Week With a Wizard, Day 6: Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

[Re-posted from The House Next Door.]

In my previous essay, I noted that Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix was the first work to recognize the limitations that come with functioning as part of a larger mosaic. It provided fewer restatements of common themes and less background for its developments. The irony is that while Phoenix more heavily depended on a keen familiarity with its predecessors, the considerably richer and challenging visual language elevated it to become a distinctive vision unto itself. Its successor, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (2009), furthers this progression in a different fashion. The novel’s central plot device involving Harry’s discovery of an old book belonging to “The Half-Blood Prince,” from which he learns mysterious new spells, is barely a footnote here. However, that the film’s title is rather inconsequential turns out to be a major asset, as director David Yates shirks narrative unity and instead concentrates intensely on the feelings of pain, guilt, and anxiety that underlie the proceedings.

Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) and Dumbledore’s (Michael Gambon) relationship provides the emotional core of the film. Together they seek to understand Voldemort’s power by investigating Dumbledore’s memories of the Dark Lord from when he was a student at Hogwarts. These memories are held in small vials, which, when poured into the Pensieve, enable one to live them out. The visualization of these memories is composed of several conventions of the movie dream sequence, including distorted sound and washed-out colors. Although the memories themselves are not exceptional, the film on the whole has an inimitable dreamlike characteristic. Many scenes and images unfold with little attention toward logical progression. Yates’ assured and sensory aesthetic sets the film apart from previous installments, even his own predecessor. The director revels in the dimensionality of cinematic space, weaving through tighter and more vertical alleyways (such as in Diagon Alley) and around staircases and hallways in Hogwarts. Angles are pronounced, movements are slow, and distances have depth and focus. Bruno Delbonnel’s darker and earthier photography suggests a more human focus and a moody atmosphere, and composer Nicholas Hooper’s score is restrained and (perhaps in a nod to John Williams’ music for the third film) often accentuates a single instrument with a light sound that fills the image.

The opening sequence is a primer for the ethereal ambience of the film and introduces an effective recurring motif. It shows Harry swooned by cameras but numb to their flashing bulbs and screaming operators. He has just lost his godfather and Voldemort’s return now weighs on him considerably. But everything drowns out when Dumbledore—standing next to Harry and perhaps understanding the incredible burden Harry must now bear—extends his arm around Harry to shield him from the scrutiny. The scene is without dialogue and gradually whittles its focus down to Dumbledore’s paternal grasp of Harry’s arm. Throughout the film Yates uses hands to emphasize the transference of emotion, pain, and burdens from person to person. Often there is a tender quality to these instances, such as when the flighty Professor Slughorn, played with ingenious charm by Jim Broadbent, finally submits to Harry’s pressure to give over the memory of a critical encounter of his with a young Tom Riddle (aka Voldemort). For much of the film, Harry has pursued the memory knowing that it contained essential information about Voldemort, but Slughorn has resisted because, as he says, it would ruin him. After quietly recounting his bittersweet memory of Harry’s mother, Slughorn shakily holds out a vial into which to “drop” the memory. Harry’s hand then enters the frame opposite Slughorn’s and clasps his hand, holding the vial steady as the memory is poured in; a simple composition, but potent.

Quiet transactions such the one I’ve just described are a trademark of Half-Blood Prince, which is singularly focused on the difficulties of accepting the pains of both the past and the future. While Slughorn is dogged by past mistakes, Draco Malfoy (Harry’s rival, played by Tom Felton) is burdened by actions he has yet to commit. Malfoy broods for much of the film, isolated from many of his fellow sixth-year students who are more often concerned with love charms. Yates’ observances of Malfoy’s damaged emotional state contrasted with the sexual discoveries of the other students are especially poignant, as suggested by a single composition from outside of the castle glimpsing the various night encounters of the students. We see a party in the Gryffindor house before winding up a stairwell as Ron and his new liaison share an embrace, and then finally we are taken past the school observation tower where, across the way, Malfoy is ominously postured.

Half-Blood Prince is significantly more preoccupied with pain and anxiety than previous outings, but its expressive palate encompasses other feelings as well. These include a passionate encounter Harry enjoys with Ginny Weasley (Bonnie Wright), in which, again, hands play a crucial role, and a most surprising scene late in the film that teeters on a kind of ecstasy, after Harry drinks the luck potion and enters a joyously intoxicated state. The film also ventures into dark territory when Harry casts a spell on Malfoy during a duel they share in one of the bathrooms. In what can only be described as the most ethereal scene in all of the Potter lore, Harry approaches a twitching and surely dying Malfoy, as blood rushes from his many wounds. When Snape arrives on the scene he stands over Malfoy, enshrouded in haze, and, in a protracted shot, stares at a speechless Harry to haunting effect.

The wide range of emotional states reflected in the various transactions between characters may appear aimless in the specific context of this film. However, Yates is intuitive to know that Half-Blood Prince, situated at the end of a long series, must accomplish things both on its own as well as in relation to established characters and themes. With this film he explores the deep undercurrents of many of the relationships that have developed over the years. Wisely, Yates keeps the focus off of the relationship of Ron, Hermione (Emma Watson) and Harry, aware that the next installment would grant him that opportunity. This film belongs to Dumbledore. While Michael Gambon gave the character a presence previously, here he allows us to peer into his soul. Dumbledore is more softly spoken and contemplative this time around. We are unsure throughout of how strongly the character is resigned to his eventual fate. Nevertheless, his desire to protect and guide Harry is subtly offset by what appears to be his acknowledgement that Harry will need to go on without him.

The closing scenes galvanize the many emotional threads that have been building over the course of the movie, beginning with a chilling scene set within a cave. While the zombie-like creatures that eventually threaten Harry are memorable indeed, Gambon’s portrayal of an increasingly feeble old man is piercing. A few moments later, when Harry and Dumbledore return to Hogwarts, time seems to stop altogether as Harry witnesses the death of a beloved mentor and father figure. The film’s depiction of this crucial moment is worth noting for its departures from the novel, much to the chagrin of many viewers. In Rowling’s version, Harry is immobilized and physically unable to stop the events, but in the movie he watches from below after Dumbledore instructs him to stay there. It’s a wonder that the filmmakers opted for a different path here since there appears to be no convincing reason for it, other than the heightened sense of discomfort of seeing the events occur from Harry’s perspective below Dumbledore. It is a representation of the scene’s generally off-kilter sense of space. Unlike in the book, the observation tower here is a closed and confusing area, adding another tantalizing element to an already tense scene.

After a failed pursuit of Dumbledore’s killer, Harry returns to the courtyard for his final encounter with the headmaster. The hands motif is again restated here, bookending the opening sequence with Harry’s hands clutching Dumbledore’s lifeless body. It is one of the few moments of the film in which emotion is on full display as opposed to simmering beneath the surface.

On the whole, I better understand now why Half-Blood Prince is such a divisive film in the series. Its sacrifice of narrative cohesion in favor of pushing aesthetic and expressive boundaries has rubbed some fans the wrong way. And given that fans constitute a majority of viewers, the film’s reputation has suffered. On a personal note, this represents the only chapter of the series that came across to me as a very different movie upon revisiting it. After my first viewing, I was ambivalent. I did not anticipate the slower rhythms, especially after such a fast-moving and exhilarating fifth film. This may speak to the nature of a serial saga such as the Harry Potter movies, in which expectations likely play a greater role in how we make something of a given film. With my recent viewing, I was more taken with the movie's bared expressiveness and ambition. It somewhat made me mourn the fact that this series is trapped within a serial mold, both commercially and narratively. Within this mold, however, Yates stretches the artful and affective scope to a new threshold with Half-Blood Prince.

Week With a Wizard, Day 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

[Re-posted from The House Next Door.]

A glimpse at Platform 9¾ in the first Harry Potter film reveals a colorful, lively place where first-year students board the Hogwarts Express on their way to school. Jump ahead a few years, and it is the sight of one the many nightmarish visions of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (2007). In what initially appears to be an ordinary transitional scene, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) walks across the platform and sees a motionless figure in the distance amid the smoke and activity. As he moves closer, the figure emerges from obscurity as an expressionless Voldemort (Ralph Fiennes), dressed in dark slacks and shirt as opposed to the cloak he donned in the previous film. The “Is it real or not?” question barely registers before we're already on to the next scene aboard the train. The image is fast, but it lingers long afterwards and it recapitulates the film rather well.

Bereft of the childlike wonderment that marked previous entries, Order of the Phoenix is fixated on fear, power, and corruption. Visually and tonally, it is a close cousin to the third installment, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban. But unlike that film, Order of the Phoenix externalizes its thematic and emotional overtones and is less focused on Harry himself. This may seem an odd ploy, considering that of all of J.K. Rowling’s novels, Order of the Phoenix is perhaps most fixated on Harry’s complicated emotional state. His anger and frustration are at times suggested here, but the film is more effective when it is wading deep into the political underpinnings of the magical world. It reveals an ineffectual government whose corruption is increasingly pronounced and exploited in the wake of Lord Voldemort’s return. Stark images inspired by the Third Reich abound, most notably represented by a giant banner of the Minister of Magic holding his chin high and gazing toward the beyond.

Order of the Phoenix is split into two thematic sections. The first of these is a despairing depiction of how a corrupt government willfully denies self-evident truths and manipulates its citizens’ grasp of the world. Director David Yates never quite spells out whether the Ministry of Magic is already under the influence of Voldemort or whether its denials are made out of blind fear, but this uncertainty works to the film’s benefit. The Ministry of Magic uses Harry and Hogwarts School as emblems of unwieldy methods and progressive ideals that represent a threat to its paternalistic institution. Neither Harry nor Dumbledore is to be trusted, according to the Ministry. As a result Harry feels more isolated, as he is still haunted by his encounter with Voldemort (in the last film) and fears another eventual confrontation.

The other major thematic thread represents Harry’s acknowledgment of fellow friends and students who want to assist in the fight against Voldemort. Their resistance is in direct response to the Ministry’s stooge at Hogwarts, Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton), whose affinity for the color pink and chirpy laughter conceal torturous methods of discipline and an 'iron fist' approach to school affairs. In portraying the children’s rebellion, Yates manages to lighten the proceedings somewhat to focus on the friendship of children who collectively decide to confront the threatened reality they live in and step into bigger shoes. The newest member of the young cast of characters, Luna Lovegood (Evanna Lynch), brings a much-needed weirdness to group of friends and quickly becomes one of the memorable additions to the later films. Harry also strengthens his ties with mature wizards away from school. Radcliffe’s scenes with Gary Oldman (as Harry's godfather Sirius Black) treat the dialogue with delicacy and signify a calmer, quieter approach to dramatic energy than that of Mike Newell in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire.

Given the disparate threads to explore, in addition to handling numerous character introductions and re-introductions, Yates attempts to expedite the plot through use of newspaper headlines and extensive montages that supply pertinent story information. Along the way, many of series regulars slip into the background. These include Snape (the always-perfect Alan Rickman), Hagrid (Robbie Coltrane), Lupin (David Thewlis), and even Dumbledore (Michael Gambon). This is an unfortunate side effect of a story that must move at a quickened pace to get where it’s going. Nonetheless, despite the fluxes in tone and the screenplay’s long checklist, the film doesn't feel patched together or rushed. That’s because Order of the Phoenix is the first film in the franchise that requires its viewers to have a fairly deep knowledge of the previous films/books. This may account for why the movie seems to be so full of detail and yet unfold with such swiftness. Yet this adds another wrinkle: Despite its deft exploration of fear and companionship, Order of the Phoenix demands more than just its own images and plot developments to attain full effect.

Perhaps Yates recognized that, at this point in the series, addressing the full-scale detail and themes of the story at large would not be feasible, particularly since the screenplay covers so much ground already. He therefore sets a few threads aside—such as sexual discovery and the sad state of many of the characters—and by turn crafts a film that operates nimbly and with a direct, but nuanced thematic center. It doesn’t have the same emotional punch as the climax of Goblet of Fire, but it achieves a more consistent tone that I found more satisfying. Yates employs a more sophisticated visual language that is especially palpable during the final duel between Voldemort and Dumbledore and its immediate aftermath. Blending horror tropes with a quick-cut music video aesthetic, these scenes organize the numerous visual and thematic shades into an evocative collection of sights and sounds. As with most of the other sequences, these moments are transient on screen but the images are lasting. In retrospect, these stylistic flourishes laid atop the political intrigue and an anti-establishment banding together of friends help to fashion a more concise and lucid experience than most other entries in the series.

Week With a Wizard, Day 4: Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

[Re-posted from The House Next Door.]

As the middle entry in the book series, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire occupies a curious position. Much of its story is inconsequential, yet it contains sequences of wide-spanning significance that vaunt the tale into new and darker depths. This posed some challenges for the film adaptation, which needed to serve as a gateway to the later installments' more serious storytelling. Additionally, it also had to deal with how to maintain interest in a set of characters who are so established that they may begin to grow stale. Even though the third film, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, breathed much-needed life into the series, the dramatic tonal and aesthetic changes it brought about required that each successive film provided a distinct enough vision while remaining consistent with the tropes and styles already established. This struggle is evident in the otherwise ambitious and swift version of Goblet of Fire (2005), which signals a change in storytelling rhythm right at the start.

The movie opens with a long, winding shot of a snake slinking in-between tall grass and tombstones and into a dark mansion to meet a shadowy figure assumed to be a still-weakened Voldemort. This is eventually revealed to be a recurring nightmare for Harry (Daniel Radcliffe), who we rejoin after he's already escaped from the Dursleys. Harry and company set forth to the Quidditch World Cup, a wizard sporting event set among the English countryside where Muggles are ignorant to a towering stadium. These early passages are dense with activity and are frenetically paced, which is a welcome change after three films that take their time to unfold. Perhaps the reason for such rapidity is that the film condenses nearly 150 pages of Rowling’s long text into so little screen time. Working with a novel of roughly 800 pages, screenwriter Steve Kloves can no longer afford to slightly abbreviate the text. This turns out to be an asset to the later films, which are adapted from longer, more intricate novels and tend to find their own beats and rhythms.

These early scenes set the stage for sport and competition to feature prominently. Upon arrival at Hogwarts, the children learn that the school will host the Tri-Wizard tournament, an Olympics-like competition in which students from international schools of wizardry and witchcraft compete for one trophy. As a vehicle to move the plot forward, the tournament provides a steady point of interest. And the notion of an international tournament would seem to allow director Mike Newell to present a vaster world of magic that is only hinted at in the first three films. But this sense quickly evaporates in an early scene portraying the students’ arrival at Hogwarts in glaring and (almost certainly unintended) comedic fashion. The two sets of visiting students embody profound stereotypes of cultural Otherness. There’s the synchronized female group, each of whose perfectly straight blonde hair and uniform movements bewitch the boys with their gracefulness. Then we have the hyper-masculine school of muscle men donning dark colors and parkas while back-flipping through the Great Hall.

The scene plays like an original SyFy Channel film and reflects Goblet of Fire's general tendency to serve up exaggerated characterizations and performances. Save for Harry and Ron, nearly every character in the film is subject to over-expressive speechifying. All of the new characters and a good deal of established ones act and speak with protracted urgency, as if to suggest that everything they say carries weight. Many of the actors do not appear comfortable in their surroundings. Michael Gambon’s Dumbledore is especially notable for his aggressive behaviors, at one point even shoving Harry against a wall during interrogation. Although Gambon offered a more youthful take on Dumbledore in the previous film, his outright fierceness in Goblet of Fire is off-putting. (In later installments, particularly in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Gambon is finally given free reign to make Dumbledore the contemplative, tender wizard he is portrayed as in the novels.) Moreover, these performances are not assisted by Newell’s cartoonishly hackneyed shot framings, e.g. the introductions of tournament entrant Viktor Krum (Stanislav Ianevski) and minor villain Barty Crouch, Jr. (David Tennant), in separate scenes.

In the wake of Prisoner of Azkaban, such elements are conspicuous. Alfonso Cuarón offered a more intimate and practical take on the wizarding world, using the imagery and surroundings expressively. With Goblet of Fire, Newell places more emphasis on character and performance to the extent that many dramatic scenes lose their potency (many of the adult actors seem as though they are performing in a stage production).

The hokey representations on display here tend not to mesh with the scope of the tournament games, which include underwater bouts with mer-people and navigating an ominous maze. These scenes are, for the most part, exciting thanks to Newell’s deft talent for action sequences and creating tension. The director's eye for action becomes quite clear with a sensational dragon chase among the rooftops of the school. Aided with soaring fanfares from composer Patrick Doyle (taking the reigns from John Williams), these scenes are fluid and appropriately epic.

Goblet of Fire's real achievement is its portrayal of the sexual discomfort of its young characters. This is where Mike Newell’s emphasis on performance (or overperformance) actually works as an asset, particularly as compared to the subtler expressions of intimacy and closeness in the third installment. If Cuarón's film represents the understated beginnings of sexual discovery, then Goblet of Fire takes the next step and turns the discovery into bewilderment and frustration. Newell centers on all the small actions and posturings that accompany a teenager’s inevitable acknowledgement not just of sex, but also of the social practices drawn around sex. Newell elicits every uncomfortable moment he can from his actors: Harry and Ron’s (Rupert Grint) struggle to find dates to the Yule Ball are funny, yet sweet. And Harry’s nervous proposal to his crush is a beautifully observed moment of the shame and pride that often follow after finally mustering the courage to say something to someone with whom you’re smitten.

Goblet of Fire is most effective as a look at the fleeting trivialities and growing uncertainties of young adulthood—an age at which you are old enough to experience a complex range of feelings but do not yet possess the tools necessary to understand them. The young characters are burdened with apparently trivial matters, yet Newell seems to understand that these things only appear trifling in retrospect. It is a nice balance of observation and empathy. We are still at a distance, but are slightly more endeared to the characters for witnessing their unhinged and subsequently guarded behaviors.

The innocence of these encounters serves as a nice backdrop for the climax, when Harry faces down the newly risen Lord Voldemort, played with wily delight by Ralph Fiennes. It is not until later in the series that Fiennes gives you a sense of the character’s calm sadism and profound disdain for non-pure-bloods. Here we are exclusively focused on the fleshy embodiment of the arch-villain who until this point has lurked only in shadow and memory. His pale skin and reptile-like nose complement his skeleton-like body structure, which is forceful and domineering, particularly over the feeble Harry. The dead-serious nature of this scene contrasts heavily with much that has gone before. Everything else wipes away in one single moment.

That Newell doesn’t handle the acting or his over-visual approach with much subtlety can be frustrating. I noted at the start of this essay that Newell’s economical aesthetic in some ways resembles Chris Columbus’ style with the first two films. But this assessment is not entirely warranted, in part because the strengths of this film consistently outmeasure Columbus’ efforts. However, there is a more general point that bears mentioning. While Azkaban unraveled the workings of Columbus and offered a fresh take on the tone and feel of the series, Goblet is more significant as a transitional episode in the narrative. It is understandable, then, why this film attempts to take on disparate elements of the three films that preceded it, before culminating with events that shift the course of the story. Given its place in Rowling’s opus, the material perhaps doesn’t lend itself to the kind of brooding vision that Cuarón provided with the third film. That’s not to say that Newell would not have benefitted from fewer goofy close-ups and an overall stronger aesthetic. However, placed in context, Goblet of Fire widens the scale of this fantasy universe and fashions a solemn emotional resonance that—despite needing to still develop—no longer requires the stylings of the previous films going forward.

Week With a Wizard, Day 3: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban

[Re-posted from The House Next Door.]

Early in Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (2004), after an unpleasant encounter with a hooded creature known as a dementor, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) looks through the window of the Hogwarts Express, his reflection projected against the rain-soaked night. The image wipes to the exterior of the familiar castle as a children’s chorus sings a rhythmic, medieval-sounding tune with words taken from Shakespeare’s Macbeth. We then enter the Great Hall, where a choir of students with frogs in hand concludes the song with the forceful and ominous phrase, “Something Wicked This Way Comes.” This is one of the film’s many small departures from author J.K. Rowling’s source material, which had been followed to a tee in the previous two films. Both playful and sinister, the song (titled “Double Trouble”) turns up in various capacities in the score and permeates the proceedings. But its first appearance in the scene described above boldly announces a new direction in the Harry Potter series. What once felt so clean and mechanical under the even hand of Chris Columbus suddenly bleeds with mystery and mood.

Director Alfonso Cuarón shakes up Columbus’ work with changes extending beyond small alterations or additions to Rowling’s text. Some of these changes were inevitable, such as the replacing the late Richard Harris with Michael Gambon as Dumbledore. But even with a new actor in the role, Cuarón essentially re-imagines the character as more jolly and quick-witted. Innumerable franchises have undergone reboots in the years since, so all these changes don't seem as significant now as they did then. But for a series that is partially built on maintaining a strict level of sameness, Cuarón pushes the envelope in challenging ways, and the shift in tone and aesthetic deepens the film’s emotional underpinnings.

A good example of this is how Hogwarts is depicted. I mentioned already that the music has a distinctly medieval flavor, and this carries over to the entire castle. In the first two films, the castle is more gothic with its imposing stone structures and chilly, fire-lit hallways. Here, the spaces within the castle—and more generally among the students—is more intimate. The corridors are smaller, brighter, and less domineering. Rather than feeling like a cold, lifeless locale, Hogwarts has its own personality in Prisoner of Azkaban. This can partly be attributed to the newly designed school grounds, which have rolling hills and boulders, a courtyard with trees and bushes growing outside the windows, and a creaky corridor bridge that look out onto the damp grounds. Even the Whomping Willow seems to be happier in this Hogwarts, as it delights in swallowing birds that cheerfully fly about the school grounds before meeting their doom among the tree’s dancing branches. I could list many details that give the castle and school grounds a personality, but to put it more generally, by making Hogwarts feel like it is a part of some kind of larger environment, it takes on a greater life.

Cuarón's eye for environments serves him well, from the snowy pathways of Hogsmeade village to the tall wooden towers of the Quidditch field where Harry flies through beating rain and lightning in pursuit of the golden snitch. While the changes to certain locales affect how they look, they more importantly alter how they feel. Moreover, the characters are now an integral part of the surroundings, often framed against and defined by them. Cuarón's deft use of foreground and background, in particular, aid in creating fully dimensional, expressive images in which both location and characters are carefully observed with a subtle balance of distance and intimacy.

Cuarón's aesthetic seems perfectly suited to the narrative, which focuses on Harry’s near-despondent state. Unlike most other stories in Rowling’s series, the plot of Azkaban is less driving and more focused on brooding dread. This provides Cuarón good opportunity to amplify Harry’s loneliness and uncertainty. He is no longer a tragic victim of growing up without parents, but is instead actively angry that he cannot have them in his life. The plot deals directly with the looming threat of a man named Sirius Black (Gary Oldman), who is thought to have betrayed Harry’s parents and directly contributed to their murder by Lord Voldemort. Black has escaped from Azkaban prison and now presumably aims to hunt down and kill Harry at Hogwarts. In light of the rising threat, dementors—prison-keepers of Azkaban—are stationed outside the castle to intercept Black and bring him back to the wizard prison. These creatures levitate motionlessly, their shredded hoods caressed by the wind. They have the ability to drain the life out of anything around them. Despite not playing an active role for much of the film, their presence is chilling. Cuarón portrays them as deliberate, methodical, and lifelike but without fully seeming alive. As such, they become manifestations of Harry’s fears as well as his doubts and inadequacies.

Though the film’s focus rests with Harry’s growing state of melancholy, Prisoner of Azkaban aptly counters the despair with a sense of youth and joy. Harry has a blissful personal moment early on where he rides a winged beast above the castle and the lake. Flying high, he is afforded a brief reprieve from the problems that await him below. Gliding along the lake, Harry outstretches his arms and enjoys a momentary ecstasy that further punctuates his sadness. In another instance, Harry fumbles beneath his bed covers and performs spells while pretending to be asleep each time his uncle enters the room. Allusions to masturbation aside, this shows Harry using his wizard fantasy to retreat from the outside world. It is a simple, but delicate moment. The frequent hints of blossoming sexuality elsewhere are a nice touch as well, in particular because they are not made overt. There is an intimacy to the way the trio of young actors (Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson) interacts. They have a comfortable rapport with each other and appear to naturally move and act in ways they don’t even quite fully understand.

As Prisoner of Azkaban moves toward its conclusion, it presents oddities ranging from shape-shifting animals to souls being sucked out of bodies. It's all pointedly absurd, but since an emotional anchor has already been so effectively established, Cuarón maintains course. And surprisingly, while the climactic time travel sequence is depicted with much humor, it also coldly signifies Harry’s inability to change time and rid himself of a memory he does not even have. Despite his ability to manipulate the means by which he experiences time, he cannot alter the memories and feelings left behind by its passage.

Ultimately, Harry’s journey stops short of delving into total gloom. The longing images and emotional undercurrents never coalesce, as we might wish. They instead allude to a darker road to come; indeed, Prisoner of Azkaban ends on a jubilant note with an image suggesting that even Harry’s rare excursions of fun are soon to exit his life. That the film offers little payoff for its brewing feelings of sadness and pain does not reflect negatively on it. While the movie is satisfying on its own, it serves a critical function in the broader scheme of things. Though the arc of the plot is barely progressed, there is an emotional core here that resonates back to the earlier entries and ahead to the future installments. Perhaps the most remarkable thing is that the film finds subtlety and rich aesthetic expressions not just within the established world of the series, but also within the aesthetic and narrative frameworks of popular cinema.

Week With a Wizard, Day 2: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets

[Re-posted from The House Next Door.]

In my commentary on Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, I observed that director Chris Columbus seemed to rely heavily on production values to create the sense of wonderment that was inherently absent in his images. How a film moves—from scene to scene, shot to shot—is not entirely dependent on massive sets, panoramic effects work, blaring symphonic music, and moody lighting. As I set out to watch Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (2002), the second and final entry from Columbus, I paid close attention to the director’s visual sensibilities and how they compared to the previous film.

To his credit, Columbus attempts to add deeper visual dimension to this sequel. His camera is more mobile; it hurdles, swipes, and dives every which way. This is clear in the opening shot, which starts high above the clouds, zooming past the title before maneuvering over the rooftops of suburban Britain and down to Harry's (Daniel Radcliffe) window. It's smooth, but moves so quickly that it reeks of artifice. Columbus is in such a hurry to get to Harry’s window, as well as to whip around Hogwarts castle between scenes, that the film feels as though it’s playing on fast forward. Another trick Columbus saves for this go-round is the angled shot to signify mystery or villainy. However, like the camera movements in general, these dramatic tilts are so hasty and exaggerated that the effect is mostly hokey. Despite these flourishes, it quickly becomes evident that when he’s not swiping or tilting the camera around, Columbus’ approach is still the same: Action, Reaction. Repeat.

But let’s get into the story. This is, after all, the second installment in the series, so it shouldn't need to waste time with unending exposition and set-up. Alas, the opening passages of Chamber of Secrets are marred by unending exposition and set-up. We have various comings and goings, a few new characters (notably Kenneth Branagh, whose pompous Gilderoy Lockhart brings much-needed life to the film), and no sense that anything of interest will happen at all. Like Sorcerer's Stone, screenwriter Steve Kloves adapts the novel so faithfully that the film suffers. This, coupled with Columbus’ vapid directorial style, suggests that we'll be getting more of the same. But after taking its time getting the characters back to Hogwarts, Chamber of Secrets eventually displays an edge largely absent from the first film. There is a spirited sense of camp that matches well with the darker themes of racial purification and bigotry. Storytelling-wise it is still a mess, but this film has a sense of authorship that, however hokey, sets it apart from Sorcerer's Stone. Columbus' hand is more assured, particularly with action sequences. The final duel, for example, is surprisingly well-orchestrated: Harry takes on a giant snake that has been terrorizing the castle. When the serpentine beast comes into sight for the first time, it is a classic moment that recalls the joyous images of monster movies past. Unlike many CG effects, the creature has weight and dimension and carries with it a genuine sense of awe.

Another highlight finds Harry and Ron (Rupert Grint) in the Dark Forest surrounded by spiders the size of Buicks. Harry’s desire to know who opened the chamber of secrets bounces off Ron’s fear of the increasingly threatening spiders, which appear larger with each successive glimpse. The scene creates tension and builds to a strong payoff, with an army of spiders storming through the woods in pursuit of the heroes. This sequence, like the snake-dueling scene, shows Columbus’ direction coming alive. It has less dialogue, puts aside plot and seems to exist unto itself—a fluid series of images that blend the frightening and the absurd.

Taken together the pair of Sorcerer’s Stone and Chamber of Secrets serve an explicit function—to provide a sterile visualization of Rowling's text. They don’t resonate beyond the relatively inoffensive entertainment they were designed to provide. As I noted in my commentary on Sorcerer’s Stone, both of the Columbus-directed entries feel insulated from the subsequent movies and are thus difficult to situate in relation to the overall arc. But if I am to adopt a more positive view, Sorcerer's Stone and Chamber of Secrets competently create a foundation of characters and settings and establish a world that has since been developed into a far more interesting one. Columbus’ baseline aesthetic may have been the right approach for providing such groundwork. I can say with confidence that, if nothing else, both films managed this task. They supplied the first images and impressions that, against all criticisms, have permeated the series and fostered its growth.

Week With a Wizard, Day 1: Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone

[Re-posting an article I've written for The House Next Door. It is the first of a series of articles looking at all eight of the Harry Potter films.]

Few film franchises have been more constitutive of the modern movie spectacle (and the digital age of cinema) than Harry Potter. The series is made up of eight movies spread evenly over a ten-year period, each a handsomely mounted production featuring a considerable cast of respected actors. With a collection of record-breaking bestsellers serving as a foundation, the consistently high box-office draw of the films was a foregone conclusion. Yet for non-loyalists of the book series, the adaptations' densely plotted stories and long running times all but demand a general knowledge of the broader story. This, coupled with the critic-proof nature of such a popular series, perhaps suggests that the Harry Potter films are not worthy of serious critical attention.

But with each new movie, my growing feeling is that these films may coalesce into something rare in the lexicon of sequels and franchises. Whereas so many movie series slowly or abruptly abandon ambitious storytelling and/or filmmaking in favor of selling the brand, the Harry Potter series is marked by what seems to be a simple and persistent earnestness, as if all the parties involved—from actors to studio heads—wanted to do good work. Moreover, the films also evolve stylistically and aesthetically, each installment facilitating stronger maturation of storytelling and character. The result is a compelling series that defies traditional stereotypes of blockbuster moviemaking.

In this week-long series of commentaries devoted to the Harry Potter films, I will hone in on notable aspects of each individual movie while maintaining a sense of the larger mosaic. Topics will range from thematic undercurrents and visual styles (I hope to show how the films develop a serious, even challenging visual language that both reflects and informs current traits of the modern blockbuster) and will also touch on more subtle or obscure details that deserve heightened focus. I am not interested in definitively deciding which parts are superior to others. I certainly am partial to certain installments, but the goal here is not simply to document the strengths and weaknesses of each respective film. This is a collection of personal reflections that will articulate why the Harry Potter series warrants more serious consideration.

Now that I’ve established the ground rules, let’s look at the first installment, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (2001). It's pleasant enough as an introductory episode but is somewhat challenging to view 10 years later. That is to say, I found myself incapable of ignoring the glaring contrast between the film I was watching and the more recent Potter entries. The players and most of the locations are the same, but the look and feel is entirely different. Despite establishing the characters and world that eventually develops over the course of the series, both this installment and its follow-up, Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, now seem isolated from what follows (perhaps in part due to the dramatic changes brought by Prisoner of Azkaban). Nevertheless, this film along with its immediate successor is fascinating to see again, perhaps because it is so curiously detached from the wonderment and magic it seeks to conjure.

When I first saw Sorcerer’s Stone, I was lock-step in agreement with Roger Ebert that it was “a red-blooded adventure movie, dripping with atmosphere, filled with the gruesome and the sublime.” For years I defended the film against its detractors and encouraged more serious-minded moviegoers to see it. And though I experienced some of the things in Ebert’s description while watching it again, these sentiments more resembled a kind of channeled nostalgia than something I was actively feeling.

Some of the most interesting passages occur early on. After a short prologue swashed in campy mystery (punctuated by a long-bearded wizard and pointy hat-donning witch rendezvousing on a foggy night), the film settles into a cartoonish mood with the introduction of our 11-year-old hero (Daniel Radcliffe) imprisoned in suburban England. He lives in a cupboard under the stairs in a bright home whose walls are coated with hideous wallpaper. But it isn’t long before an increasing number of owls overrun the neighborhood to deliver young Harry his acceptance letter/s to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The animated tone of these introductory scenes, while bordering on irritating, is weird enough to keep the film from sinking, but afterwards Columbus regrettably tones down the silliness, with only a handful of characters serving to liven up the affair.

The goal is seemingly to create an atmosphere of innocence, discovery, and—as Columbus never allows you to forget—magic. He wants you to know this with every epic shot and every repetition of the now-famous musical theme. But despite these proclamations, the general aesthetic is banal. Every character, every significant action, is framed with staggering exactitude, to the extent of becoming suffocating. It’s worth pointing out that the movies that serve most clearly as narrative and visual influences for Sorcerer's Stone—from The Wizard of Oz to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory—have been framed and presented with similar directness. But with those works, the sense of the strange and incredulous saturate the viewer and unfold with less haste. By contrast, Columbus is always in a rush to get to the next point on the schematic: the next line of dialogue; the next shot; the next scene. This is a film charged with immersing the viewer in an entirely new world, and it is presented as if it were a soap opera. And when Columbus pulls back to give us the spectacle, the strain with which he attempts to elicit a big response is glaring. Consider, for example, the first reveal of the castle, accompanied by the requisite “ooh”-ing and “aah”-ing in the musical score. It should be a monumental moment. All of the signifiers are present, but the effect is hollow.

The plot structure is worth looking at as well, because it unfolds in the exact opposite manner to how Columbus executes his visuals. The screenplay is so close to J.K. Rowling’s text as Columbus and his screenwriter, Steve Kloves, have tried to cram in every detail of the book without much regard for the differences between cinema and literature. Thus, while the book reads briskly, the film’s depictions of our protagonists attending classes and walking the school halls prove tiring as the running time ticks up. Sorcerer's Stone is often aimless. The plot eventually comes into focus and deals with the Dark Lord Voldemort’s attempted rise back to power, but Columbus and Kloves are in no real hurry to unveil the narrative. Consequently, the film never quite builds enough momentum for the story to take hold. This nonchalance regarding plot development may account for Columbus’ maddening and problematic visual approach. Perhaps he felt it necessary to frame his compositions in the most straightforward, concise manner possible, given that the screenplay afforded him little time to slow down. This is a shame, because there is so much to relish in the far corners of the compositions, but Columbus often smothers them with framing and editing that are pedantic and a plot that meanders.

Despite these criticisms, there are moments—sights and sounds—that burst through to fleetingly realize the potential so clearly evident beneath the mostly lifeless aesthetic. These range from Harry’s first sight of the busyness of the brilliantly designed Diagon Alley; a quick shot of a goblin using magic to put Christmas ornaments on a tree; and a sublime encounter with a noble, soft-spoken centaur in the Dark Forest late in the film. Taken in the context of the entire series, these brief moments serve to remind how a more ambitious narrative and aesthetic approach would eventually blossom and flourish.

Critical (re-)evaluation

I started The Cinematic Art with a desire to explore the interconnections of film, criticism, and cinephilia in an open forum. Among my predominant concerns was and still is the question of blogging as a relevant practice in cinephilia and a vehicle for film criticism, but a criticism of a different making. I wanted this site to be an experiment in criticism; a rumination on cinema, grounded in theory, vested cinephilia and personal narrativizing. Its style and content emerged from academic and journalistic tropes of film criticism, but I also sought to subvert and confound them, fold them in to each other, and explore new capabilities for engaging images.

Alas, I was weighed down by the scale of my ambitions.

This post brings an end to my longest drought since I started The Cinematic Art and caps off a disappointing year in the site's development. In my brief sabbatical, I had plenty of time to think about this blog and blogging as a practice. I've come to accept that this site will probably never operate in the capacity that I would like. The offerings here mostly consist of half-formed thoughts, occasional sloppy writing, and a startling lack of focus — all things that don't help to legitimize my cause of giving blogging a good name. My prolonged absence from updating the site with new content does not help my argument either.

Having said all that, I remain stubbornly convinced that there are new paths to forge and that this writing form grants me and so many others the possibility to discover them. The bigger question is if this gradual realization resonates beyond the constraining dialogue about digital technologies and comprehension of their properties.

Sobered with the reality that I cannot realize the ambitious vision I once held for the site, I now recognize the need to re-frame my expectations and goals, and I need to reposition my approach toward understanding what I and so many others are doing here in digital space.

The film blogging circuit is a community of voices from all across the spectrum of cinephilia and criticism. This isn't news to most writers and readers familiar with blogging, but this simple fact is the nonetheless the base of a more complex inquiry into and about critical modalities of film criticism. Digital media seem to allow us an understanding of the process of making and seeing film, but they also allow us to harness critical tools and engage criticism at a different level. The difficulty will be in using and comprehending these media as we gradually learn the tools they provide us to do just that. This form cannot simply assimilate the properties of other media and culminate in a Grand Form of writing or criticism. Many questions remain regarding how these media are used and the implications for their use, among other things.

Some more sophisticated members of the film community would scoff at the notion of blog authors as critics. In public and critical discourse, blogging still largely connotes blind opining and empty commentating. Some have argued that it is relevant only to those who perform it. But how can we dispute who is or is not a critic when we are at a moment in which film criticism has been problematized in so many ways? That criticism lacks a well-defined identity is largely due to a growing digital mediascape wherein the meanings of journalism and filmmaking are constantly in flux. Still more, it's not necessarily a negative thing. Both filmmaking and criticism are at an uneasy place. Their respective practitioners are adjusting to new conditions in which the professional seems to be quickly meeting the non-professional.

For those of the mindset that there is an very specific framework for practicing of criticism, the idea of non-professional individuals practicing the "craft" of something built on expertise and experience is central to the collapse of that very craft. But is it not possible to gain expertise and knowledge outside the annals of professional film criticism? If films (and art in general) are supposed to celebrate the diversity of peoples and cultures through images and narrative, why must film criticism remain such a stagnant practice where homogeneous frameworks empower a particular narrative about what films are, how they function, and which are deemed worthy to be recognized in the canon of film history?

I am not asking these questions to tear down professional film criticism, but to propose a new approach to its position and practice. For years, we've heard some critics sensationally talk about the death of movies or the death of criticism; not a majority, mind you, but a vocal minority. What they were really saying is that their limited idea of what film or criticism should be was diminishing. And when you look around at faltering arts and entertainment sections, it's obvious that professional avenues of film criticism are suffering. To suggest that digital media (e.g., blogging) are to blame for film criticism and print journalism faltering simplifies the issue to pinning blame for an event that is without blame. Digital media are prominent and relevant; this much we know. But we do not quite know how to situate them in commercial terms.

Here on this blog, I come to you unfiltered by the institutional limitations that structure professional criticism. This is an advantage and a disadvantage. All writers bring a part of themselves to their writing, but those of us who do this unprofessionally are on naked display. In other words, we're writing about what we feel is worth writing about. It can be more personal, more probing. The problem for those who do it is often an overall lack the skills, resources, and/or time to launch the kind of inquiry that those in the paid ranks are granted. And yet, in the commercial world, writers are often constrained to such a large extent, so as to remain commercially viable. This is where bloggers come in. The best bloggers are good writers and are informed on their subject matters, but they also have a talent to key into a dialogue, and they do it in a variety of fashions. There is no formula for this. It's almost an intuitive sense that some writers possess for just the right level of articulation (or lack there of) to expand on an existing dialogue or kickstart another. We can do more than just fill the space between, but can create that space — a function that is essentially inherent in the form.

A plurality of voices can and should open new avenues of engaging images and perspectives, and shed light on old ones. Criticism therefore should not be limited to a particular inquiry or based on presupposed means and conditions. Both academic and journalistic criticism explore films in different ways, but they are not opposite ends of a film criticism line. We don't necessarily need to search in between to locate new molds of criticism. Possibilities exist in a number of manifestations, not the least of which is the crucial relationship between criticism and cinephilia.

I would contend that we will never truly have the ability to describe or consciously project the purpose or relevance of moving images, or narrative, for that matter. The anomaly of film criticism is that while it should focus very much on the films themselves — images, sounds, perspectives — it is not about those things at all. A film is made up of cuts, colors, figures, lights, sounds, etc. It is a machine with so many moving parts; parts that function together to form an aesthetic unity beyond the function of these individual elements. While close analysis is required for film criticism to exist at all, the critic ultimately is examining a phenomenon that is not on "film." The film is merely the line through which many other threads pass. The critic should penetrate those depths and swim in them, not unlock meaning or extract value. Criticism helps viewers, filmmakers, and critics to understand the process of seeing images, making sense of them, and grasping their significance.

If I may offer a more positive approach to the issue of "the death of film criticism", I would argue that film criticism is always happening, much in the same vein that film or cinema is happening. It may just a matter of how much we open our eyes to it. Cinema will continue to grow and thrive as an industrial art. Images exist and are produced and reproduced ubiquitously. The same is true of film criticism. It's not only happening in recognized forums, such as newspapers, magazines, and publicized websites. It's in conversations, on personal blogs, comment sections, and elsewhere. In this respect, criticism mirrors the cinema in that it cannot be quantified or set to a definition, as much as we may try. It will always have a professional face, but if that is the only view we allow ourselves to have then it wouldn't be able to grow. More important is to examine how it is harnessed and expressed, and under what conditions.

A quick word

Many apologies for the unannounced three-month hiatus. I haven't forgotten about this place. The site will be up and running again soon with regular updates and postings. Stay tuned...

Familial lament: Rachel Getting Married

With his 1975 film, Nashville, director Robert Altman located a connectedness in people's disconnectedness. He created fluidity out of chaos. Seemingly without regard, the film moved from one place in town to another, following characters with no apparent relation or connection to one another. Nashville instead captured the spirit of something much larger. Altman was also obsessed with details and atmospheres; with people filling a space and living in it. He was not after some great message. He didn't "use" narrative as a vehicle for overlying perspectives or ideas. He was after the motion of life, using one geographical destination as a lens through which to observe it. Narrative emerged from movements, actions, and moments.

It's no wonder that Altman is given special thanks in the end credits of Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married, a film made very much in the spirit of that intangible Altman sensibility. The plot focuses the affairs of a family as it prepares for a wedding over the course of a couple of days. Rachel (Rosemarie Dewitt) is due to marry Sidney (Tunde Adebimpe), and the family gathers to organize final preparations for the ceremony and celebration at their house. Although the event for which crowds gather is altogether different, Demme's naturalistic approach to character and tone enables him to paint an intimate portrait of a real family. Where a lesser film would center itself aesthetically and tonally on the conflicts of the main characters, Rachel Getting Married is all about the "small" details --the exchanges between new acquaintances, former spouses, and everyone else. There is a sense that we're looking through the lens of our own eyes as we wander around this house, listening to conversations, gauging facial expressions, and surveying reactions.

The key role in the film is Rachel's sister Kym (Anne Hathaway), who is greeted with an uneasy sense of enthusiasm and overwhelming trepidation by her family. The small talk is accompanied by the expected smiles, hugs, and kisses, but is painfully and obviously hollow. At the same time, Rachel, a psychiatrist with all the right things to say, appears genuinely happy to see her sister, as do some others. But, as we learn, there are deep-ridden problems sustaining and bolstering the conflicts between family members. Kym's drug addiction is revealed to be the white elephant clouding every exchange and and encounter within the family.

The treasure of this film is not in the gradual unveiling of plot details, but in the intimate and intensely relatable portrayals of familial relationships. Demme is not attempting to represent "the American family." The core of this film is instead its dynamic observations of one particular family and the confluence of both similar and clashing ideals, perspectives, and backgrounds. Rachel Getting Married is not about anything more than the immediate and complex emotions it conjures. It is compelling in the purest sense of medium; connecting the viewer affectively and cerebrally to action on screen.

In many ways, taking part in this movie is as much a pleasure as it is demanding. This is a tricky relationship, but the best of movies involve you in an experience that is both external and internal. All viewers, those of us with and without families, can fundamentally relate to the conflicts of these characters. We see all their shortcomings, but we also feel those inexplicable and transient highs from just being with people and sharing something with them. The only flaws rest in the occasional insistence on significant dramatic moments, e.g. the lost brother plotline, Kym's relationship with her mother. The movie is at its best in moments between the drama, when quiet fills the air.

While a direct comparison to Nashville wouldn't be appropriate, both movies are propelled by keen observations of people in motion around an event. The players are different, all with different tasks, concerns, and wishes, but in both films the event is both lived and not; it becomes idea, or an ideal. The country festival of Nashville embodied deeper ideals and fleeting ideologies, and although the event here is shared among a more intimate group of people, the motions and feelings are nearly the same. That these actions are framed through a wedding, and in "real-time," i.e. without formalistic or narrative thematic threads guiding the viewer's perception and comprehension, every nuance and flaw can be experienced both in the moment and as a broader examination of relationships to which any viewer can relate.

The film ends with a wedding celebration so intoxicating and hopeful in its own right that, ironically, actually expands the distance between Kym, Rachel, and everyone else in the now-larger family. Rachel Getting Married culminates in a moment of sad beauty, lamenting the inherent void in human connection while finding hope in the transient moments when people come together.

On The Dark Knight (again) and other things

It's been a tough scene for film blogging lately, at least from where I'm sitting. There are so many film and media blogs on the web that I couldn't possibly try to surmise an overall state of blogging. But from my perspective, at least, there has been a minor lull in the past few months likely due to a combination of factors. Outside the Toronto and Telluride Film Festivals, it hasn't been a particularly exciting time for new releases. Moreover, a number of writers have probably been so attached to Presidential politics (myself included) that movies have taken a back seat to other concerns. Even a film as politically inflammatory as Oliver Stone's W. couldn't shake things up in film coverage. Then again, the idea of W. is more inflammatory than the film itself, which rather well sums up the state of movies in the last few months.

It's worth noting that I have done nothing to help the situation, as I have taken my longest hiatus from The Cinematic Art since I started it in January 2007. My reasons for doing this ranged from the aforementioned waning interest in films by film culture at large, strange as that sounds. This coupled with my fervent, almost obsessive interest in the election and the media coverage of it made finding time and inspiration to write about movies difficult.

In all fairness, the election was just one of a couple of things to occupy the majority of my time. The Philadelphia Phillies' unlikely journey to a World Series title was another. As a lifelong fan, hearing those words "And the Phillies are World Series Champions!" was one of those perfect and surreal moments. While elections and baseball championships make for great times (especially since the outcomes of both were as unexpected as they were joyous for me), nothing compares to what I experienced just six weeks ago, when my son was born. I can say without exaggeration that moment was the most humbling and illuminating of my short life, and it now lives in my memory as well as in my everyday experiences.

All of these things have contributed to my absence. I've had some time here and there to watch movies, among which Errol Morris' Standard Operating Procedure and Jonathan Demme's Rachel Getting Married stands out. I'll have more on these films in coming posts. But I don't want to stress myself out with writing full-out reviews at this juncture. It took me about four weeks without posting to actually feel content with not posting. Ironically, this has enabled me to begin writing again, stress free. I'll have some collected thoughts on movies again (and on blogging) soon, but for now I want to get my feet again, take it easy, and remember why I began doing this in the first place.

As I attempt to regain focus, it's only appropriate that the article I'll be commenting on was written by another blogger who has taken some time off and only recently re-emerged into the film blogosphere. Ali Arikan, whose Indiana Jones blog-a-thon yielded some nice analyses on the Indy pictures, has written his first post in several months, offering his reflections on the film event of the summer: The Dark Knight. His post is refreshing for a number of reasons; first, because after an influx of discussion about the film before, during, and immediately after its release, interest has dropped off. It's as if critics and bloggers collectively decided that we are all on Dark Knight overload for a while and balanced it out by abruptly cutting off major discussion about it.

Given the context, it makes sense that Ali decided to write about this film for his return from blogging hiatus. But it's what he has to say about the film that's most interesting. He acknowledges the power of Christopher Nolan's juggernaut of a movie, but his implicit observation about the homogenized tone of the critical dialogue about the film is especially intriguing. In short, he's not buying the movie one bit, and for very different reasons than those presented by the film's detractors. He says:

"The Dark Knight is not a sequel to Batman Begins. The actors are the same, sure, and, thus, the characters, but they inhabit two completely different universes. A shadowy organisation of ninjas (none of them diminutive, alas) called The League of Shadows, run by a foppish Frenchman, and intent on razing Gotham, would feel completely out of place in the latter film. The Dark Knight doesn't just have a different tone, it plays a totally different instrument.

Gotham, too, looks different between the two films. In the first one, it has a reddish orange hue; it’s claustrophobic, and, even though I don’t want to use the word, gothic. In the second film, it just looks like Chicago. I know the first film was mainly shot on a soundstage, and that a big deal was made of the second film’s use of Chicago, but still, one would expect some sort of consistency.

Batman Begins is a superhero film that pushes its boundaries to the extreme. The Dark Knight is a film that obliterates those limits in the hopes of becoming a crime noir. And that would be a laudable intention, if it weren’t for the fact that it’s still a film about a guy who dresses up as a fucking bat and fights crime. It is because of its very essence that the film is inherently unable to make that leap towards serious crime drama. Batman Begins succeeds by remaining a superhero movie, The Dark Knight flounders by trying to abandon its roots.[5] And it’s not a pleasant sight."

In my original post on the film, I made a similar argument about the atmosphere and overall presentation of The Dark Knight. Where my thesis was buried in a sea of arguments, Ali directly critiques the movie for its almost complete lack of resemblance to the Batman Begins. Where Begins found a balance between the hero myth and a gritty cynicism. The film blended two very different sensibilities into an ambiguous tone that actually achieved both. The Dark Knight is just about the reverse of that. Thematically, its covering some similar territory, but the movie could not be any different from Begins from an aesthetic point of view. Moreover, that it almost completely shuns the cloudy tones of the first film is jarring.

I have only seen the film once, and I look forward to seeing it again. But on first viewing, the movie failed as both a crime saga and a representation of the hero myth. It failed to build upon anything established in the first film. As Ali notes, we're listening to a different instrument altogether. Equally important as that fact is how little it has figured into the greater discussion about the film. Although a number of critics / bloggers have grown tired of talking about The Dark Knight, we've really only just begun to comprehend its relevance as both a cultural artifact and a piece of cinema.

"A fervent and frightened prayer..."

Over the last week, I've been reading tributes in newspapers and on websites to the enduring career of Paul Newman. I heard reports of his sickness in recent months, almost refusing to accept that the frail man pictured in photos was actually him. When I learned of his death late last Saturday morning, I was as surprised as I was saddened -- not just because cinema has lost one of its greatest actors, but because it lost a true artist and model citizen. He gave the movies a positive face at a time in which American movies were undergoing such great change. He was an honest, sensitive actor whose charisma endured over many decades and defied easy categorization, even though that smile was so recognizable. One might even say that Paul Newman was born to star in the movies, with his classic good looks, commanding voice, and unending charm.

Thinking back on his most memorable roles now immortalized in the pantheon of cinematic images, I came to see that Newman as more than a good actor boasting several significant performances. He had a way of uniquely embodying each character he played while still making it his own. There was an undeniable "Paul Newman" spirit to his characters, despite never playing two characters the same. He didn't "disappear" into roles, but instead made them apart of him. It's not often when being yourself is noted as an actor's strengths, but Newman was one of the few who was both himself and whoever he was portraying; the likely result of the shear honesty he brought to his craft.

That honesty was also revealed through his many humanitarian efforts and political activism. I am not nearly knowledgeable enough to fully honor that work, suffice to say that there were many instances from his life on screen that revealed the many sides of Paul Newman.

Perhaps my favorite performance of his is from Sidney Lumet's brilliant 1982 film, The Verdict. Newman plays a depressed alcoholic whose best prosecuting days are behind him. In the film, he finds himself at a moral crossroad, where doing the right thing stretches far beyond the one single case he is serving on. Here is Newman's final case to the jury:



This speech crystallized the vision I have held of Paul Newman for as long as I can remember; i.e., what he means to the movies, his enduring acting career, his humanitarian efforts. Everything I admire about the man and his work can be seen in this singular moment.

Monologues in movies are so often remembered for their intense dramatic rhythms and strong delivery, yet what makes this one of the very finest is the perfect tone Newman finds between defeat and hope. His summation is more than three minutes, but consisting of only a few hundred words. It is somber, soulful, and especially relevant as Americans head to the polls for one of the most important Presidential elections they'll take part in. (One could say that this election itself is a frightened and fervent prayer.) It's also a great tribute to Paul Newman's career in movies and commitment to justice.