Harry Potter
and the Goblet of Fire
So... Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is out in November. Can we expect much? I have to admit that I hated the film of The Philosopher’s Stone. It tried to fit everything in, Snape was just grumpy rather than menacing... it just didn’t live up to the book. And I didn’t watch the second film – if my disappointment with the first film wasn’t enough, there were giant spiders in The Chamber of Secrets. And so there didn’t seem much point in watching The Prisoner of Azkaban. Which is a shame, because when I did, I discovered it was a fantastic film. So what about The Goblet of Fire? Well, I’ll definitely be in the cinema to find out.
So just what is it about Harry Potter which has gripped so many people?
There’s the magic, of course. Isn’t it everyone’s dream to be able to do the washing up by magic? The suggestion that there is another, invisible, world attracts people. The idea that you could wave a wand and make things happen: levitate feathers, turn people into pigs, create light. Or have an invisibility cloak or marauders’ map. This is the stuff of dreams and fantasy: unicorns, hippogryphs, centaurs – creatures which existed in Narnia. The Harry Potter films generally do very well with CGI, because it is fantasy. Buckbeak never looks like he shouldn’t exist – entering into the film’s world requires a suspension of disbelief so accepting an eagle-horse hybrid isn’t a problem as long as it is done well. The troll looked a little cartoonish and the centaurs seemed pretty lame to me though. And while seeing actually seeing quidditch is one of the main benefits of the film versions, the pitch is never quite convincing: it looks slightly like the football pitches which show the line-up on TV – maybe it’s the shade of green they use.
And Harry Potter is the latest in the fine tradition of boarding school stories. When I was younger I read Enid Blyton and was desperate to go to boarding school – it sounded fun and I forgot that as I hated being at school anyway, it would be worse to be there 24 hours a day. Hogwarts has this amazing feel of a traditional boarding school – the robes, the architecture, the dorms... However, in the first two films this seems flat and only in The Prisoner of Azkaban do you really get the feeling that this is a school full of real people. Somehow, the acting and characterisation are so much deeper in the third film. In one scene, Harry, Ron and his friends are in their dorm eating sweets and pretending to be animals. In another, Draco gives his bag to one of his henchmen as if he is going to fight Harry, then pretends there is a dementor behind Harry and he, Crabbe and Goyle tease Harry. This reminds me of what it was like to be at school in a way the first two films don’t.
All the children in the film are school stereotypes of one kind or another. Not caricatures – they are real people – but a school is a small world where people get put into groups: the sporting types, the geeks. At Hogwarts, the groups are slightly different, but all the roles are still there. Watching Hermione try to answer all the questions, but doesn’t win herself any friends, reminded me of myself at school.
Another change which adds realism to the third film is the clothes the schoolchildren wear. While witches and wizards dress in a strange fantasy manner – cloaks, pointy hats and a lot of velvet – to set them apart from the muggles, Harry, Ron and Hermione seem more like real people when wearing clothes worn by teenagers in the real world. Ron would have an excuse, brought up in the wizarding world, but Hermione is unlikely to suddenly decide to wear mass quantities of velvet just because she’s a witch.
Harry is different. Did everyone have that sneaking suspicion, growing up, that they were somehow different? That people misunderstand you, but it’s OK because one day the world will see why you were a little bit odd? The Dursleys are pretty horrible – pretty cartoonish really – but Harry turns out to be better than them. All along he’s been bullied by Dudley and treated as inferior and sub-human but actually he turns out to be a Very Important Person – hero of the wizarding world, no less, and a celebrity. I’m still waiting to find out why I’m so special, but Harry gives me hope that this will happen.
Part of the appeal of the Harry Potter story is the heroism. Voldemort says “There is no good and evil, there is only power”. This is something we hope is not true. Part of growing up is discovering, painfully, that the world is not black and white. It is complicated and there are difficult choices to be made. Harry also has choices to make and is not known for sticking to the rules, but there is a satisfaction in knowing that there are goodies and baddies. Dumbledore is a goodie. Voldemort is a baddie. Some people appear to be one and turn out to be the other - the dilemma over Snape is a feature of all the books – however, we know that everyone will turn out to be good or evil, lining up behind Dumbledore or Voldemort in the end.
The films – and books – are getting darker. So far, there has been a lot of scene-setting and introducing characters. The stories explore some unpleasant themes. The slavery of the house elves, which Hermione takes on as her pet project, is best shown by Lucius Malfoy kicking Dobby at the end of The Chamber of Secrets. There is also racism: some wizards think they are better than other wizards. ‘Mudblood’ is a term of contempt among some wizards. Being from a pureblood wizarding family is better than being of muggle parentage. This darkness in a fantasy novel for children does set Harry Potter apart from a lot of children’s fiction.
And we can expect more of this in The Goblet of Fire. This is the book where the storyline starts getting really dark: the treatment of the muggles at the Quidditch world cup is disturbing. There will be dragons, exciting broomstick-flying, dancing and pretty dresses and the beginnings of adolescence. Surely Ron and Hermione are destined to get it together at some point, and it this was brought out in The Prisoner of Azkaban. Obviously, as well as the tri-wizard tournament, Voldemort will get a look in – we will find out more about his past – and there will be the usual questions over who Snape will line up with in the end.
There are, of course, weaknesses when adapting a film from a book. Very rarely, if ever, is a film better than a book. The Harry Potter films so far have lacked complexity. There has been emotional depths missing, particularly in relationships. Harry’s relationship to Dumbledore never seems to come across as it does in the books. And the films are just not scary enough. The menace of Voldemort is never adequately conveyed. The films seem to rely on viewers having read the books to really understand the relationships between people. And Harry Potter is at a disadvantage in that so many people who see the film will have already read the book – it is quite hard to be truly frightening when the audience already know the ending. Giant spiders do help though.
Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire is released on 18th November 2005.
Article
by: Sarah Stuart
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