Re: Goblet Movie Reviews, please...

In message
<news:1133303541.778994.110060@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
"ashy0802" <ashy0802@xxxxxxxxx> enriched us with:
>
[...]
> but would anyone like to submit their own review?

<snip>

I'll have a go at it ;-)


Watching a film based on a book that you love and know well is always
going to be difficult; on one hand you desperately wish to see your
vision come alive, but on the other hand you know that so much will
have to be changed with the change of medium that you're likely to
hate what they've done with the story. I do love the book, /Harry
Potter and the Goblet of Fire/, and I know it quite well, and it is
impossible for me to review the film adaptation as a film, when it
is, to me, first and foremost, an adapation. I will, therefore, not
bother about photography, light, score, acting, directing etc. but
simply look at the film as an adaptation.

As for many other book-fans, it was with mixed feelings that I
watched as the curtain open to the fourth instalment of the Harry
Potter cinematographic story, /Harry Potter and Goblet of Fire/, the
film.

The film stands out for me as the best of the series so far.

The first two films, both directed by Chris Columbus, suffered, in my
opinion, from trying to copy the book too literally onto the silver
screen, thereby losing the opportunity to add to the story the
qualities that are unique to the film medium, while at the same time
failing to leave out matter that worked well in the book, but didn't
work on film.

The third episode, directed by Alfonso Cuarón, went too far in the
other direction -- in the eagerness to port the story from one medium
to the other, and to actually create a film that works as a film, the
third film moved too far from the book, and essential thematic
content was lost.

This time, with the fourth film, a good balance was achieved. The
book, while far longer than any of the three earlier books, contained
many sub-plots and side-plots of little or no importance to the main
story, and which, in the book, serves to investigate the thematic
content in greater depth than is desirable in a film. The film
succeeds in focusing on the main story-line, which is told with an
eye to the medium, and which, despite the merciless slaughter on the
side-plots, has seen fewer actual changes than the main story of
/Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban.

For me it is also of major importance that I feel that the main parts
of the thematic content are carried over from the book to the film.

The book deals with difficult themes such as life and death in
introducing not only the unforgivable killing curse and its use to
kill a school mate of Harry, but also in the re-embodiment of evil
Lord Voldemort and the appearance of 'echoes' of the last several
persons killed with Lord Voldemort's wand, including Harry's parents.
These key elements in the characters' encounter with death and
horrible brutality (symbolised by curses for torturing others and for
exerting complete mental control over them) are carried over from
book to film, raising a number of the same reflections by watching
the film and reading the book.

Another theme that is given a renewed focus in this story is the
bigotry that is one of the key motivating factors behind Lord
Voldemort's success. In the film this is subtly handled by the
reactions of the Hogwarts students to the alien students from
Durmstrang and Beauxbatons and to their headmasters, but also in the
derogatory way in which the re-embodied Lord Voldemort speaks of
Harry's mother, whose parents were non-magical.

There is also time in the film to show the development of the
characters (with the main emphasis on Harry), and in particular their
awakening interest in the whole boy/girl 'thing'. This is done in the
film with the same affectionate humour as in the book, and many of
the good laughs in this film arose from the all too recognisable
awkwardness of the adolescent boy . . .

Only time will tell if any of the cut parts of the story will prove
important -- little things such as the fact that Harry's and
Voldemort's wands connected because the core of both is a tail
feather from Dumbledore's phoenix. So far, however (i.e. including
the penultimate book of the saga), the cut parts have not proved so
important that the later plot will become incomprehensible without
them.

--
Troels Forchhammer
Valid e-mail is <t.forch(a)email.dk>

People die, but do you care when they die? Do you
absolutely have a sense of how evil it is to take another
person's life? Yes, I think in my book you do.
- J.K. Rowling, CBCNewsWorld: Hot Type, 13 July, 2000
.

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