is being thrown at her. 

The thing I find odd about the black figure myself is not simply what 
others have stated, that it's turning away from Lily, because, like 
several posters, I can explain that away quite easily. The first 
thing which I find strange about it is the way in which it moves. The 
whole sequence has been slowed down for effect by the filmmakers, but 
Voldemort in particular moves very slowly; and this figure does not. 
I would also hasten to point out, rather ironically, that I don't 
think this be-robed figure's sleeve precisely matches that of 
Voldemort. The original person who posted this theory specifically 
cited the black robe with white sleeve poking out in the hand holding 
the wand as being identifiable as Snape's. I have to say that I find 
that an extremely slim and flimsy possibility. But what *I* find 
strange is that I don't see any white sleeve at all in this figure 
here.

I would also agree with what others have stated, that Lily seem to be 
more or less staring PAST the figure in black rather than at it. If 
she's screaming "James" she might be looking at James. That does not 
rule out the figure being Voldemort, but it does make it less likely 
(to me) as being James, which would have been another possibility 
resultant of what I outlined above.

But there is one major problem with this whole idea, unfortunately. I 
don't think it really is able to stand on its own UNLESS what has 
been mentioned in passing -- that J. K. Rowling supposedly "oversaw" 
filming of this sequence -- is true. Because I have not been able to 
find ANYTHING which states this at all.

This is what I've found:

http://www.empireonline.co.uk/news/news.asp?3454
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/tv_film/newsid_1594000/1594156.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/cbbcnews/hi/tv_film/newsid_1664000/1664714.stm
(There was also a CNN article that was supposed to have mentioned to 
it linked on TLC but the article seems to have disappeared from the 
website.)

None of these articles state that the sequence was "overseen" by 
Rowling. They state that she *wrote* the scene (which I think, 
furthermore, actually means that she wrote the source material for 
the scene, that is, a scene which was intended for the book but which 
was edited about and which she gave to Steve Kloves to incorporate 
into the script). Furthermore, the "hidden secret" of this scene 
seems to be nothing more than "information about how the Potters 
lived", and it also seems that it was heavily edited by Chris 
Columbus later on (now why couldn't they have put an unedited version 
of this the dvd huh?).

If JK Rowling did not in fact have a hand in the staging and filming 
of this scene, then I doubt very much that there is any such 
carefully hidden plot information within it. Not simply because of 
the lack of her influence during the filming, but also because of the 
obvious heavy-handedness of Chris Columbus while editing it 
(presumably if Rowling had in fact carefully hidden information in 
the scene, Columbus would have been told not to cut it out!).

If anyone knows of anything which actually states about Rowling's 
assistance in the filming of this sequence, please post it! 
Otherwise, I'd sadly have to retire this theory to the "highly 
unlikely" file in my mind. (I'm a big Snape fan, and the whole idea 
of this excited me, so I would very much regret have to do that.)

-- Annalisa