by Stanley Anderson » November 29th, 2007, 6:31 pm
We'll see what they actually do in the movie (I'm not too hopeful from past experience, I must admit), but what you describe sounds right in line with exactly the sort of very modern "internalizing" and emotional and psychological "realism" that they attempted in the first movie with the missing-father business with Edmund, and Peter's over-the-top lording it over Edmund (amongst several other examples).
This is a choice that the director can choose to take, and it is a direction that certainly works well for many types of films. But it is not the only direction that could be taken. And as I have mentioned in other threads about the LWW movie, it is a definite and intentional departure from the more "mythical" and archtypal (and more "innocent" if you will) style of the books. And such an approach is what leads, for example, to a viewer's somewhat uncomfortable initial feeling about seeing the adult faun asking the young girl to his apartmen--er, dwelling, don't you know.
This was a sense, by the way, that was entirely absent in the book because of the way it was written. The movie chose not to do it that way, and the way the movie chose might have its advantages, but the director needs to realize that his method can also carry other perhaps unintended baggage. And so other things like the potential flirting described for the PC movie -- depending on how it is done of course -- though it may have its benefits for the film (I have my doubts), may also introduce uncomfortable subtle sexual themes into an otherwise "clean" adventure story for children. Lots of things like this are potential side effects with such an approach.
(And please, before someone makes the tired claim about the "necessary" differences between film and written word, what I am talking about is not a limitation of film, but a definite choice by the director on how to approach the filming -- a different approach more like the book could easily be made without detracting from film quality. I can name lots of counterexamples)
Again, I don't know what they'll actually end up doing (I hope for the best but expect it will be the typical blandifications), but as I said above, the descriptions so far seem quite consistent and cut from the same piece of cloth that the first movie was, so it wouldn't surprise me.
--Stanley
…on a night of rain Frodo smelled a sweet fragrance on the air and heard the sound of singing that came over the water. And then it seemed to him that as in his dream in the house of Bombadil, the grey rain-curtain turned all to silver glass and was rolled back, and he beheld white shores and beyond them a fair green country under a swift sunrise.