[HPFGU-Movie] I think I understand...

[AnitaKH]

GulPlum <hp at plum.cream.org> wrote:

Am I wasting my time here?


akh: I hope not!  I joined this group just prior to the release of POA, having been a reader and occasional contributor to the main group since before OOP was published. I expected (and still expect) a similar level of analysis regarding the movies that I've seen with the books.

I think many of us feel we have much more expertise parsing literature than we have dissecting film, especially if we majored in Liberal Arts.  That won't stop me from diving in, however!


GulPlum: 
The movie... 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.


akh: As a mystery fan, I've always enjoyed the "whodunit" aspects of the books, but I felt the growth of the series with this book was the depth of the relationships, not only Harry's, Ron's and Hermione's maturing relationship, but the revelations of the long-standing friendship between MWPP.  I agree completely that the movie chose to highlight those relationships.  I also found quite a bit of focus on the adult's past and present relationship, perhaps because I was looking for it.  Next week, I'm taking my sister to see POA, and I'll be interested to see if she picks up on as much as I did, since she hasn't read the book.

SNIP

(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 thoroughly enjoyed both "Sorcerer's Stone" (being an American, that's the one we got) and Chamber of Secrets, but I was struck by my SO's response to CoS, since he hasn't read any of the books.  He said, "The books are a little formulaic, aren't they?"  Well, not especially, no more than Jane Austen is "formulaic."  (You'll find I find many ways to work Jane Austen into a discussion.) I think the ending was a major contributor to his statement, because although it was in the Great Hall and not at the train station, it did bespeak a similar conclusion, both visually and musically.  This break from the first two cements the break from any kind of "formulaic" representation of the books.

akh, who also took Film Studies, but doesn't remember that many centuries back to college...


		
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