I've always been interested in the difference between literature and film as narrative forms. In fact, I wrote my Masters dissertation on how his work as a screenwriter in the 1930s impacted F. Scott Fitzgerald's approach to his novels.
So it should come as no surprise that I find myself comparing how J.K. Rowling told the Harry Potter stories in her books to how the same stories were re-told by the movie makers.
I'm interested in how the medium impacts the manner in which the story is told but I'm also interested in how the narrative decisions made by the story tellers, as affected by the medium, impact how we understand the characters and the events they encounter.
That's a really high-falutin' way of saying I saw something interesting when I re-read The Order of the Phoenix recently, an interesting difference between how a particular scene takes place in the book versus how it was later presented in the film.
Remember the scene where Harry is taking Occlumency lessons in Snape's office and ends up inside Snape's own memories?
It's a neat scene and very important both to our understanding of Snape and to our understanding of Harry himself and his relationship with his father.
But there's a really interesting difference between what Rowling wrote and what ended up in the film.
In J.K.'s version, Harry chooses to invade Snape's memories, memories which the Potions master had very carefully attempted to safeguard by placing them in Dumbledore's pensieve before beginning the lesson. It is very clear in the book that Harry is in the wrong when he decides, while Snape is temporarily absent from the room, to dive into the memories Snape has so carefully set aside.
In the movie version, on the other hand, Harry's invasion of Snape's memory occurs by accident. When Harry attempts to defend himself from Snape's assault, Harry is somehow propelled into Snape's mind.
I can understand why the filmmakers decided to simplify the whole process. It would have taken a great deal of screen time to show Snape using the pensieve, to set up the reason for Snape's absence and then to explain that Snape has returned. As they so often do, the filmmakers identified what was truly important to the plot (Harry entering Snape's memory) and tried to figure out the simplest, fastest way to include that event in the film.
But the decision has a an impact and, I would argue, plays into a much larger ongoing campaign the filmmakers were on: their effort to show Harry as much more of a hero than he comes across in the books.
Rowling wants us to see that Harry is a a real, flawed human being, subject to the same kinds of unkind, inappropriate temptations as the rest of us. Harry sees Snape's memories swirling in the pensieve, realises he has some time and succumbs to the temptation to snoop.
And maybe, as Snape's memory of being bullied by James Potter and Sirius Black shows him a side of his father Harry doesn't really like, Harry also starts to recognise that he, himself, can behave poorly, can treat others badly.
In the film version, however, Harry's invasion of Snape's memories is purely accidental. Harry experiences something he shouldn't but through no fault, no choice of his own. Snape's fury at him thereafter is unfair and we come away from the incident feeling that, while James Potter might have been a bully, Snape too behaves inappropriately in shouting at Harry.
Nothing in the way the incident takes place in the film makes us question Harry's virtue.
And that ties in well with the way Harry is portrayed in the rest of the films: as the pure, virtuous loner with no flaws, as the all-American kid, as the hero with a capital "H".
I like Rowling's Harry much better. He's human and that makes his willingness to sacrifice himself so much the more interesting and valuable.
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