[HPFGU-Movie] Re: Amusing comment from Cuaron

[Shaun Hately]

On 28 Jun 2004 at 9:29, huntergreen_3 wrote:

> >> However, attending class half dressed with their shirts hangin 
> out, ties undone, etc. just looked disrespectful. Do they have a 
> dress code or don't they?<<
> I don't know, do they? (j/k). If you look closely, the main scene 
> with the shirts hanging out..etc, is in the Care of Magical Creatures 
> class, and perhaps it *was* disrespectful. They all could have just 
> assumed that Hagrid would let them get away with it. I'm guessing 
> that if we saw a potions or a transfiguration class that they all 
> would have looked far more presentable. Personally, I think he went a 
> little too far with that (Hermione I don't believe would walk around 
> with her shirt untucked), but it was all the spirit of making them 
> act like *regular kids* as opposed to movie kids.

Yes, except...

Look, Hogwarts is, in the books, very much modelled on the 
traditional exclusive British private school tradition. It's 
blatant, and it's obvious to anyone who knows about that tradition. 
The first two movies (for all their faults) did a very good job of 
remaining true to that tradition, and perhaps more importantly the 
very very large genre of school stories (literally hundreds of 
books) in that genre.

And in that genre, and in those schools, wearing your uniform 
correctly *is* important. I went to a school that was based on that 
tradition, so it's something I'm very attuned to - the first two 
films matched it. PoA doesn't match it very well. It's not 
disastrous - but it is jarring to people who know the British 
school story genre well, and the traditions JKR has drawn on in 
creating Hogwarts.

The scene with Hagrid's class doesn't particularly worry me - 
because Hagrid would, I think, be pretty flexible on this and the 
students would know that.

But teachers like Snape and McGonnagall would *not* be flexible on 
these points - and even in their classes, while the students aren't 
*quite* as badly dressed as they are in Hagrid's, it's sloppy 
enough to not match reality. Top buttons are done up when you wear 
a tie.

(And even if McGonnagall and Snape let it pass - there is no way on 
this earth that pompous Percy would!)

Part of the problem is this is very much a 'British' thing. 
Americans are not as likely to be as sensitive to it - and Cauron 
comes from a very different culture. To him, these things probably 
seem very minor - to someone who knows what these schools are 
really like... it doesn't 'feel' right.

> >> In being "edgy" Cauron let in the real world.<<
> I don't agree that he was being "edgy", I think he was trying to make 
> it like a real place (not real as in our reality, but real as though 
> its not just "movie-land", where nothing has normal wear-and-tear, 
> and the kids are one-dimensional).

Yeah - but the point is, he's not being 'realistic' in terms of the 
genre and the traditions of the type of school Hogwarts is as JKR 
has created it.

Look - we swore at my school. We drank (well, some of us did - I 
didn't like the taste). People smoked, we weren't little angels.

But when we were around teachers, we wore our uniform correctly. 
Shirt tucked in, tie done up, top button buttoned, socks pulled up. 
This is just the way it was. This was reality (-8

JKR has created a school very heavily moulded on British school 
traditions. Any film that isn't true to those is going to 
disappoint me. While in general I think PoA is a superior film to 
the previous two, this is one issue where I think the previous 
films did a better job. Hogwarts felt a lot more 'true' to me. True 
in the sense of being a realistic representation of the type of 
school JKR shows us in the books, and a realistic representation of 
the type of school that has appeared in literally hundreds, 
probably thousands, of British school novels in the twentieth 
century - a *massive* genre that JKR drew heavily on in 'designing' 
Hogwarts.

The trouble is, unless you're familiar with those schools through 
personal experience, or you're very familiar with the genre - you 
won't see this.

But some of us are - and many of us who are, find PoA annoying on 
these points.


Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
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facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
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