I think I understand...

[GulPlum]

Before I get to what I think I've finally understood, I want to make a 
small digression, starting with a question.

Am I wasting my time here?

I thought that this group was set up for the discussion of the HP movies on 
an adult level. Not just as adaptations (although of course that too), but 
as MOVIES. I spent the whole of Tuesday and most of yesterday (until I 
suddenly and unavoidably had to go out) trying to discuss the movies as 
cinematic entities and have had no reaction. That worries me, and it 
saddens me. I'm not saying that I necessarily expected praise or criticism 
of my comments, but I did think there'd be some kind of reaction. The only 
reaction I had to was to some of my nit-picky comments (to which replies 
will hopefully come shortly).

I have about a dozen messages that I know I want to respond to, briefly, 
from the last couple of weeks and will browse through the rest for anything 
else. I also have one longer post lined up (a response to Barbara's 
original criticisms of the film which for some reason I didn't see until 
she pointed out the message number a few days ago).

Once I've done that, I'm going to disappear into the ether again, as people 
don't appear to be interested in an in-depth discussion of PoA as a MOVIE 
purely on its own terms without reference to the book. I think we've pretty 
much exhausted nitpicking the adaptation and I see little point in sticking 
around for more of the same. As it seems nobody (besides Dan and Nick) is 
interested in a deeper cinematographic analysis (including one downright 
dismissal of any attempt to do so - more on that in another post) there's 
little point in my spending any time writing stuff. I may as well just 
write some essays and put them on the web. I thought this was a discussion 
forum, not a place for posting essays, so I'm off.

In the meantime, here's a thought which I am surprised only occurred to me 
last night as I was falling asleep. I think I finally understand the main 
difference between PoA the Movie and PoA the Book, which has caused a 
polarisation of the fandom. Actually, it's not so much that I understand it 
(it's pretty obvious), but I have finally realised how to put it into words.

The book is essentially a mystery story. Several mysteries are introduced 
and it is those mysteries which drive the plot. The conclusion of the book, 
is, therefore, the resolution of all of those mysteries: why's Scabbers 
behaving so strangely and why did he suddenly fall ill? Why won't anyone 
tell Harry what's going on with Sirius Black? Who is Lupin and what's he 
about? How does he know about the Map? Why is Hermione so frazzled and why 
does she appear in strange places out of the blue? There are several 
others, but I'll stop there.

The movie, on the other hand, downplays the "mystery" elements and becomes 
a  rites of passage/character study - Cuaron has admitted as much, and 
changed the focus from the mysteries to Harry and Co hitting adolescence.

In fact, the film completely dismisses or overlooks some of the mysteries. 
Just one example: there is no subtlety about Lupin's Boggart: it is *very* 
obviously the moon. The Hogwarts "lockdown" is cut with an image of the 
full moon and the sound of howling, just after we've been informed that 
Lupin is unwell. The werewolf lesson is painted in such broad strokes that 
the viewer would need to be a moron not to catch on. Other elements of the 
"mystery" are similarly "unmysterious".

The only major revelation left for the end is who did betray the Potters; 
the way things are set up (and regardless of the way some reviews were 
written), Sirius is *so* heavily painted as the bad guy throughout the 
movie (just as Snape was during PS/SS) that it's clear to anyone with more 
than a couple of functioning grey cells and any knowledge of storytelling 
that there's something wrong with the assumptions.

And I think that the loss of the "mystery" is the main fault line (although 
there are others) along which the fandom has split.

Personally, I see the change as Cuaron's masterstroke (his, not Kloves's: I 
do recall reading that when he was first engaged to direct, he got Kloves 
to re-write the whole thing). The way I see it, his approach was that most 
viewers will have read the book (and analysed it in great detail) and thus 
presenting the denouement as the resolution of a mystery is pointless: 
everyone already knows how the story ends, and building the movie around a 
plot twist doesn't make the movie inherently interesting to that audience. 
What he did was to delve into the sub-text of the book's plot and make 
*that* the focus of the movie.

To take an extreme example, it's as if Mel Gibson's Passion Of The Christ 
(regardless of anyone's opinion of the movie) were filmed as if *anyone* in 
the audience didn't know how it was going to end. After all, it *is* based 
on the best-selling book of all time. So it's not about how the film ends, 
it's about showing a particular vision of the journey towards that end, 
although in a religious sense, the underlying message is *all* about the 
last scene.

It's therefore perfectly valid to take the attitude with an HP movie that 
as the audience knows how it's going to end, the movie should be about the 
journey rather than the revelation. Some people don't like the way PoA's 
journey is portrayed (which is fine, even if it's an opinion I don't 
share), but the vast majority of fans who don't like the movie don't like 
it because it's not built around the last scene and its revelations.

(Talking of which, one specific comment I'll make, on a subject which has 
recently been dissected: I *like* the freeze-frame at the end. At least 
it's better than Columbus's utterly cliched reverse zooms.)

I'm on record as saying (several times, perhaps to the extent of being 
boring) that the reason I read the books in the first place was that after 
first seeing PS/SS (knowing *nothing* of significance about the plot), I 
came out wondering why Snape hated Harry but was prepared to save him. I 
saw that as a major weakness of the film, and I've said before that I see 
the non-explanation of the MWPP/Snape relationship and authorship of the 
map to be weaknesses with PoA. I have now realised that these omissions are 
deliberate - like Harry, we're set up with a situation which we have to 
accept, but we don't know the background. All of that background, I am 
sure, will come tumbling out at an the opportune moment when the plot 
twists related specifically to that background will be explained 
(presumably, book/movie seven). As I've said before, there is no intrinsic 
reason why the resolution of individual questions and mysteries HAS to 
follow the books' order.

The change in focus therefore was the foundation of the changes to the 
book's plot, and not an effect of any changes to it. *Perhaps* if Cuaron 
had decided to stick to presenting the movie as a mystery, he might have 
made a film acceptable to those who wanted to have the mysteries resolved 
in the same way as they are in the book? *Perhaps* those people would have 
felt the same satisfaction and surprise at seeing the plot twists they know 
so well resolved in the same way.

But *perhaps* Cuaron decided not to say "I'm going to assume that nobody 
knows what happens in this story and expect them to jump in surprise when 
things are explained", but say "I'm going to assume that most of the people 
who see this movie have read the book and none of the plot will surprise 
them, so I'll give them a few *different* surprises".

As the saying goes, "you can't please all of the people all of the time; 
the best you can hope for is to please some of the people some of the 
time". Personally, I think that Cuaron has decided to please himself rather 
than the "literalists", and he certainly pleased me.

Interestingly, Mike Newell is on record as saying that he sees GoF as a 
thriller. It's a fair comment and perhaps will mean that those who dislike 
PoA's change in structure from the book may well be appeased...

--
GulPlum AKA Richard, expecting more reaction this time. ;-)