HP movie talk

[sistermagpie]

I hesitate about posting this because it's so long and I just posted something long and people must think I have serious compulsive typing disorder. I honestly think I must just be going through a phase because I've been writing other stuff too, not to mention stories for work ahead of schedule. But roxannelinton said to post it so blame her. Anyway, last night I was thinking about the HP movies for some reason and I had this sudden weird flash of imaging an HP movie made in the early 40s or sometime around then, and I thought

I don't know why, but I could just imagine this in my head. B-movies, British pictures. They would have cheesy special effects, of course, but I think they could make do. Obviously it's not fair to compare movies that exist to hypothetic movies in my head, but I realized the reason I must have wanted to see this is I just felt like these movies would get the characters and world more right than Steve Kloves seems to be able to do. (They’d have to, without any CGI for distraction!)

I know that a movie adaptation is never going to be the books on screen. It's the screenwriter/director's interpretation of the books on screen. Everybody can tell the difference between JRRT's LOTR and PJ's LOTR. But with PJ even when he makes character changes, I can usually understand them from a movie pov. JKR does a lot more with character development than Tolkien, and JRRT's characters are sometimes more subtly drawn-there's a reason many people literally can't tell Merry and Pippin apart in the books until they separate. It's only fanfic in which they become so very different with clearly defined roles, like Frodo and Sam have. Yet PJ in his casting pretty much "got" everyone, including Merry and Pippin. Oh, I have problems with some of their scenes and what he did, but that's mostly because he started out with characters I could accept.

So how does this apply to HP? It just seemed to me that a movie in the 40s could not have failed to correctly present the Trio. Perhaps it's because the HP Public School setting is a throwback in itself, but whatever the reason, I feel like Hermione would have been bossy, brainy and bewilderingly female, Ron would have been funny, easy-going, brave and loyal, and Harry would have been the scruffy orphan and personification of English valor. It’s not that casting was so much better in “the old days,” just that I think these characters would be familiar in ways that today, the simply are not.

One of the many reasons the HP books may be so popular is their unapologetic celebration of traditional boy adventure heroism. In the HP books boys are great-and so are girls. One sex does not have to put down the other to be respected. Probably one of the things I like most about the books is the interest JKR has in male-male relationships. These are the relationships that change the world here and JKR seems to love dealing with the tensions in them: Harry/Ron, MWPP in all their pairings, Harry/Snape, Harry/Dumbledore, Harry/Hagrid, Tom/Dumbledore, Snape/Dumbledore, Snape/Draco, Draco/Lucius, Draco/Harry. Hermione's relationship with Harry is very maternal: she's supportive, gives advice, and is patient when he snaps at her. She shakes her head at the "childish" fighting between him and Ron in GoF. My point here isn't to suggest Hermione is less of a friend, just to point out that it's the Harry/Ron relationship that has the most compelling tension. It deals with jealousy and resentment--something some fans don't seem to know what to do with except to think Ron's not a real friend.;-)

These kinds of issues are important since Harry and Ron are adolescents growing up--they're forging their own identities (as are the girls, but our main character is a boy). This is why, imo, Harry's father is so much more important than his mother. If Harry were Bambi, we would be beginning the story after Mom gets killed--you know, when Dad (the Stag) comes down off the rock and tells Bambi now he must be brave and learn to walk alone. Harry is 11 at the book's start, going off to school. He's too old to be yearning for the comfort of mother, it's time for him to start clashing with his same-sex parent, which I think is part of forging that identify. First he wants to be like his father, then he rejects his father as the enemy. The Pensieve scene is kind of wonderful because not only is Harry horrified at his father being a bully but he's equally horrified at his father's being a sexual aggressor towards his mother, wondering if he tricked Lily into marriage.

Harry's father was also shaped by his male friendships in adolescence, as were the other Marauders. It was together they learned to become animagi (and they did it for Remus), to explore their own powers and get stronger. There was recently an interesting essay questioning whether MWPP was very functional as a group and there was one line that stood out. The author compared Peter's relationship to James to that of an abused wife, sticking with someone even though he hurt her. I think sometimes it can be a little too tempting to turn boy relationships into boy/girl or girl/girl ones in these books. One scene quoted in the essay is the scene after the O.W.L.S.: "How thick are you, Wormtail?" said James impatiently. "You run with a werewolf once a month..."

I believe the line was being quoted to show, among other things, James' arrogance and disregard for his friends, but I think that's overstating it. James is a guy. Many guys speak this way to their friends, especially the dim-witted ones. There's a bunch of guys at work, one of whom is intelligent but has no common sense and believe me, his friends are a lot more direct than this (I wonder if James affectionately also refers to Peter as "Shit for Brains" as they do). I have this same reaction to the CoS common room scene, where people feel that Draco telling a Goyle who's just asked a really stupid question he should know the answer to that if he were any slower he'd be "going backwards," proves he's not a real friend because he insults Goyle. A lot of guys talk like that to their friends. It doesn't mean they're mistreating them or aren't friends.

The magic in the books is counterbalanced by aspects of realism when it comes to the kids’ personalities--it's not a cartoon. That’s especially true when it comes to bullying. Note that the twins seem to be considered good-natured pranksters even after causing physical injury, while James is a villain for turning Snape upside-down to show his underwear. I think there's an important point in that. When JKR goes over the top, it's more likely to be through violence (Umbridge getting trampled, Draco getting bounced, Neville being tossed out of windows, Ron belching slugs, D/C/G knocked unconscious and slugified). Humiliation, otoh, tends to be dealt with more realistically. Given the choice, I think most boys would prefer to be punched in the nose than show the school their underwear. Just look at how Harry reacts to Snape--Snape, his enemy!--having that done to him. It's also what the DEs do to Muggles. Humiliation is a serious business in this universe. Snape wasn't hurt by the Prank, yet he's still furious about it because, imo, he was humiliated, just as he was in the Pensieve (more than once--he's laughed at on his broom). At the end of OotP Ernie regrets not being allowed to stay for the real fun with Malfoy—the humiliation of his being discovered by his mother. Here even JKR turns away, and allows him his privacy.

The Pensieve scene works because humiliation is real and always has been. JKR knows better than to cross lines like that-and there are lines. To use a personal example, I once wrote a licensed book where a boy had to be humiliated. My partner and I asked a guy--what's the worst humiliation a boy could suffer? Without hesitation he said, "Pull his pants down in front of everyone." So we had this done to him by accident (he was playing football and in tackling him another player accidentally pantsed him). The owners of the characters, who rarely had a problem with what we did, rightly objected: Too humiliating, they said. He couldn't recover from that. So we changed it to a first grade girl managing to tackle him by grabbing his legs--that was perfect. Humiliating, yes, but not the violation of pantsing in public. And this in a book that came closer to cartoon than the HP books ever do.

My point there is just that I think JKR is using a traditionally boy (human, really) mindset there, and I wonder why the movies are so incapable of recreating it, particularly since the screenwriter is a man. I just don't feel like the realism of the characters appears on screen--hence my sudden vision of a more respectful 1940s version that knew what to do with the values Harry and his friends strive for. I hesitate to use the term "dumbed down" for the movies because that's such an easy dismissal of every adaptation. Perhaps a better word is "aged down." Because it seems like the real dark issues of growing up and human nature are cut out in favor of the more familiar modern platitudes about bigotry, girl power and sharing your feelings.

The types I envisioned in the B&W HP movie (bossy, brainy and bewilderingly female; funny, easy-going, brave and loyal, and scruffy orphan personification of English valor.") seem to be a problem for SK. Instead we have Hermione the girl who must beat everyone at everything because girls are better in their spunky way. Ron is comic relief. (I think Ron fans have a valid point about his important line being given to Hermione that goes beyond the fangirling). Harry is made to emote in ways no boy should be asked to emote. The MWPP friendship is tossed in favor of Remus waxing rhapsodic on Lily Potter, Harry's mother, whom he should be glad to know he is like. Why this change? Honestly, it seems part of this whole aging down-we're not ready to deal with the men yet, so let's go for the childhood sentiment of how much Mummy loves you.

And since we're speaking of emasculating I feel we need to talk about Draco.:-) Again, I feel like a 40s director would know what to do with this character. Again, Kloves seems too afraid to take him seriously on any level-not that he can't also be funny, especially when he's put down, but when he's punched by a girl and cries, he's stopped being a boy by the most basic standards--which are also JKR's standards. For Malfoy, in the books, is also a boy, just like Snape was. When Harry and George beat him up in OotP we hear he's whimpering on the ground, doubled up in pain having been punched in the stomach. He also fights with Ron in PS/SS and gets a black eye (and gives Ron a bloody nose). Neither of these are big moments for Malfoy. Neither makes him cry. His big moments, the ones where his cheeks turn red, are moments of humiliation, of course. When Harry rejects him, when Harry insults his mother. And then there's his ultimate moment, when he looks up defiantly at Moody, his eyes filled with "tears of pain and humiliation" after being bounced around like a ferret. Tears of pain and humiliation (if he'd gotten through that kind of pain without his eyes watering he'd have had to be Spiderman!) that fill his eyes but do not fall, because he is a boy and he is not going to cry in front of the school.

In the movies, of course, he is not a boy-at least not an adolescent. A Powerpuff Girl punches him in the nose and he cries and runs away. If this were a "real world" as JKR's is, how could he ever show his face again? But in the movies, apparently, other boys follow him anyway as if there's no logic to this sort of thing at all. closet_geek says according to Tom Felton in the next movie Draco runs naked through the school. It might be a joke, but I must say, it seems the logical progression for Kloves' "journey" with the character. To me it seems perfectly believable that the ferret scene will now read as follows: Moody turns Draco into a ferret, one which crawls out of Draco's clothes, because in Kloves' world animal transformation involves losing your clothes...unless you're McGonogal who plainly showed otherwise in the first movie. He probably won't be bounced around. McGonogal will order him turned back, Moody will do it, leaving Malfoy stark naked in front of the whole school. He will run away while everyone laughs. In an episode of Dexter's Lab or a Porky's this type of thing can be funny. In the school setting JKR has set out, Kloves has just topped not only James Potter and Snape but also the Death Eaters for cruelty, which is odd when in the books it's exactly this type of thing that seems to dominate people's entire lives.

Perhaps this is because Kloves isn't writing about adolescents in his mind, but children. A six-year-old can cry after being hit, and wouldn't be creeped out by their substitute teacher getting mushy about his mother. Being stripped in front of others doesn't hold the same conotations when you're pre-pubescent. Adolescence in the movies so far seems more about shippy moments with Hermione, the only character that seems allowed to come close to the heroic fantasy to which the books seem to appeal.

So I guess that’s the thing. It’s not a case for me of the movies making Ron more just comic relief or less brave, or Draco look worse, or Hermione be a Mary Sue. I feel like the characters are a vague stab at modern Hollywood and elementary school ideas of deep, while the original characters would be refreshingly at home in adult movies of the past. The kind of movies where women could be both competent and high strung like Hermione, without being neurotic or needing artificial superhero moments. The kind of movie where it was assumed English boys wanted to be both English men and Englishmen.

Comments

A great big Wordy McWORD!

[rikibeth.livejournal.com]

I have nothing to add here at all, really. You've NAILED what was bothering me about the changes! Thank you.

Re: A great big Wordy McWORD!

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And you get special points because I think you read this before I realized the paragraph breaks at disappeared. That must have been quite an effort!

Oh dear, the images.

[shusu.livejournal.com]

Sorry. Dad the Stag! XD XD XD

But oh yes. Black and white, I dunno Rex Harrison? Natty wizard robes, perfect straight queues and little boys with toad in one hand and text in another. Or old Mayer smoking a cigar and going "Don't waste your time calling Betty for McGonagall, she'd rather spit in your grave than play a school marm. Now take this down Annie..."

Re: Oh dear, the images.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Hee! Can't you just see it? It reminds me of when I watched Captain Blood and Errol Flynn first appeared in his dressing gown and I thought, "OMG...it's Fanon!Snape!" I can so see all these British character actors having a grand old time--I suspect there probably would have been more jokes with the teachers interacting. Perhaps they might have even gotten the ages of MWPP correct, though in that time period people always seem to seem older than they are by our standards. A 30-year-old looks just like an adult instead of barely out of his teens.

Re: Oh dear, the images.

[hansbekhart.livejournal.com]

**dies and is dead at the thought of Errol Flynn playing Snape**

He SO is fanon!Snape, isn't he? Kind of scary. **looks over at pic of Flynn hanging on the wall** Now I'm going to be creeped out by him for the rest of the night.

Bravo

[mariannec.livejournal.com]

Re: Bravo

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

LOL! I didn't even know such an animation existed! :-DDD

[hagia-sophia.livejournal.com]

Wow, great analysis. You know, after I watched the third movie, I thought I'd write about what I liked and disliked about it in my lj. I didn't do it immediately because I needed time to sort out my thoughts. But after some time, I couldn't really remember the things I really liked about it (apart from the general impression that the young actors are playing much better than before). Instead, I could remember more and more of the little details that seemed jarring, illogical and just plain wrong. Listing them without any order or analysis seemed a little silly, but I couldn't analyze them effectively. So I decided not to write anything after all. Now you have said what I felt but couldn't articulate. I would never have thought of the analogy with the early 40s movies, but it is very appropriate: the emphasis then was less on the effects (naturally) and more on the character development. And the characters themselves wouldn't then be simplified and adapted to the Hollywood ideas of what good and evil should be like. Thank you for the wonderful analysis.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Thank you so much! Really, it will be interesting to see how the movies hold up, because part of thinking about this was me wondering how kids in the future would respond to them. There's plenty in them to appeal to kids, but I wonder if some kid in 2050 seeing them wouldn't be as drawn in as he might be. And it's always interesting to think about any movie in terms of how you feel about it later. There are movies I've loved but don't particularly want to see again and vice versa.

*bows*

[http://users.livejournal.com/_rp_zeal_/]

Now I really want to steal that bowing smiley face up there.

This is one of those posts that I absolutely can't add anything to. SK should read your entry and quit writing rubbish.

Re: *bows*

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Thanks! And to show how brilliant I really am it took me, like, 10 minutes to figure out how SK is.:-/

[(Anonymous)]

Finally! This is a perfect way to make sense of why the movies feel a bit off. They should have been Jennings at Hogwarts, but have turned into Home Alone at Hogwarts. Mike Figgis' "The Browning Version" does humiliation quite nice, btw.

I want the 40ies movie. Howard Hawks can be director if no Brit volunteers ;-)

- Clara


...Michael Redgrave can play Lucius, Basil Rathbone for Snape, Olivier for Lockhart, Margaret Rutherford for Pomphrey or Sprout, Alec Guinness for Lupin, Joan Greenwood for Fleur, Aubrey Mather for Binns, Rex Harrison for Arthur, John Gielgud for Crouch, Vivien Leigh for Lily or Bellatrix, Katherine Hepburn for Narcissa or Petunia, Stanley Holloway for Mundungus, Rosalind Russel for Minerva, James Coburn for Ron, Edith Evers for Gran Longbottom... and strange, plain, serious young/child actors...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Oh, I sooooo want to see this movie now!!

[samaranth.livejournal.com]

Well, that answers the question “Has Magpie seen PoA?” (I had been wondering…)

I’m glad you’re on a writing spree, because it gives us lots of interesting things to think about.

Because it seems like the real dark issues of growing up and human nature are cut out in favor of the more familiar modern platitudes about bigotry, girl power and sharing your feelings.

Yes. Precisely.

I’ll admit I enjoyed the film very much the first time I saw it, because it was all new and exciting, and there were hordes of squealing young ‘uns in the audience all enjoying themselves hugely. I went to see PoA for the second time a week or so back. I enjoyed it then too, but this time I had the chance to dwell on the characters and the treatment of the story more, rather than the visuals. There were 4 major wince points: Harry, after overhearing the conversation in the pub; Draco’s reaction to Hermione’s threat; and Hermione punching Draco; and then stealing Ron’s line. I wasn’t convinced by any of these, in either character or narrative terms. Not necessary, not at all.

I really like the idea of a B&W 40s British B movie version. Clara has some very good ideas for casting, but I’d also suggest David Niven or Robert Donat as potential Lupins. And Wendy Hiller would make a good McGonagall. And George Sanders would make a very nice Lucius Malfoy. IMO. Alec Guiness could play Dumbledore. Perhaps the young Richard Attenborough could play one of the Trio. And John Mills – there’d surely be a role for him. Dirk Bogarde – Draco?

You could assemble the ultimate dream cast, you know.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

Well, that answers the question “Has Magpie seen PoA?” (I had been wondering…)

Hmmm. I had originally explained in there that I still haven't seen it but was sticking with things that I knew for sure about it, that wouldn't change depending on seeing it. So the answer to that question is actually no.:-)

The ultimate dream cast would be fun--David Niven would be such a wonderful Lupin. I can see it now! I'd cast all the kids with unknowns, I think.

But you're so right about those moments that really stick out--like in ROTK the moment that makes me cringe is when Gandalf clocks Denethor with his staff. I looked down in the theater everytime it was coming. It often got laughs, but I still think it ultimately takes a way from the movie.

[samaranth.livejournal.com]

Oops. I must have missed that. Sorry.

On reflection, though – I don’t completely agree with this:

The MWPP friendship is tossed in favor of Remus waxing rhapsodic on Lily Potter, Harry's mother, whom he should be glad to know he is like.

(Now I’m puzzled - should I mark this as a spoiler???)

Lupin does talk with affection about Lily, and also James, (as does Sirius, later on.) But this is in the context of providing Harry with an explanation of how he knows Harry’s parents. And – to me - it didn’t seem incongruous, or over the top for him to say these things. Harry doesn’t know much at all about his parents, to hear about them from someone like Lupin would mean a great deal, I would think. Perhaps I'm overly sentimental too, though - I'd be interested to hear what you think about it when you do see it.

I did miss the direct explanation of MWPP, but the friendship between the four men was referred to in a number of ways. I don't think the film entirely sidestepped them.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I don't think it's strange for Lupin to talk about how he knows Harry's parents, but Klove's idea that Lupin was a little bit in love with Lily (as he's said) doesn't seem necessary. It wouldn't be bad in addition to the other stuff, but to stick that in and forego explaining that MWPP became animagi to be with Werewolf!Remus, thus leading to Prank as well, etc. etc. seems pretty lame to me. The information about his father has a lot more to do with his immediate situation, imo.

More importantly, in relation to the post, is really that it's the change that makes it more significant to me. JKR chooses not to have the Marauders talk about Lily this way for I think the same reason she chooses to play up their relationship. It's just kind of part of the whole mindset of the movie vs. the books to me.

[sarahtales.livejournal.com]

NAKED?!!!!!!!!!!
THOSE SONS OF BITCHES.
RAGE! RAGE BLACKOUT! FIRE KLOVES FIRE HIM OMG PLEASE PLEASE FIRE HIM!
... I think, I think I need to go somewhere quietly and count to a squillion.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

My sentiments exactly.

SONS OF BITCHES!!!

[(Anonymous)]

*seethes not-so-quietly* Draco. Naked. In front of the school. ARGH! God, I hope this doesn't happen. The ferret scene is one of the best Draco moments in the books, and one of the few to alot Draco any sort of courage or resilence at all.

I've been irritated in general at some of the changes made in the movies, for exactly the reasons you mentioned. I did love the "slumber party" scene in PoA, but beyond that the characters do seem to be forcibly morphed into charicatures from dumber teen entertainment, and no one has born the brunt of this so heavily as Draco. In the books, there is a menace to him. He can be, if not a real threat, at least a real nusance. He's not even that in the movies. He's a running joke with no point, and it's outrageous to me that JKR has allowed it.

On a lighter note, I surfed over to Tom Felton's blog and saw the funniest picture. It's of him during the filming of Anna and the King. He's got clips in his hair and is reading a book, which looks nearly as big as him, titled 'The Art of Getting Even'. Maybe he's really a Slytherin after all...

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

OMG that was the funniest picture ever--he looked more like Draco there than he probably has in all of the movies!

And it's true I don't really understand why they do what they do to Draco in the movies. He doesn't seem to be a character so much as a joke. It's not that I mind him being comic ever because sometimes he is but he is supposed to be another student in the class who should be as believeable as any other. It makes me wonder what exactly his role in the books is supposed to be if these kinds of changes aren't a problem. I mean, if Harry was made to look ridiculous this way I assume JKR would object not just because she likes Harry but because it ruins the story. There's only so far you can spoof up the characters before nothing matters anymore.

I think the movies are probably relying *a lot* on the books to be as successful as they are. Had they just come out on their own as they are, with no pre-existing reason to see them, I get the feeling people might have just thought they had some good ideas but it was a shame the story didn't measure up to them.

[shadiness.livejournal.com]

I think it would be very interesting if someone sent the HP screenwriters/directors/etc. a link to a thread such as this. Though I'm sure they receive plenty of individual pleas and complaints about their work, especially one with as much hype and love as HP, an actual discussion by numerous fans of both the books and movies could make known a point of view that they had previously cast aside. Hmm... I shouldn't say 'cast aside.' Either way, the point may be better conveyed in a setting like this.

[sistermagpie.livejournal.com]

I think so too--I knew someone who was working for the publisher who was doing movie tie-in books for a big movie and I know she monitored sites. Peter Jackson was known to as well, I think. I know it's hard for them because of course they do just get a lot of individual wish-lists and fans don't always understand what goes into making a movie etc. But at the same time there's a lot of very good discussions that could really be helpful. A lot of fans, because they've spent time analyzing the text, really can articulate good reasons why things are the way they are!

[roisindubh211.livejournal.com]

hmmm. we didn't get 'naked draco" in movie four, but he did get stuffed down crabbe's trousers, which might just be worse