Half-Blood Prince

[Geoff Bannister]

--- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "zanooda2" <zanooda2 at ...> wrote:
>
> --- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "dumbledore11214"
> <dumbledore11214@> wrote:

Alla: 
> > You do not think he significantly improved in OOP (starting from
> > the end of GoF)?
 
zanooda: 
> Oh, yes, Alla, of course, no doubt that he improved a lot :-). He
> still doesn't act the way I would want a Harry actor to act :-), but 
> certainly his acting is so much better now than in the first movies,
> where some scenes were just painful to watch ;-(. Experience means a
> great deal, I guess :-).

> I kind of blame the directors too, you know :-). Sure, I would prefer
> if they cast some really talented boy, with a lot of screen presence,
> but they also need to know how to work with the actors that they for
> some reason chose. 

Geoff: 
I get the feeling that you are looking at this in hindsight rather than 
considering first impressions. How would they necessarily know that 
they had some really talented boy? There were thousands of applicants
all aged 10-11 and only a very few can, at that age, have shown acting 
prowess. Dan came into the auditions with previous experience. I 
remember seeing him in the BBC adaptation of David Copperfield in 
1999 when he played young David and being quite taken with him 
then. That certainly would have earned him a few Brownie points in 
the tests.

zanooda:
> Not every kid actor is some - I don't know - Haley Joel Osment or
> Dakota Fanning, but a part of a director's job is to be aware of an
> actor's fortes and limitations and to show him on the screen in the
> most favorable light.
> 
> For instance, take Chris Columbus's movies - there are way too many
> scenes that consist of very long close-ups of Harry's face, which is
> supposed to show some kind of emotion, without any lines to say. Don't
> the director understand that he cast not the most brilliant actor, who
> just can't hold such a scene? Cut it short, Chris, cut it short before
> viewers become embarrassed for the the poor kid. I know I did, many
> times, just looking at his expressionless (although incredibly cute)
> face :-)).

Geoff:
But you could say that of almost every young actor in "Philosopher's 
Stone". Kids of that age, even keen ones, can find that letting themselves 
go fully into the part doesn't come easily and this is a reflection of real 
life where children will often demonstrate naîvety in a situation in which 
they do not feel entirely in control.

There are many instances in the early films where, in addition to Dan 
many of the other young actors were seen as stilted and wooden. For 
example, Rupert Grint has been on the receiving end of this criticism 
more than once.
 
zanooda:
> Another thing - why are they all determined to make Harry cry? I
> suppose it's not easy to cry even for a very talented male actor (it's
> much easier for us women :-)), so what's the need to make cry someone
> who obviously can't do it? It's not even from the book! Every time my
> son watches PoA on TV, and I happen to see the scene where Harry
> "cries", I just avert my eyes - that's how embarrassed I feel.

Geoff:
Well, as I have said on several occasions over on Main, that due to the 
dratted UK idea of drumming into  lads that "boys don't cry". I have 
suffered from that problem all my life. I can remember wondering what 
was wrong with me when I found it difficult to let my emotions out when 
my mother died in 1983; a colleague (obviously female) in whom I felt 
able to confide, made that precise point. We find it difficult to cry; 
therefore, we find it difficult to simulate.

I do agree with you that the particular scene you mentioned in "Prisoner 
of Azkaban" also carries a large cringe factor for me. But it's not the only 
one in the series. Another set of scenes I always tend to avoid in 
"Chamber of Secrets" are the Dobby scenes. In the book, I love his 
character - but the films......  nuff said.

zanooda: 
> I also want to say that I didn't intend to start a discussion about
> Dan's acting abilities :-). I know he has a lot of very passionate
> fans, and I really don't want to upset anybody. All I said is just my
> personal opinion, and I don't even insist that it is a correct one
> :-). Besides, as I said, I like Dan's personality and I find him, to
> use DD's words, "an engaging child", LOL.

Geoff:
I have seen most of his output. I saw "My Boy Jack" last year but 
haven't been able to watch the DVD. This is not his fault but the 
fact that the story, a true one, was so gut-wrenching that I felt 
moved to tears and the "men don't cry" syndrome led me to put 
it back on the shelf each time I pick it up. But he did a good job.

I saw him in the London production of "Equus" and was greatly 
enthused by the whole production - more than the film version 
which I had previously watched.

Apart from Dan's acting ability, something that has impressed 
me about so many of the young actors in the HP series - and in 
other films involving younger people - is that, in interview, they 
nearly all come over as grounded, sensible people with a clear 
sense of their strengths and weaknesses. They often have the 
knack of being able to laugh at themselves and realise how 
fortunate they have been unlike some famous names who acquired 
brattishness as they received fan acclaim and lost their charm and 
sincerity as a result.