the Harry post
Friday, November 16th, 2001 04:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lapis_lazuli022I suppose I should probably write something about my reactions to the film, since I was so excited about going to see it. :)
If what you want is to see the book acted out before your eyes, you will love this movie. It's a loyal fan's film -- impressively true to the book.
The casting and the sets are perfect - they're exactly what I envisioned when I read it. I thought the effects were understated and mostly well-blended into the live action, and the music (though I have a history of disdain for John Williams soundtracks in general) was also well-matched to the action and never got too obvious or distracting.
But... there's a "but".
Precisely because it sticks so closely to the book, it ends up being a little awkward. There is so much to put in the film that sometimes you really notice that bits have been crammed into every spare moment of the two and a half hours. It doesn't move as smoothly as it should because it's weighted down with all this *stuff*, all these tiny details, that are either essential to the plot or will be essential to the plot of future installments (though you don't know it yet). (Remember how such throw-aways as the comments from the wand shop owner about the contents of Harry's wand, or Ron's rat Scabbers, or Nearly Headless Nick (I honestly expected more from John Cleese's cameo) become important later on?) As you're watching, though, it just feels like a million bits and pieces were stuck in because someone thought the audience would want to see them.
Also, as this morning's New York Times reviewer pointed out, just as nothing was taken away (a few things were abridged, but all the key elements remained), nothing new was added.
"The filmmakers, the producers and the studio seem panicked by anything that might feel like a departure from the book -- which already feels film-ready -- so "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" never takes on a life of its own."
It contains no voiceovers, or non-book conversations, or expository scenes, any of which could have been used to smooth things out and replace a few choppy little vignettes. The NYT reviewer points to an example of the timidity of the film: it's "so careful that even the tape wrapped around the bridge of Harry's glasses seems to have come out of the set design. (It never occurred to anyone to show him taping the frame together.)"
Fair observations.
If you want it to be a derivative work of cinema, it will not necessarily impress. It's very visual, but doesn't have much depth, precisely because it is so careful not to go beyond what J.K. Rowling had printed on the pages of the book.
If you take it at face value, though, as an exact movie rendering of the book, it will meet and surpass your expectations. You will see all the characters come to life and play out their story before your eyes, with bright colours and vivid sounds. If this was the goal of the filmmakers, then I think they succeeded admirably.
If what you want is to see the book acted out before your eyes, you will love this movie. It's a loyal fan's film -- impressively true to the book.
The casting and the sets are perfect - they're exactly what I envisioned when I read it. I thought the effects were understated and mostly well-blended into the live action, and the music (though I have a history of disdain for John Williams soundtracks in general) was also well-matched to the action and never got too obvious or distracting.
But... there's a "but".
Precisely because it sticks so closely to the book, it ends up being a little awkward. There is so much to put in the film that sometimes you really notice that bits have been crammed into every spare moment of the two and a half hours. It doesn't move as smoothly as it should because it's weighted down with all this *stuff*, all these tiny details, that are either essential to the plot or will be essential to the plot of future installments (though you don't know it yet). (Remember how such throw-aways as the comments from the wand shop owner about the contents of Harry's wand, or Ron's rat Scabbers, or Nearly Headless Nick (I honestly expected more from John Cleese's cameo) become important later on?) As you're watching, though, it just feels like a million bits and pieces were stuck in because someone thought the audience would want to see them.
Also, as this morning's New York Times reviewer pointed out, just as nothing was taken away (a few things were abridged, but all the key elements remained), nothing new was added.
"The filmmakers, the producers and the studio seem panicked by anything that might feel like a departure from the book -- which already feels film-ready -- so "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" never takes on a life of its own."
It contains no voiceovers, or non-book conversations, or expository scenes, any of which could have been used to smooth things out and replace a few choppy little vignettes. The NYT reviewer points to an example of the timidity of the film: it's "so careful that even the tape wrapped around the bridge of Harry's glasses seems to have come out of the set design. (It never occurred to anyone to show him taping the frame together.)"
Fair observations.
If you want it to be a derivative work of cinema, it will not necessarily impress. It's very visual, but doesn't have much depth, precisely because it is so careful not to go beyond what J.K. Rowling had printed on the pages of the book.
If you take it at face value, though, as an exact movie rendering of the book, it will meet and surpass your expectations. You will see all the characters come to life and play out their story before your eyes, with bright colours and vivid sounds. If this was the goal of the filmmakers, then I think they succeeded admirably.
