Re-evaluating Gambon as Dumbledore

[Diana]

After seeing GoF in IMAX last Thursday, my perceptions of Michael 
Gambon's potrayal of Dumbledore in GoF have altered.

Two scenes still rankle me - the running down and physical grabbing 
of Harry after his name came out of the Goblet and Gambon's grabbing 
Barty Crouch Jr. and shaking him while asking if Moody is in the 
room.  Regardless of whether these actions are the result of the 
director, the actor, the producer or a combination of all three, 
they rob Dumbledore of unique character traits consistently present 
throughout all the books, which are the traits of politeness, 
patience and calmness regardless of what is happening from of him 
(unless it's something immediately life-threatening to someone DD 
cares about, of course).  

But...putting those two scenes aside for a moment, it was more 
evident to me while watching it on IMAX (that enormous screen makes 
a difference) that Gambon played Dumbledore as extremely stressed 
throughout the movie.  Why was he stressed?  Well, it's obvious that 
Dumbledore doesn't know who put Harry's name in the Goblet and he 
must know that someone within the castle must have done it with a 
nasty hidden agenda in mind.  Nearly all of the shots of Dumbledore, 
from the moment Harry's name comes out of the Goblet onward, show a 
man wary and very worried about what is happening as it is so 
completely out of his control.  In fact, I would go so far as to say 
that the two scenes, above, which bothered me (and many other fans) 
were the actor's/director's/producer's extrapolation of the stress 
into barely-contained panic.  Granted, Dumbledore, as presented in 
the books, is not a panicker, however, this may be the filmmaker's 
attempt to shorthand much of what occured in GoF and in preparation 
of what's coming in books 5 and 6.  

I asked myself why they would try to roughly shorthand Dumbledore's 
failing into GoF when it doesn't show up in earnest until OotP.  
Then I hit upon the answer.  In OotP, Dumbledore makes a grave 
mistake by not telling Harry everything upfront about what is going 
on with Voldemort's search for the phrophecy.  Dumbledore distances 
himself from Harry emotionally, which is another colossal mistake, 
even if he does it because he cares so much about Harry.  Well, what 
better way to explain Dumbledore making such an obviously stupid 
mistake in OotP than to have him completely stressed and worried 
throughout an entire year (during the events of GoF)?  People under 
contiuous stress tend to make less intelligent decisions.  It's more 
than possible the next director will use Gambon's perfomance in GoF 
as the perfect set-up for the withdrawn DD capable of a huge blunder 
we see in OotP. 

There's been a lot of complaints about DD's wardrobe in GoF, but I 
actually kind of like it as it's so much in the vein of wizards of 
old, like Merlin.  After all, he's 150 years old so I'm not 
surprised he'd want something quite comfortable to wear around.  If 
I live to that age, I'd probably want to wear something akin to a 
nightgown all day as well. <g> 

Anyway, the performance of Gambon was much more understandable in 
the context of the film during my last viewing.  I especially 
noticed it when DD and Harry came out in front of the stands before 
the last task.  Dumbledore's expression looked sort of like a secret 
service agent who'd gotten a tip-off about a possible hidden 
attacker in the crowd.  He looked so upset, worried, stressed and 
unhappy in that scene when he touched Harry's shoulder.  That was SO 
the DD from the books in that scene (with the "maze changes you" 
speech notwithstanding).   

I'm really looking forward to when this movie comes out on DVD 
because then I will be able to rewind and see even more details in 
all the performances.  

Diana L.
dianasdolls