Mourning what we lost with the last film

Okay, so I watched The Deathly Hallows, Part 2 again yesterday on Blu Ray. This is the first time I've had the chance to watch it alone, in the privacy of my own den, without interruption or disruption.

I could watch every scene carefully, appreciate the nuances of the performances, the majesty of the sets and costumes, the rhythm of the editing.

What I still could not appreciate was what these filmmakers did to my beloved novel. They butchered it. They made the egregious assumption that they knew better than J.K. Rowling how to craft the end to her fantastic story.

I know. I know. You've read this all before. But it strikes me harder and harder each time I watch that last film.

And the thing that started to seep into my anger as I watched that ridiculous last battle was a deep sadness.

For all their flaws, the first seven movies were enjoyable adaptations of the Harry Potter world. Though not always faithful to the source, they at least provided us with a vision of Rowling's world and characters brought to life.

And Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint have come to inhabit our conceptions of the Hero Trio, no matter how we've tried to fight it.

So my sadness, I think, comes from the fact that this abomination of an eighth film cannot be made again. It will not be made again. We will never have the chance to see all of these actors inhabit these roles and do them well.

No one is going to go back any time soon and say, "Well, they messed that up pretty badly. Let's go back and do it right."

So I will never see some of the great scenes from the seventh book brought to life on the screen by these actors:
- I will never see Chris Rankin as Percy Weasley topple out into the Room of Requirement from the passage linking the Hogshead with Hogwarts, right into his gathered family to deliver his fumbling apology and be welcomed back into the brotherhood;
- I will never see Grint as Ron express his concern for the wellbeing of the Hogwarts House Elves as the battle is set to begin and, therefore, earn his first true embrace from Watson as Hermione;
- I will never hear Simon McBurney exclaim, as the form of Kreacher bursts from the Hogwarts kitchens to enter the fray, "Fight! Fight! Fight for my master..."
- I will never see the tide in the battle turn when the Centaurs and the rest of the wizarding world enters the fight as Robbie Coltrane as Hagrid holds Harry's apparently dead body;
- I will never get the chance to watch and listen as Radcliffe (as Harry) and Ralph Fiennes (as Voldemort) circle each other carefully, with Harry explaining to his arch enemy (and the gathered crowd), why the Elder Wand will never properly work for Voldemort and how Snape had fooled him for so long; and, worst of all,
- I will never get the chance to see that final moment when Voldemort's curse rebounds on himself and, as Rowling writes, "Tom Riddle hit the floor with a mundane finality, his body feeble and shrunken, the white hands empty, the snake-like face vacant and unknowing."

I feel sadness because, in choosing their own ideas over J.K's, in substituting their sense of drama for hers, the filmmakers have wasted this one golden opportunity to do it right, to capture the beauty of Rowling's final novel on film.

Getting to know the Dark Lord

Ever since my online conversation with Anonymous, I've been thinking a lot about Voldemort, his life and his portrayal in both the books and movies in the Harry Potter series.

Just yesterday, I was reading the last part of Harry Potter et La Chambre des Secrets (the French translation of Rowling's second novel) and reviewed, once again, our first meeting with Tom Riddle, the Dark Lord's youthful self. What an interesting presentation that was!

Voldemort's shadow hangs over the early novels, even though his appearances in these books are brief. In The Philosopher's Stone, Harry learns of Voldemort at first from Hagrid and it is Hagrid's fearful, halting explanations of who the Dark Lord is and what he had done to Harry's parents that set the tone for Voldemort's influence on the rest of the series of books.

In the movie version of that first novel, Robbie Coltrane does a great job of capturing the fear and paranoia that continues to grip the magical world, even though ten years have passed since Voldemort disappeared. I am particularly fond of the way Coltrane spits out the word "Codswallop" in that scene. He's just so vehement about it: "Some people say he's dead. Codswallop, I say."

We catch our first glimpse of Voldemort at the end of that first book, a shrivelled face that emerges from the back of Quirrell's head in the final battle over the fabled Stone. But it is only when Harry plunges into the diary in The Chamber of Secrets that J.K. begins the wonderful process of serving up, in tantalising pieces, the story of Voldemort's younger years. The scene in the Chamber provides even more of these morsels.

The Tom Riddle of the second novel is a handsome, well-spoken, seemingly quiet young man. We learn he is an orphan, with a Muggle father and a magical mother, that he desperately hopes to escape the orphanage and that he is a remarkably brilliant student. We also learn that he is a Parselmouth and, oh yes, that he is the direct descendant of Salazar Slytherin, one of the four founders of the Hogwarts School.

This all seems very positive, especially if you can see the Slytherin relationship as merely a sign that Riddle is related to magical royalty rather than a sign that he is associated with a Muggle-hating bigot.

But then we meet the memory of Riddle in the Chamber. This Riddle is portrayed as self-centred, vindictive and judgmental. He brags about his ability to charm people in order to get his way. For the first time, we see his willingness to see others as pawns in his game, as tools to be used and cast aside. His ridicule of the 11-year-old Ginny Weasley for the childishness and banality of her diary entries, for her little girl hopes and fears, confirm him as a hateful, spiteful individual and his complete lack of concern or empathy over her impending death is a telling foreshadowing of his future behaviour.

We also get a glimpse of two weaknesses in Riddle that would continue to plague Voldemort in his adult life. The first is his fear of Dumbledore. Already as a 16 year old, Riddle struggles with the power Dumbledore seems to have over him, with his frustration over his inability to charm the brilliant wizard, to blind Dumbledore to his evil intentions. Even as he brags that Dumbledore was chased from Hogwarts by the mere memory of Voldemort, Riddle reveals his own inability to deal with Dumbledore's unique ability to stand up to him.

The second weakness we encounter is Voldemort's underestimation of the power of things that do not interest him or that he does not understand. It never occurred to Riddle that Lily Potter's decision to sacrifice herself out of love for her son would provide Harry with the protection he needed to survive Voldemort's attack. And when Harry points this fact out, Riddle both recognises and dismisses it, seeing it only as evidence that Harry alone could not have withstood him.

When Fawkes, the Phoenix, arrives to help Harry, bringing with him the Sorting Hat, Riddle mocks Harry and Dumbledore relentlessly. A song bird and a moth-eaten hat, he laughs. This is the help the great Dumbledore sends you? Even as a 16-year-old, Riddle understands only certain types of power, only certain kinds of magic. And he pays for it. The hat provides Harry with the Sword of Gryffindor, the weapon he needs to kill the Basilisk. Meanwhile, Fawkes proves invaluable, first blinding the great snake and then saving Harry from the Basilisk's venom with his healing tears.

We can't forget that one of Voldemort's greatest flaws is his inability to recognise power in forms he cannot or refuses to understand. He is all but destroyed by the power of Lily's love and sacrifice for Harry. He underestimates the power of house elves, never considering that an elf like Kreacher could infiltrate the cave and escape with the locket Horcrux. He dismisses the possibility that Snape's love for Lily Potter might be so strong that Snape would spend much of his adult life working to bring about the defeat of Lily's murderer.

That's a great deal of information to pack into what is, in fact, a relatively short scene in the second novel. It speaks volumes for J.K.'s abilities as a story teller but does it undermine Anonymous' criticism that Voldemort is flat and one-dimensional throughout the books?

I have to admit that I'm not sure it does. I may have to accept that Anonymous is right but credit Rowling with intentionally creating a single-minded, one-dimensionally evil character and leave it at that.

What are your thoughts?

In defence of our hero trio's performances in early films

I'm sitting at home, not feeling well, watching the Harry Potter movies through from the beginning. It's not just fun: it's also educational.

I have just finished watching The Philosopher's Stone and now have The Chamber of Secrets in the Blu Ray player.

And I'm checking out the acting. Several people have said to me recently that they feel the acting of the three young stars in the early movies is really bad.

From what I can tell (not having studied their acting careers), Harry Potter and the Philospher's Stone represented the first real movie roles for Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint. They were all around 11 years old at the time so that's not really surprising.

Are they bad in this movie? I'm not so sure. First, it is their first real acting experience. Second, they were acting in a huge-budget film, for which expectations were extremely high. Third, they were acting alongside some of the greatest actors and actresses of their age, beside whom they couldn't help but come across poorly.

But those simple answers are not, I think, the only reasons. Think about it. You're 11, you're in your first major role and you have to do much of your acting in front of green screens, imagining the scenes and magical characters that will be created by computer graphic imagery later.

That's not easy for anyone, even the most experienced of actors.

On top of that, if you watch the performances of people like Robbie Coltrane, Maggie Smith, Richard Harris and Alan Rickman in that first film (consummate actors all), you'll notice that even they are hamming things up a bit.

This first film was made specifically for children. Most movies aimed at a younger audiences involve broader acting performances, over-emphasized voices and movements, and all that. It's a regular part of these films.

If you were to compare the performances of Coltrane, Smith and Rickman in the last couple of movies with their performances in the first film, you'd probably see a significant difference. As the target audiences of the films matured, so did the performances of all the actors, not just the youngsters.

The later films were made for adults, so the performances were quieter, more subtle, more realistic than those in the earlier entries in the series.

I'm not saying Radcliffe, Watson, Grint and the other "first years" are deserving of acting awards for their work in The Philosopher's Stone. I'm just saying that, for a variety of reasons, I don't think we should judge them too harshly.