[HPFGU-Movie] Re: Phyllis's GoF Review

[Richard]

At 03:42 28/11/2005 , Phyllis replied to my previous comments, inter alia:

>The fact that there was no discussion at all between Dumbledore and Harry 
>about Voldemort using Harry's blood and some sort of indication that this was
>meaningful to Dumbledore (whether through a gleam or some sort of other 
>look) is what troubled me.

As I've said before (am I already sounding like a broken record?), the 
movies have enough problems telling the story of each individual book 
without going to the trouble of presaging future events.

In any event... I have gone to the trouble of seeing the movie again (well, 
not in its entirety, just the end) to check exactly what happens in that 
scene, and I could swear there was a slight nod and quizzical look on 
Gambledore's face when he looked up from  Harry's wound to Crouch when 
they're comparing arms. I got a perverse kick out of the fact that we don't 
see a close-up of Gambledore at that point, him, Harry and Crouch in 
profile. (Incidentally, I'd like to point out that my local cinema is in 
walking distance of where I'm sitting and it doesn't cost me to go in - 
completely legitimately, I might add! - , which is one reason why I spend 
so much of my time there and tend to pop over to check out any issues which 
are raised here).

>While if perhaps a non-reader  would be expected to remember that, three 
>movies ago, Ollivander told  Harry that Harry's and Voldemort's wand cores 
>came from the same phoenix, it's only in GoF that we find out that phoenix 
>was Fawkes.  I was objecting to this not being mentioned, as I can't see why
>Rowling would bother having the feathers come from Fawkes if that doesn't 
>prove to become meaningful in some way before the series is over.

Ah, sorry. Thanks. That explains the drift of your original point, which I 
had misunderstood. I would refer you to my first comment above - when the 
significance of Harry's and Voldy's wand cores being *Fawkes's* feathers 
comes into its own in Book Seven (if it is truly significant, as that could 
potentially just be JKR tying up a detail with a pretty bow) I'm sure the 
movie will address it. For the time being, there's no real significance in 
identifying Fawkes as seemingly the only phoenix in the Potterverse (of 
course, there is the speculation that Dumbledore changes into one at the 
end of HBP...).


>True, but it's not mentioned at all in the third movie (or book, for
>that matter), so I don't think it would be out of order for Voldemort
>to make some reference to his being named after his father at some
>point during the graveyard scene (perhaps when he admits that he
>killed him, which isn't mentioned at all in the movie).

The story of Voldy's boyhood and his transformation from Tom Riddle is one 
of the parallel plots of HBP: the fact that Riddle murdered his parents is 
an important element of that particular thread, and again, there is no need 
for the movie series to establish that at this particular point.


>Is the Riddle name clear on the tomb at the beginning?  The only time
>I noticed it was in the graveyard scene.

Sorry, I made a bit of a jump there. No, the name isn't visible in any of 
the dream sequences, but when we see it again towards the end, Harry 
running his hands over the names underlines that this is an Important Plot 
Point. Something I've neglected to say thus far in all my comments about 
this movie is that another one of the things for which I admire it is that 
it requires the viewer to think just a little bit, and add elements from 
different points in the movie together to draw conclusions, rather than 
having them all spelt out in what would have been REALLY tedious exposition 
scenes, either from Voldy or Dumbledore. In all the pre-release hoop-la, 
all the participants kept going on about how much darker and grown-up the 
tone of the film is. I wish at least *someone* (Kloves, Newell, Heyman...) 
would have added that little self-congratulatory comment.

><...> given that Dumbledore didn't interrogate Barty Jr. anyway, I don't 
>see why
>they bothered with the Veritaserum.  Things like this make me wonder just 
>how much filming actually winds up on the cutting room floor.

According to Newell, there's about 15 minutes of material he wants to add 
on the DVD. Even so, I doubt there's much extra material form the 
interrogation scene available. One of the biggest expenses in filming the 
movies to date is the limited amount of time the kids can be in front of 
the cameras (thankfully, British laws being what they are, this is no 
longer an issue when it comes to Dan) so I would expect that they're quite 
tight on scheduling and very little extra footage is actually filmed; any 
"extra scenes" we might get to see are usually editorial decisions (i.e. 
scenes which the director/editor decide don't add anything to the finished 
movie) rather than anything inherently important.

As far as the interrogation scene goes, there isn't really anything to add, 
so I can't imagine there's anything on the cutting-room floor to see. My 
own problem with the interrogation scene is with the dialogue (as per usual 
for me, most of my complaints about the HP movies are about clunky bits of 
dialogue) - Dumbledore's first question is "are you Moody": by that stage, 
it should have been obvious, and the question to ask was, in fact, "who are 
you?" A small re-edit could have left it a valid question, with the answer 
being Crouch's transformation. Yet another example of Kloves falling down 
on his job, and the actors not picking up on it.

>I would personally be quite pleased if the movie followed the book in
>every respect, but that wasn't my reason for thinking that Harry
>should have been gagged in the graveyard scene.  It just seemed to me
>that a gag would have been a good way of keeping Harry quiet - as it
>was, Harry only said one thing ("Don't touch Cedric" or something to
>that effect) and it just struck me as strange that he would have kept
>so quiet without a gag (if it had been me, I would have been
>screaming).

As for screaming, the scream needed to be kept back for when Voldy touches 
him; as for silence in general, Movie!Harry is quite stoical (just a little 
more so than Book!Harry), so between the shock and the curiosity of hearing 
what Voldy had to say, I think that the fact that he broke his silence only 
to protect Cedric (however feebly) was perfectly well done, and completely 
in character.

>Without dragging out my book, it's something like "...it was beyond fear 
>or reason ... he was going to fight Voldemort, straight-backed and proud, 
>like his father did ..."  Boiling all of that down to "Have it your way" 
>didn't
>convey any of that thought process at all, which is why I think it
>bothered me so much.

Having watched the scene again today, I was a little unkind to Dan with my 
previous comment, as he did a *fairly* good job of providing all of that in 
his looks and movement from behind the gravestone. As usual (and as, again, 
I've said several times) it's in his dialogue delivery that he needs most 
improvement: his facial expressions and body language did quite well until 
he got the tone of the line a bit off (sounding blasé rather than determined).

>It's the same thought process Harry goes through in HBP when Dumbledore is 
>trying to get him to understand the difference between finishing Voldemort 
>off because the prophecy is making him do it vs. because it's the right 
>thing to do.   I think it's a distinction that's important to the series.

I agree, and I hope that between now and filming OotP, Dan gets some help 
with his dialogue because he's going to have a heck of a lot of it in OotP 
(my impression is that he doesn't actually say much in HBP) and has some 
difficult lines to deliver with all kinds of sub-texts. I don't think he's 
going to have too much trouble with reaction shots (especially when he can 
do them over and over again and they can edit in seconds-worth of reaction 
shots much more easily than dialogue).

>I'm not at all offended, you have been a perfect gentleman and I
>welcome the discussion:)

*Phew*. When I re-read what I had written, I felt it came across a bit 
harshly, so I'm glad that you took it in the spirit in which it was 
intended. :-)

--
Richard