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abitoflit · 5 years

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From Fond Childhood Memory to the “Big Screen,” the Story of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone

To bewitch, “to attract or delight (someone) in a way that seems magical” (Merriam-Webster). From the time I was very young and first read J.K. Rowling’s novels surrounding the life of Harry Potter, I was bewitched. I was drawn into a magical world, involving both witches and wizards. I entered Harry’s life first in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone around the time I was his age and he first went off to Hogwarts. I walked beside him as Hagrid informed him that he was a wizard and his parents had been killed by the dark Lord Voldemort. I discovered that there was a magical stone, created by an alchemist, which granted eternal life and that dark forces wanted to steal it. Much like Harry and his friends, I assumed that Severus Snape, the “evil” potions master, wanted to take it for himself and easily overlooked the quivering Professor Quirrell, who was actually the novel’s antagonist. I was amazed when three children, very similar in age to myself, outsmarted an adult no matter how ludicrous that seemed. When the movies first started coming out, I rushed to the theaters with my friends to watch them. The first story in the series, The Sorcerer’s Stone, was no different. It was then that I was introduced to the work of Christopher Columbus, the director, Steve Kloves, the screenwriter, and the rest of their team as I was visually drawn into Rowling’s world, a world I had previously created for myself in my own mind. Although the movie wasn’t “perfect” and failed to follow the novel exactly, I was amazed by how similar the characters looked to their literary depictions and how similar they acted to their literary models. I felt as though Daniel Radcliffe fully embodied Harry and Dumbledore had walked out of the novel and onto the screen. I was amazed that for the most part, Columbus’ film adaptation of Rowling’s first “Harry Potter” novel left little out and didn’t rearrange things, which in turn, kept it from losing sight of the original. Overall, I was happy to have been given the chance to revisit a fond memory from my childhood and felt that the positively-acclaimed story of one of our world’s favorite fictional wizards was one of the best ever produced.

The first time I read J.K. Rowling’s novel entitled, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone I was a child in the fifth grade. I read the novel first because the films had not been produced yet. I remember appreciating the novels as a child, as they captivated my boundless imagination, causing my mind to weave images of an alternate, fantastical realm of witches and wizards of which I wished I could be a part. Instead, I settled for a mixture of J.K. Rowling’s story-telling and my own imaginings. When the movies came out, I remember being overjoyed and flocked with my friends to see them; but, as time wore on, I lost interest in both the novels and the films as they grew increasingly less enjoyable in my mind’s eye. Now, I have decided to return to the beginning of the series, as this class has given me an excuse to relive a small portion of my childhood, which I look upon rather fondly. In reading the novel and watching the movie again for the first time in several years, I hoped to find a remnant of my love for the series and I longed to discover if it was time that had colored my judgment of both mediums or if my appreciation for Harry’s story had never faded.

J.K Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone takes place in England, and follows the life of its namesake. At the beginning of the novel, we are introduced to house number four on Privet Drive, where Harry was sent to live after the death of his parents at the hands of Lord Voldemort, the greatest dark wizard of his time. As readers continue on Harry’s path alongside him, we discover that his Uncle Vernon and especially his Aunt Petunia, (his mother’s sister), have a severe hatred for witches and wizards and kept the secret of his magical powers from Harry. Therefore, when Hagrid tracks Harry down after each of his mysterious Hogwarts letters fails to reach him, he informs Harry of the fact that he is a wizard. At this point in time, the recognition scene unfolds, and Harry’s life as a wizard commences. Shortly after being taken to Diagon Alley in London to fetch his school supplies, Harry takes the Hogwarts Express to the mysterious, magical school known as Hogwarts. It is encased within the body of a castle made of stone. It is at the school that the story’s many obstacles begin to reveal themselves. First, there is Potter’s rivalry with Malfoy, as he chooses to forge friendships with Ronald Weasley and Hermione Granger as opposed to him. Second, is the conflict surrounding Harry and Professor Snape. Although his true enemy turns out to be Professor Quirrell, whose skull is infused with the energy of the Lord Voldemort, Harry spends most of the novel assuming that Professor Snape is the individual who tried to rob vault 713 at Gringotts Bank.

An omniscient narrator sets a suspenseful tone for the entire novel, which unfolds as would a modern mystery. This is due to the fact that Harry and his two best friends spend a large portion of the novel trying to determine what was in Vault 713, why anyone would have wanted to steal it, where the vault’s contents are hidden, and what a wizard named Nicholas Flamel had to do with it all. Therefore, the story’s conflict arises as the three friends begin to view Severus Snape, their potions master, as the individual attempting to steal the stone. Outmatched by a far more experienced and skilled wizard, they often struggle to find ways to “outsmart him” and keep him from obtaining the stone. A crisis unfolds as Harry and his friends realize that their other teachers will not believe them or do anything to keep the stone from being stolen by Snape, forcing them to take matters into their own hands. However, as the climax unfolds, Harry realizes that he was wrong about Snape and that Quirrell had tricked him (and many other onlookers) into assuming that he wasn’t a threat by stuttering and acting as though he was terrified of everything. After Harry retrieves the stone from the Mirror of Erised and Quirrell is defeated, the denouement ensues, as Harry wakes up three days later in the hospital wing and is visited by the school’s headmaster, Dumbledore. It is Dumbledore who explains what became of Quirrell, Nicholas Flamel, and the stone. It is also he who explains how Harry survived and neatly wraps up Rowling’s novel.

The novel has a single, overriding theme: the old adage, “not everything is what it seems.” This theme can largely be associated with Professors Snape and Quirrell. Although Snape seemed as though he was the book’s main antagonist (because of the way he treated Harry and his friends and the way he was bitten by Fluffy), Professor Quirrell was the book’s largest antagonist. He managed to evade suspicion because he was such an unassuming individual who frequently stuttered and became anxious in many different situations. The second application would be to Harry, who wasn’t aware he was a wizard until Hagrid had told him. Furthermore, he wasn’t aware of the true manner of his parent’s death until he met Hagrid and was told the story of Voldemort.

I don’t feel as though J.K. Rowling has a particularly distinctive writing style, although I would argue that she tries to employ humor. The only issue with this is that she isn’t particularly funny. I know I’m older than her intended audience (the world’s youth), but I don’t think they’d find her writing to be particularly humorous either and I feel as though this is because she doesn’t commit to it. For example, when she has Hagrid try and turn Dudley into a pig, all he manages to do is give him a tail. If Hagrid had turned him into an individual who thought he was a pig and had some pig’s features, (e.g. tail, ears, hooves), then perhaps the scene could have been made all the more amusing. Another example would be when Harry asked Dumbledore what he perceived when he looked into the Mirror of Erised and Dumbledore replied, “I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks… one can never have enough socks,” (Rowling 214). I feel as though an author who uses humor effectively in his novels would be Terry Pratchett, especially when one considers his Tiffany Aching novels, which are part of his Discworld series. This is due to the fact that he takes the novel’s comical moments and stretches them as far as they will go, without spoiling the mood. Examples would include when he has Daft Wullie play against the other wee-free-men, or even Tiffany herself, creating comical conversations and musings. In addition to her failed attempts at being funny, Rowling occasionally invents words, which are limited in their use to her magical realm and meant to add to the wonder her reader’s experience. Examples would include the term “muggle.” I don’t feel as though this practice makes Rowling’s writing style distinct because fantasy authors are meant to fabricate fantastical realms and magical creatures in order to assure that their novels may be clearly defined as part of the “fantasy” genre. For example, Terry Goodkind created “confessors” and the “pristinely ungifted” in his Sword of Truth series, while Brandon Sanderson invented “mistings” and the “mistborn” for his Mistborn Trilogy. Overall, I would say that her style is rather bland, although the story she weaves is “magical.”

The descriptions given by J.K. Rowling in her novels allowed for the natural unfolding of her story’s setting within the minds of her readers. They also provided Chris Columbus with a framework, which would allow for the development of the set, which mirrored Rowling’s imaginings. The set of the “Harry Potter” movies were developed from two separate locations. The first is at the “site of a former Rolls-Royce factory, where aircraft were made during World War II,” (Sibley 10). This site housed locations such as Diagon Alley, where Harry bought his school supplies. The second location was Durham Cathedral, “to which the designers added a pair of spires you might expect to see in the wizarding world,” (Sibley 33). I’ve noticed that the various sets employed by the cast and crew in order to make the first of the Harry Potter films used a lot of dull colors. For example, depending on the time of day, the stones, which made up Hogwarts castle were a mixture of white, dismal greys, and soft browns. The dungeons, where Harry’s potions class was held, were even darker. I felt as though these color choices were meant to reflect that a darkness loomed over the entire school as well as the dismal institutionalism of the educational system, although, the brighter colors they were highlighted with, were meant to add a certain flair to the otherwise drab set. Examples would include banners displaying the Gryffindor lion or the paintings on the wall. I also felt as though these small, subtle bursts of color where meant to represent various sparks of Harry’s curiosity as he and the other first year students explored a world otherwise unknown to them. For the most part, I felt that the lighting throughout the entire movie was low-key, especially when the characters were indoors or in the forest. The only time I felt as though the lighting was particularly bright was upon the quidditch field and that was only because each scene took place on a sunny day. With few exceptions, the school’s lighting merely consisted of what little illumination filtered in through the glass windows or whatever light danced and flickered across the surface of the walls from either torches or sconces. I feel as though they were used in order to add to the “witchy” feel of the school and the medieval aspects displayed within the towering spires and narrow window slits. I also feel as though torches and sconces were used because low-key lighting tends to cast longer shadows and keep part of the screen submerged in darkness or half-light, while the rest is immersed in light. The use of low-key lighting was a symbolic way of showing that there were rival forces battling behind the scenes within Hogwarts’ walls: the forces of good, and the darker forces employed by the Lord Voldemort, which were evil.

A great many of the shots used in the film were done in slow motion or kept very still. There was very little, if anything, that was fast-paced. I felt as though this was done in order to allow for a more natural, gradual unfolding of the plot. The vast majority of shots were either a wide view or a close-up of one or a few of the main characters. The wider shots were used mainly to show a progression-- such as a character’s movement from one location to another, while the close-ups were used to draw attention to a specific person or set of individuals. This allowed the film’s viewers to bear witness to the emotions of each of the film’s characters, (e.g. Harry’s anguish each time his scar began to burn). Finally, the film used various sounds in order to help evoke certain emotions within its viewers. For example, it played bright, lively orchestral music, which featured instruments such as the piano and trumpets during happier scenes. Examples would include the time in which the first years first entered the Great Hall. Another example would be when the crew used computers to generate both “barking” and “snapping” sounds when Harry and his friends unwittingly stepped into Fluffy’s lair. The sounds were used in order to instill fear in their hearts, as well as those of the film’s viewers. This is because the sounds added to the sense of tension and danger experienced by the students.

I think that the set’s overall design added to the film’s atmosphere. The school’s layout--with its winding corridors and shifting stairs, its poor lighting, cast by flickering flames, and high, vaulted towers-- added to the “magical” and “otherworldly” setting depicted within J.K. Rowling’s wizarding world. The “uncertain” light, the presence of shadows, added to the sense that the story’s main plotline involved Harry, Ron, and Hermione clambering out of the darkness, their childish innocence and lack of knowledge about the magical world around them, and into a greater understanding of both magic and the dangers of the world. The occasional display of rich color, (e.g. maroon and gold, green and silver), were meant to display the subtle shift of alliances between rival parties as well as the unity, which bound the story’s three main protagonists together.

The ways in which the characters were portrayed by their respective actors also added to the strength of the film. For example, Emma Watson, who portrayed Hermione, spent a fair amount of time acting “smarter than thou,” as she insulted Ron’s spell on the train, which was supposed to turn Scabbers, (his pet rat), yellow. She also corrected him in their Charms class, when he mispronounced the levitation charm, “Wingardium Leviosa,” etc. Furthermore, she continually made various comments throughout the course of the film, which demonstrated her belief in the fact that studying and reading were the most important things in the world, (e.g. she described the book, which contained information about Nicolas Flamel as a “bit of light reading” and reminded her friends to always do more research). Rupert Grint, who played Ron, also made a fair depiction of his character as he looked largely as I imagined Ron would and acted as the silly, comic-relief character in the series. Daniel Radcliffe, who played Harry, also did an outstanding job. With the exception of his eyes, he looked exactly as I expected. In addition, his strong ability to emote allowed viewers to experience the awe, anguish, and large range of emotions, which Harry was meant to throughout the course of the film. Makeup was used on each of the characters to accentuate their features, (such as the color of their eyes), and to demonstrate the hardships each character endured throughout the course of the movie. For example, various forms of makeup were used to represent dirt and grime, which had accumulated on Harry’s person as he made his way through the stone’s trials. In much the same way, cosmetics were used to create cuts and bruises denoting injury. Finally, the wardrobe used in the film added to the viewer’s construct of each of the characters. For example, the robes worn by the students at Hogwarts were like a uniform. This made them relatable to children in the real world, while also managing to lump the school’s student body together in the film. It made them into a unified body, which was making its way through their educational endeavors and the adventures presented by the wizarding world. The robes worn by the school’s Professors allowed for a differentiation between “skilled and “unskilled” wizards. Meanwhile, the “more natural” attire worn by the Dursleys and the rest of the muggle world created a dividing line between the magical world and the non-magical world.

J.K. Rowling’s novel and its film adaptation are fairly similar as far as the plot is concerned. For example, in both the film and the novel, Harry and his friends receive detention. In the novel, he, Neville, and Hermione receive detention, because he and Hermione snuck out after hours in order to deliver Hagrid’s pet, the baby dragon Norbert, to Charlie’s friends. The children needed to perform this favor for Hagrid because raising dragons was illegal. Neville was given detention for stalking around the castle in search of them. In the movie, Ron, Harry, and Hermione were given detention for visiting Hagrid after hours. In both mediums, Harry’s rival, Malfoy, is given detention for tattling on them and breaking curfew. In both cases, the children wind up serving detention with Hagrid in the Forbidden Forest, (sometimes referred to as the “Dark Forest” in the films). The night’s goal was to discover who or what had been injuring the unicorns in the forest. In order to get her point across, J.K. Rowling used rather straightforward language during her portrayal of Harry’s and Malfoy’s discovery of the cloaked figure. I don’t feel as though Rowling used as much description as she could of and left a lot up to a person’s imagination, which in many ways, heightened the sense of both suspense and dread, which her scene was meant to evoke. For example, she begins the passage pertaining to the children’s discovery of the cloaked figure with, “Harry had taken one step toward it when a slithering sound made him freeze where he stood,” (Rowling 256). I understand from this sentence that Harry was transfixed by fear and unable to move; but, I was caught off guard by Rowling’s mention of a “slithering” sound. This is due to the fact that I have always seen the term “slithering” used to describe the shifting movement of a snake as they propel their body across the surface of the earth using their stomach muscles. I have never seen it used to describe a sort of sound before, only motion. I found myself struggling to discern just what Rowling meant and I fear that her use of this term may confuse Rowling’s intended audience (children), who may not have as extensive a vocabulary as someone who is older than them. The next line describes how the bushes trembled, which was meant to add to the sense of fear and tension, we as readers are supposed to associate with this passage. It’s easy now to imagine the leaves on the bushes rustling as some unseen entity approaches, an entity, we can sense will pose a threat to Harry and his companions. From there, a hooded figure emerges, “stalking across the ground.” No other description is given. It is simply a hooded figure. Is this figure entirely covered or do they merely have a hood drawn? Are they wearing a hooded cloak, as might the wizards of the area? Or not? What color is the cloak? Is it as dark as the night, allowing the figure to sneak around unseen? Is its color meant to mirror the blackness of its heart? Or is it some different color? Brown, green, or even pink? Again, we are reminded of Harry’s traveling companions-- Fang, (Hagrid’s dog), and Malfoy, as they remain “transfixed.” So again, she states that the children are too terrified of what they see to move. Then, quite simply, Rowling describes how the figure dips its head over the body of the dead unicorn the children had just discovered and begins to drink. Being that she never describes the color of the blood, one might think that it is the bright, crimson red blood we might associate with man or perhaps a horse. However, if one were to think back on what they had already read, they would recall that Hagrid described unicorn blood as “silvery” at the beginning of the chapter. However, I feel as though the fact that the author chose not to bring up the issue again was done purposely; perhaps, to make us forget just enough, where it would be easier for most readers to associate the death with something more human and less otherworldly. This, in turn, may cause it to hit home a little harder and make the unicorn’s death all the more tragic. From there, we see a long, “AAAAAAAAAAARGH!” It is a cry. We can only assume it is one of pain or a simple scream. In the following sentence, Rowling clarifies for us, describing it as Malfoy’s pitiful scream, which is immediately followed by he and Fang turning around and fleeing the scene. The sound causes the figure to look up, as though he had just noticed that he had not been alone and others had been watching him feast. The unicorn’s blood is described “dribbling down its front,” (Rowling 256), which led me to wonder if it was down the cloaked figure’s chest, the edge of his mouth, his face, his lips, etc. It was then that the creature rose and approached Harry. It was described as a swift movement; but, was it more of a jog or a run? Was the movement fluid, as if the assailant was sure of his step even in the darkness of the forest? I simply do not know, only, that a centaur came to save Harry, by frightening away the strange figure, which I can only imagine was like the grim reaper. This is because Rowling failed to define the passage. She left out so much description that while I had a faint inkling of what occurred, I can never quite be certain.

As I mentioned previously, Harry and his friends wind up in detention in Columbus’ film adaptation for a slightly different reason, although, it still culminates in the same scene with the unicorn’s blood being drawn into the lips of a mysterious figure. At the beginning of the scene, Harry, Malfoy, and Fang stop moving and we are given one final look of the forest around them. The trees are blanketed in darkness, which is used to lend an air of both mystery and foreboding to the night. A faint mist rests within the air, its vaporous tendrils tickling the trees, shrouding some of their more precise features and the distinctness and vibrancy of their colors from view. I believe that this feature was added to the setting in order to add an air of mystery, as it reminded viewers that the forest was filled with the unknown and that danger could be lurking around every corner. From there, the picture cuts to an image of the cloaked figure leaning over the body of a pure white, deceased unicorn. Their image is outlined in mist and framed by the body of a broken tree devoid of adornment, such as leaves and branches. The contrast of the darkness of the night, the tree, and the creature’s cloak, when compared to the pure white of the unicorn’s pelt and the silvery nature of the mist, serves to represent the collision of light and dark forces. Part of the broken tree, which lies on the left side of the frame, has a jagged edge, which points like an accusatory finger over the surface of the cloaked figure, as though blaming it for disrupting the tranquility of the night, as it cuts through the lingering tension, which had only hinted at the threat of danger. Now, clearly it has emerged. For the moment, it remains unclear what the figure is doing, why the cloaked individual is hovering over the body of the unicorn. However, as the scene lingers, we can see its head bobbing slightly, as though it is drawing something away from the unicorn and given our knowledge of the novel, we know it is drinking the creature’s blood. Then, the camera cuts away from him and toward Harry. It closes in on his face and his body from his pectoral muscles up. He can be seen wincing and rubbing the scar Voldemort left him with. A sort of ominous, near screeching-type orchestral music can be heard in the background; I believe it to be a mixture of piano and some brass instruments, such as the trumpet. Within a heartbeat, the scene cuts back to the cloaked figure. This time, the image lingers much closer to the body of the figure hovering over the fallen unicorn. We can see the top of the cloak dipping into the indentation of the unicorn’s long neck, where it meets the rest of its body. A thin trickle of silvery blood may be seen dripping down its neck and toward the forest floor. The mist in the background highlights their bodies, making it appear as though the figure is both holding its prey down by its shoulder, while gripping its long horn at the same time. It is as though the figure is defiantly expressing, without words, that it conquered the threat presented to it by the unicorn’s horn, allowing it to become the greatest peril within the forest’s expanse. The ominous music swells, as the figure raises its head and we catch a glimpse of the lower portion of its face. We can see the unicorn blood dripping from its teeth; the strange, silvery-blue coupling with the white crowns. The creature growls, reminding viewers of its vampiric tendencies. From there, the frame shifts to Malfoy. It tightens in on his face; but, keeps the lantern he is holding at the edge of the frame. He can be seen screaming in sheer terror just before the frame shifts and we can see Fang beginning to turn away from the monster, as its own body looms over the unicorn in the back of the frame. Although the two, (Malfoy and Fang), haven’t truly begun to run yet, viewers get a sense that they are about to put some distance between themselves and the monster. Then, we can see the two characters running as Malfoy screams. Harry turns momentarily to watch them go as he removes his hand from his scar as though it has stopped flaring. Now, without the presence of the great dog and the Slytherin first year student, Harry is in more danger than ever, as he is utterly alone in an ill-lit and unfamiliar place. The scene rests for a moment, before the frame cuts back to the cloaked figure, who can be seen rising and moving away from the body of the unicorn. A strange, clanking noise, (as though someone is randomly hitting keys on a keyboard), can be heard intermingling with more ominous sounding orchestral music and Malfoy’s screams. The figure is then shown to be moving away from the unicorn and closer to Harry. It seems to glide over the surface of the ground like a ghost as Harry backs away from it. The next frame tightens around Harry a bit and we can see that his lips are parted in fear and his eyes are getting wider. Slowly, he backs away in trepidation in his best attempt to put distance between himself and the unnamed threat. Harry gulps, and then the scene suddenly shifts to the cloaked figure again. He puts his arms out, allowing the cloak’s long, sweeping fabric to dangle between both its body and the ground. It’s as though it is meant to symbolize that the darkness it presents is becoming all encompassing. Again, the orchestral music swells and the trumpets and percussive instruments can be heard above the winds and other instruments. The body of the beast straightens as it looms closer, the frame tightening again, as viewers are led to feel as though Harry is looking into the eyes of the grim reaper. From there, the frame shifts back and forth from Harry to the figure as the figure comes forward, closer to the front of the screen and Harry moves farther back to avoid it. After a short time, Harry moves too far and stumbles over a tree root. He pulls his legs into himself, as though “tightening up” so he’ll appear smaller and less of a threat. Perhaps, if he seems unimposing enough, he feels, the monster will go away; but, it doesn’t, it keeps on getting closer. We can see a mixture of terror and uncertainty in Harry’s eyes as the scene continues to progress and he backs away on his hands, before looking up as a centaur jumps over his head and frightens the beast away. The monster leaps into the air and is lost within the night sky.

Christopher Columbus was the individual who directed the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, while David Heyman produced it. Steve Kloves wrote the screenplay for the film adaptation. Janet Hirshenson, Susie Figgis, and Jane Jenkins worked together, in order to find an appropriate cast. John Williams wrote the film’s music, while John Seale worked on the cinematography. Stuart Craig was the production designer, Richard Francis-Bruce edited the work, Robert Legato supervised the special effects as did John Richardson and Nick Davis. Cari Thomas and Karen M. Murphy were visual effect producers, Nick Dudman did creature and makeup effects, and Judianna Makovsky designed the costumes. Todd Arnow was the unit production manager, John Midgley was the sound mixer, Keith Hatcher was the location manager, and from what I gathered, a large group of individuals worked on location scouting, which included the director himself. Generally speaking, the film was well-received by critics. I believe a large portion of the film’s positive ratings had to do with the fact that it was both a children’s movie and a film adaptation of a novel. I learned several things about the process of adapting a story from the page to the screen. In the interest of both time and space, I will highlight only a single aspect of the process:

A standard method for filming a scene begins with the master shot, a continuous long shot covering the entire action. Then portions of the action are filmed again, from different distances and angles. Later, the best shots will be selected and edited for continuity, using the master shot as a general guide. To ensure continuity of action, the scene is blocked… by walking the actors through each movement before shooting, (Costanzo 36).

With that being said, I already knew that a large team was involved in the production of the entire movie. What I hadn’t known was that a large portion of the set was at “the site of a former Rolls-Royce factory where aircraft were made during World War Two” (Sibley 11). I also didn’t know what caused Columbus to choose specific actors for their parts. For example, he said that Emma Watson had “Hermione’s sense of humor” and that she “was bright-sharp as a whip,” (Sibley 13). Rupert Grint, who portrayed Ronald Weasley, was chosen because “he had this devilish, mischievous quality, and his face was a wealth of all these emotions. He had a wonderful sense of humor but also a real sense of soul.” Daniel Radcliffe, who portrayed Harry Potter on screen, was chosen because his “screen test was amazingly charming, but there was one thing that he had that you couldn’t teach anyone, which was this sort of haunted quality that Harry Potter had in the books” (Sibley 13).

I feel as though the movie follows the novel fairly well as a lot of the dialogue is the same, as is its progression through Rowling’s original story. However, there were some minor changes and omissions. For example, Peeves (an annoying poltergeist found at Hogwarts) and Piers, Dudley’s friend, with whom he visited the zoo on his birthday, were left out of the film. Furthermore, Daniel Radcliffe, who played the role of Harry, looked largely as I imagined him; although, he had blue eyes, as opposed to the same green as his mother’s. He did a good job of portraying a young individual, unsure of himself and how to navigate the world around him, especially a world, which he viewed through the lens of a child. For, after finding out that he was a wizard, he was allowed to explore a world which had been entirely unknown to him. I liked to see the awe in his face when he first took note of a quidditch field or the amazement in his eyes when he got his first look at Diagon Alley. The Dursleys acted as I envisioned, although Dudley and Petunia were brunettes instead of blondes, as was the case in the novel. I thought Ron would have more freckles; but, he acted as I imagined--the frightened, and most foolish member of Harry’s trio.

With that being said, I noticed that there were a lot of changes between both mediums and that Neville Longbottom had a far smaller role in the film, than he did in the novel. For example, he was kept out of detention and really only came into play when he received the remembral from his grandmother, fell off his broom during riding class, and stood up to Harry and his friends when they tried to sneak out to stop Snape from stealing the sorcerer’s stone. In each case, Harry’s storyline is portrayed in the same fashion as in the novel with few if any changes. The greatest changes, I noticed, tended to occur at the beginning of the story. For example, in the beginning of the novel, Dudley goes to the zoo with his friend Piers for his birthday. The only reason Harry got to come along was because his babysitter was unable to watch him. At the zoo, he talks to the snake in the reptile house, and finds out that it never got to see its homeland, Brazil. However, when the glass to the snake’s enclosure disappears, the snake escapes and no one gets trapped behind the glass. In the film, the Dursleys go to the zoo with Harry, and Piers doesn’t attend as he was not included in the script. Again, Harry talks to the snake from the other side of the glass and discovers that it was born in captivity and has never seen its home in Burma. When the glass vanishes, Dudley somehow falls in. The snake escapes and Dudley gets trapped behind the glass, which magically reappears.

Overall, I think that the film adaptation of J.K. Rowling’s novel entitled Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone was a fair adaptation. This is due to the fact that the movie followed the novel’s storyline fairly well and everything looked largely as I imagined--Hogwarts, the grounds surrounding the school, Harry’s cupboard, etc. In addition, although some of the characters didn’t look exactly as I pictured them and although some of the characters didn’t actprecisely as I imagined they would, I felt as though the casting director did an exceptional job of choosing the actors who would portray Rowling’s characters on screen. Richard Harris, who portrayed Professor Dumbledore, embodied everything that Rowling revealed of his character in the novel. He not only looked the part; but, he was patient, kind, warm and friendly, while also displaying the air of a professor and a wise old wizard. I don’t feel as though Steve Kloves’ screenplay was a work of art in its own right, although Chris Columbus really brought his vision and Rowling’s magical world to life. I think that Columbus managed to do this by using a script similar to the original novel and by deftly choosing a location in which to film and people with which to produce the movie. With that being said, I think I have trouble separating the script from the movie and viewing it as one might view and assess a book because I know that unlike a novel, it was meant to have other people play a part. Therefore, it seems incomplete to me, unless the final project is assessed altogether, at which point all the different elements which go into the production of an epic film (e.g. sound and lighting) come together and transform it into something wonderful.

In conclusion, I read J.K. Rowling’s novel entitled, Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone first because it was released before the film. I remember being in awe when I found out that Harry was a wizard and would get to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry in order to learn his craft. I was enthralled by Rowling’s ability to weave a tale of mystery, which led me to wonder just who was after the sorcerer’s stone. Much as was Harry, I was amazed to discover that the story’s main antagonist was Professor Quirrell, who was working in conjunction with the parasitic Lord Voldemort. When Harry defeated them, I was glad to know that good would once again triumph over evil. Overall, I felt as though Chris Columbus created a film adaptation similar to the novel, in the sense that it moved very little around, omitted very little, and added very little.

Works Cited

“Bewitch.” Merriam-Webster.com. Merriam-Webster. nd. Web. 29 Oct. 2016.

Costanzo, William V. Great Films and How to Teach Them. Urbana, IL: National Council of Teachers of English, 2004.

Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. Dir. Chris Columbus. Perf. Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, and Emma Watson. 2001. DVD.

Rowling, J.K. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. N.p.: Scholastic, 1998.

Sibley, Brian. Harry Potter: Film Wizardry. N.p.: Harper Collins, n.d.

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cutsliceddiced · 5 years

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New top story from Time: These Democrats Are Trying to Ensure the Term ‘Socialism’ Doesn’t Define Them in 2020

Last week, Sen. Bernie Sanders stood on stage at a Washington, D.C., college campus extolling the virtues of democratic socialism in what his presidential bid billed as a major speech. As this week began, a group of roughly 200 top Democratic strategists met here in Charleston, S.C., to offer their rejoinder.

During a two-day strategy session about the 2020 elections, officials with the centrist think tank Third Way, activists, union leaders, members of Congress and representatives of some of the top Democratic presidential campaigns debated how to keep Sanders from defining the party and how to defeat President Donald Trump.

“Our view is there is a dividing line in the Democratic Party, and that dividing line is ultimately: Are you a democratic capitalist or a democratic socialist?” Third Way President Jon Cowan told TIME. “That’s a serious dividing line. Bernie is currently the only one who has openly placed himself on the other side of the dividing line and is trying to drag the entire party with him. He would like the party to be known, branded and labeled as democratic socialism.”

The debate comes amid a low-rumbling debate on the left about the meaning of “socialism.” Long a bogeyman of conservatives criticizing everything from Medicare to Obamacare, socialism has become less scary to younger voters who didn’t come of age during the Cold War and associate socialism more with northern European countries that provide strong safety nets.

A 2018 Gallup poll found that, among Americans aged 18 to 29, 51% had a positive feeling about socialism, compared to just 45% who felt the same way about capitalism.

But for the insiders gathered in Charleston, embracing socialism would mean turning off older independents, swing voters and rural and suburban Republicans dissatisfied with Trump who could prove crucial to winning the election. Already there are signs that Trump will use the label to rile up his base, arguing in his official campaign kickoff Tuesday that “a vote for any Democrat in 2020 is a vote for the rise of radical socialism and the destruction of the American Dream.”

Trump’s claim does not match the reality of the Democratic field, however. Of the 23 candidates for the Democratic nomination, only Sanders considers himself a socialist. His chief rival on the left, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, describes herself as a capitalist who wants to strengthen the market’s rules, while frontrunner Joe Biden has frequently argued in the past that the U.S. does not need socialism.

For some at the conference, branded as Opportunity 2020, that was comforting.

“If we don’t nominate a self-proclaimed socialist, we’ll probably be OK,” said Jen Psaki, who served as White House communications director for Barack Obama.

But she and others worried that social media platforms like Twitter — where democratic socialists often identify themselves with red rose emoji in their handles — were skewing the perspectives of campaign staffers. At the beginning of the gathering, Cowan stood before the entire group to caution against mistaking the conversation taking place in tweetstorms and Instagram videos from the ones happening around kitchen tables and at diners.

Citing Third Way polling, Cowan picked his iPhone off a glass-topped podium and noted that three-quarters of Democratic primary voters have never posted on Twitter; that one out of every 15 Democrats in the real world have attended a rally, compared to five out of 15 Democrats who are active tweeters; and that just 30% of Democrats consider themselves democratic socialists, compared to 54% among likely Democratic voters who tweet daily.

“We should all probably keep in mind a simple rule: If you are talking with your thumbs, you’re probably not talking to the people who make majorities,” Cowan said at the front of a Charleston Gaillard Center ballroom.

Third Way political chief Lanae Erickson said that temptation would be particularly strong in the coming months, since campaigns won’t yet be able to see what turns people out to vote, while it will be easy to measure which tweets do well.

“The general election is a million light years away,” she said. “It is going to be seven months before a single voter casts a ballot. … That is 229 days. It’s more 5,000 hours and way, way too many minutes to count. We have a long time before anyone casts a ballot, and that’s a problem.”

Psaki reiterated that advice. “Delete Twitter. Or don’t let it drive your day,” she said. “That is not reflective of the conversations happening in this country.”

Instead, leaders urged the presidential campaigns to get out of their comfort zones and talk to regular people.

“If you’re only getting your message out on Twitter, South Carolinians will not hear,” said Steve Benjamin, the mayor of Columbia, S.C., and quite possibly the most coveted endorsement in play in the state. “If you’re only getting your message out on MSNBC, South Carolinians will not hear you. If you killed it on that podcast, I assure you, South Carolina will not hear.”

Campaigns are rightly tempted to campaign efficiently, going where they can find the most votes with the least amount of time and money spent. But that builds resentment among those whom Trump calls the “forgotten men and women.”

“We have not really treated our rural Pennsylvanians the way they deserve to be treated,” said Nancy Patton Mills, chairwoman of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.

“The way to win is by going to Main Street,” Tollerson, Ariz., Mayor Anna Tovar said during a separate conversation. “Then formulate your policies and ideas based on the needs that everyday community members think about. Listen to them and take action.”

They also urged candidates to ignore polls, which often are not representative this far out of an election. “None of them matter. Just stay focused on your vision,” said Jim Messina, who managed Obama’s 2012 successful re-election bid. “They’re all garbage,” he said of polls at this point.

Instead, strategists argued that Democrats should remain focused on how to replicate 2018’s midterm congressional successes in a coast-to-coast presidential race. African-American women, women overall and suburban voters, this cast argued, need to remain engaged as they were in the midterms. “Women are not a monolith,” said Cecile Richards, the former Planned Parenthood chief who now runs a pro-woman Supermajority.

Added Akunna Cook, the executive director of the Black Economic Alliance that co-sponsored the strategy session: “Ignoring black voter turnout is a recipe for disaster.” (According to Third Way’s research, there are more people of color voting in the suburbs than in urban areas these days, which explains the groups’ alliance.)

On hand, according to an attendee list distributed by Third Way? The campaigns of Biden, Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet; New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker; South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg; New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand; California Sen. Kamala Harris; Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar and former Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke.

Among the other attendees, there remained a nervousness about how the election will go. “In my darkest moments, this race is going to be very, very, very close,” EMILY’s List President Stephanie Schriock said on Monday. A day later, Messina was equally worried: “I promise, we will be sitting on Election Day, not sure who is going to win.”

That led them to be very strategic in their thinking about who to choose as their nominee.

“Guess what? The President is not worried about this re-election campaign,” former Sen. Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, who is now running a group aimed at making inroads among rural voters to deny Trump a second term. “Functionally, he knows something that a lot of people in his universe know: if he makes this election about a choice, that bad guy …. versus Donald Trump, that he can win. He knows how to make binary choices a political mantra that eventually gets him where he wants to go.”

Trump has made clear that his binary choice will be between socialism and something else. For the attendees at Opportunity 2020, the choice in the Democratic primary will be much the same.

via https://cutslicedanddiced.wordpress.com/2018/01/24/how-to-prevent-food-from-going-to-waste

#Time #top stories #IFTTT #news

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starwarsdc · 6 years

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A Fandom Divided: a fractured fandom in the wake of The Last Jedi

This week in class, we discussed fandoms as a cultural group in general. We read and discussed the ways in which society’s views and attitudes towards fans have changed (or not) over the 20th and into the 21st century. We were asked to think about what it might mean for people create the distinction of “real fans” versus “casual fans” or “fake fans.” We were also prompted to think more deeply about the relationship(s) a creator has with the created work and the people who experience that work. To what degree does a creator “own” their creation, and to what degree does a work belong to the fans? These are all questions I will be considering as we prepare to watch The People Versus George Lucas (There will probably be one or two blog posts on this film alone). On this blog, I am not going to offer my own thoughts as to what or who constitutes a “real fan” of Star Wars. Instead, I’ll look at the SW fandom’s various responses to TLJ.

The negative backlash against The Last Jedi has been well documented. Many people are aware of the negative and complex response to this film, but do not understand why this backlash exists. I’ve heard fans say they like the film as a standalone movie, but not as a SW movie. I’ve heard them say they don’t like it, that they hate it, that they love it, that they didn’t understand it. Rather than link to a whole host of reviews and posts from individual tumblrs, I’m using this Vox article to summarize the different reasons for the negative response. (I’m only quoting portions of the article, not the entire thing, so if you’re interested in reading more about this topic, please follow the link to the full article)

1. Too much progressivism: In the early going of the backlash, this was the easy culprit to point to. The broad strokes of the Last Jedi response sure looked like the broad strokes of Gamergate or the backlash to the all-female Ghostbusters remake. And there are lots and lots of tweets and user reviews and responses that focus on the idea that the film’s strongest characters are almost all women, who usually know the right thing to do, while its most evil characters are white men with complexes about being given what they think they deserve. . . .

The Last Jedi is more or less a metaphorical depiction of the baby boomer generation (a generation that featured a lot of white dudes — good and bad — in positions of power) handing off leadership roles to younger generations, particularly millennials, who tend to be more racially diverse and to advocate having more women in positions of power. The series’ millennial good guys are a young white woman, a black man, a woman of Asian descent, and a Latino man, while its millennial bad guys are two white dudes.

But saying there’s a lot of cultural anxiety around this particular generational handoff is an understatement. And when you consider that Star Wars fandom has long been presided over by white guys, it’s natural this would lead to angry policing over what Star Wars is and isn’t. And that policing can be ugly and lead to toxic fandoms in which people who aren’t white men don’t feel comfortable.

2. The jokes are too jokey: Of the “nitpicky” complaints, this is the most nitpicky, in that plenty of fans don’t like The Last Jedi’s sense of humor. And to be sure, the film has its share of broad jokes, which seem to be written in comic idioms that are slightly more modern than the original trilogy’s more vaudevillian style. . . . A lot of people who found Last Jedi too jokey also made subsequent tweets where they compared something in Last Jedi unfavorably to something in the prequel trilogy.

3. The movie is uninterested in fan theories: And even if you can get with the new trilogy’s ideas about how things ended up after Jedi, then The Last Jedi spends a lot of its running time telling you that a lot of the things fans have obsessed about since The Force Awakens was released just didn’t matter.The 2015 film was directed by J.J. Abrams, who never met a mystery he couldn’t tease. But Johnson immediately quashed many of those mysteries in Last Jedi. Who was Snoke? Who were Rey’s parents? Who cares, The Last Jedi ultimately concludes.Rey is impressive because of who she is, and Snoke is just a distraction from the real villain, who turns out to be Kylo Ren, who’s all the more terrifying because of his ultimate choice to embrace evil. But these storytelling choices weight the characters’ choices more heavily than their destiny, and if you spent a lot of time over the past two years trying to prove that, say, Rey is a Kenobi, well, you might find yourself disappointed at the casual disposal of something that seemed so important to the last film.

[note: I personally think the response of this kind is more serious than “uninterested in fan theories” would imply. Many fans, including myself, find fault in the film because it fails to follow the natural progression and plot arc established by its predecessor, The Force Awakens. Many of the issues, conflicts, and character arcs are simply ignored, openly contradicted, or not resolved.]

4. Individual plot lines/moments don’t make sense: How does Benicio Del Toro’s character know a very important piece of information late in the film? You can hand-wave this away, but it takes a couple of logic leaps to do so*.) This is especially true of the film’s pacing, with Rey’s Jedi training seeming to take months, while everything else in the movie takes place over a matter of hours.The most common complaint in this regard is that Finn and Rose’s journey to the casino planet of Canto Bight is a slow, pointless distraction from the more immediately involving plots involving Rey and Poe, one that gums up the middle of the movie and doesn’t amount to anything in terms of the plot. And I can certainly see this, since the Finn/Rose plot nearly lost me the first time I watched the film. . . .

Ultimately, these sorts of plot holes and storytelling choices are of less interest to critics, who tend to focus more on a film’s craft and its themes, than fans, who like to pick apart the nitty-gritty details of a movie. And I’d argue that almost all of the so-called “plot holes” fans have brought up are ultimately explained away within the film, or justified by how they play into the movie’s overall storytelling structure. It’s rare in this film that a setup doesn’t have a payoff and vice versa. But they’re not always where you’re looking for them, and that can lead to confusion and consternation.

5. The characters’ journeys aren’t what was expected: This is probably the fan critique with the most meat to it. But it’s also, ultimately, the one that has the most personal spin on it. Do you think that Rey’s journey in the film shows the slow dawning of her realization that she has agency in and of herself and doesn’t need it to be given to her (as I do), or do you think it silos her off in the middle of a plot that takes her movie from her? Do you think that Luke Skywalker is an old man who learns a lesson about aging and wisdom, or a cranky cynic who never would have become what he is? Do you think the movie is optimistic about the future, or unable to compete with the wonders of the past?

What’s interesting about the critiques of The Last Jedi is how often, when you talk about them, many of the above criticisms fall away, and you’re left with a distinct philosophical difference between people who love the film’s insistence that the future can be better if we make it and those who don’t like the way it forces us to grapple with the sins of the past, with the way it argues the Rebellion might have won at the end of Return of the Jedi, but it largely upheld the status quo.

Or consider the way that the film seems as if it’s largely left behind the central Force Awakens trio of Poe, Finn, and Rey — who are split up into three separate plot lines in Last Jedi — in favor of more focus on Kylo Ren’s journey through his own indecision toward something darker and more foreboding, as well as Luke’s journey from cynicism back to hope. I don’t think this is a terribly accurate read of the film, where all three characters get full, complicated character arcs and are tested in interesting ways, but if you really keyed in on, say, Finn and Rey’s interplay in Force Awakens, I get the disappointment.

This philosophical difference of opinion extends to none other than Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker himself. While Hamill has turned into one of the film’s biggest boosters, he’s made no secret of the fact that he disagreed considerably with Johnson’s vision for the character. (For his part, Johnson took Hamill’s criticisms to heart and changed certain things about Luke’s arc — though we don’t know what.)

Van der Werff comes to the conclusion that “The Last Jedi is Act 2 of a story about letting go of the past and embracing the future. Maybe it was destined to be divisive.” He explains:

The Last Jedi is about this tension, about the ways that generations uneasily give way to other generations and the ways we all learn to accept that our parents (or parental figures) sometimes have the right answers and sometimes don’t. It’s a big, bold, complex film, full of contradictory notes, a little like Empire was. I suspect, in time, it will age just as satisfactorily, but it’s also possible I’m wrong. Loving it means letting go, just a little bit, of some rosy past and embracing a future that might lead to disappointment.The people we were aren’t always the people we become, and that’s both a necessary lesson and a bitter disappointment, but you can’t become yourself without learning to live alongside that discomfort. And now there’s a Star Wars movie about that very dilemma, right when we all might need it most.

#fandom activity #star wars: the last jedi #the last jedi

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