~ Narnia ~ Part 2
The Film Reviewed
Narnia is not a real place. Like Brigadoon, Grovers Corners, Neverland, and Middle Earth, Narnia has never existed anywhere on this--or any other earth. Yet millions of us have visited Narnia again and again. Unlike her siblings, we all believed Lucy when she tumbled back out of the wardrobe in the country of Spare Oom. We believed her because we were there with her the first time the soft fur coats became prickly pine needles. We had tea with Lucy in Mr. Tamnus’s cozy home and, like Lucy, we wanted to tell all our friends about the land from the lamp post to as far as the imagination could see.
So it is that we--the Children of Narnia, as I like to call us--filled with eager anticipation when we heard early rumors (and then press releases) of plans for a big budget film production of C.S. Lewis’s classic The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, And the Wardrobe. At the same time that our inner child moved to the edge its seat, our inner skeptic was saying, BUT, will they “get it right.” The “they” in question here are the Walt Disney Studios and Walden Media. Disney had already passed on the opportunity to produce the Harry Potter film series and Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy--both box office mega hits.
Disney had recently produced an emaciated and dull made-for TV version of Madeleine L’Engle’s brilliant A Wrinkle in Time. Would Disney display the same landmark ignorance about the contents of the Chronicles and muck it up in Narnia?
Reviewing film should never be about merely pronouncing the work worth seeing with thumbs, stars, or points. It should also not be merely a rehash of the story, characters, and events in the film. Rather, film (and stage) criticism is to analyze the work and explain (with examples) why this was a successful enterprise given the resources, creative team, and script that were available.
With Narnia:LWW there is the added conundrum of ever-watchful C.S. Lewis purists asking, “Did they get it right?” I will deal with this controversy and all those self-appointed Narnia monitors in the third installment of my three-blog Narnia series.
Entering my first screening of the film (at the World Premiere in London, see Narnia Part One) I was excited. I had seen enough teasers, previews, and production stills to be optimistic. With Weta (the team that produced swords, shields, costume and other props for Lord of the Rings) on board, I knew that all those bits would work. George Lucas’s ILM (Industrial Light and Magic) provided flawless special effects, so Narnia had the best available production folks currently working in film—maybe ever in film. Though I am not a Shrekky I had seen enough interviews with Narnia director, Andrew Adamson, to imagine his heart (creative spirit) were in the right place to delftly handle Lewis's story, in seven novella-length episodes.
This film, neither in spite of or because of it’s critics, needed to work on it’s own. Broadway’s The Wiz--a contemporary send-up of The Wizard of Oz--got panned when it first opened because it assumed we had all seen the original Oz film and proceeded to do a poor job of telling the actual story, rather than a contemporary retelling of Baum’s original classic. Narnia, the film, would also have to tell the story, at 24 frames-a-second. It had to stand on it’s own and never assume that every moviegoer, any movirgoer, had read (and re-read) the original books.
Immediately the film makers departed from, or added to, Lewis’s children’s story by opening the film with dark and moving scenes of London under siege (the Third Riech bombing the BRitish capital) to give this story--even this entire series--a context. The “war to end all wars” was not that. The battle rages on, and as Lewis shows us the war is more than Nazi bombing raids. Sending our children to the countryside may avoid their being killed by man-made bombs, but they will face fiercer attacks wherever they are--even hiding in a coat closet. London in the early 1940s was a place to be from and there were good reasons to be leaving home and family.
Narnia is the place where we all find reasons for our existence beyond family. We find danger in scary wolves and friends in beavers and fauns. (Did you notice that although both the forces of evil and the forces of righteousness had animals on their side, the “evil” animals wore clothes. Except for Mr. Tamnus’s scarf the “good animals” were in there natural attire. Hmmm.)
Edmund, youngest of two brothers, chooses personal pleasure and power over family fealty. His allegiances to his siblings are vulnerable in the hands of the dark--albeit adorned all in white--and enticing White Witch. Maybe, since it’s all make-believe, a game, he decides to go for the brass ring—a castle filled with Turkish Delight. (For me, it would have to be dark chocolate and rich red wine, but the witches in my closet are quite stingy.)
All along the Narnia trail the four Pevensie children are faced with near insurmountable obstacles and the most unlikely allies. Two of everyone’s favorites from the book, Mr. and Mrs. Beaver are warm and witty without the hollow and sardonic juvenile jokesterism of Mr. Adamson's Shrek films. The “Beavs” seem as delighted to see us--the “sons of Adam and daughters of Eve”--as we are to meet them. With the voice, acting, and comedic talents of Ray Winston and Dawn French (two of England's very best), they do not disappoint. The escape from an impending wolfing is one of the film's more exciting and entertaining sequences. It is an invention of the film makers that does not appear in the book, but adds greatly to the forward progress of this story painted with light.
Here I must take a moment to address the Narnia purists. A good story works in any medium if we are faithful to the objective. (Why are we telling it? What’s it all about? What do we stand to gain or learn from this story?) But the way you tell the story is different in every medium. The escape from the wolves would be difficult to accomplish in just words on a page with the same tension and excitement as in the film. Just as the film's great battle scenes are far more effective on film. In print the battles were a few lines. Mr. Lewis knew our imaginations wiuld fill in the rest.
Lucy’s first encounter in Narnia is a sweet moment in the book. On film it is a more interesting, hesitant, odd, delightful, charming, and even silly series of fits and starts. This hide and seek encounter on film is not nearly as engaging in the book. And even the most vivid imagination would be short circuited at the task of creating the Narnia battles with only words. (Lewis so much as admitted this in interviews, he could not begin tom attermpt put huge battles into mere words.)
In one interview, shown in Royal Albert Hall before the World Premiere screening in London, the production designer suggested that some of the special effects technology used in Narnia was not even in existence a few years ago as pre-production for the film began. In the interview (think live DVD bonus features) they also told of providing food, and other basic conveniences for 600 people--extras, crew, staff. All those live performers and still CBI (computer generated images) to create rampant polar bears to drive the Witch's chariot into battle. Breathtaking.
Other online blogs and reviews proudly sight a long ago quote from C.S. Lewis eschewing movies as an imagination stunting media. Back then he was probably right. But Lewis died fifty-two years ago (the same day President Kennedy was assasinated.) That’s even before Walt Disney’s cinema effects bending Mary Poppins shook film makers and movie goers alike. Movie making ain’t what it used to be when Walt and “Jack” (Lewis) were still with us. No one, not one living person, knows what Lewis might have thought of today’s cinemagic.
We do have a close representative on the side of Aslan and the film makers of Narnia in the person of Douglas Gresham, stepson to C.S. Lewis. Douglas's mother, Joy Gresham, famously married “Jack” Lewis in a hospital bedside ceremony when she was not expected to recover from her cancer. Gresham is the keeper of Narnia’s keys and was deeply, and totally involved in every aspect of the film’s production from script approval to world-wide lion auditions. (Yes, Virginia, some of the lions were real.) Doug Gresham has been quoted as saying he wept the first time he viewed the finally version of this film.
Me too.
I started to re-read LWW a few months ago, but stopped as I did not want my viewing 0f the film to be crowded by details of dialog and plot form the book. I wanted to re-enter Narnia fresh and allow the 100 years of Winter to melt and a new Narnia to blossom.
Aslan roared loader than I even hoped. Chills shot up my spine and all through my heart as Eternity announced its presence among us. And those chills became anxious fear as Aslan ascended to the stone table to fulfill his promise to the Witch, Edmund, and all of us. We, too have betrayed our brothers and sisters. We’ve accepted twenty pieces of Turkish Delight (or silver, or gold) in exchange for our own gain at the betrayal of close friends.
Aslan roared.
The earth shook and and Aslan overcame the bonds of evil and its simple-minded death sentence. The grace that Lewis teaches so clearly and powerfully in the book is richly and unambiguously woven through the fabric of the film’s version of Lewis’s imaginative tale. Narnia and all its inhabitants are, after all, make believe. They are the “inklings” of an inventive mind and deeply spiritual heart.
For all the good that we can gain from visiting Narnia there is a theme of reluctance and uncertainty in this story. From early doubts about Lucy’s new found world to Peter’s reticence to use his enormous new sword (available on SSN--the Sword Shopping Network--or from Father Christmas, if you get your request in...NOW.)
Narnia, the film, can not be easily dismissed as a “good children’s movie.” (Besides, how many good children are there?) Certainly the simple stories are for a child’s mind, but the aptly rated “PG” film is more tense, dark, ferocious and exciting than its ink and paper progenitor. As much as I have always loved the books and longed for their transfer to film, I could never have hoped for the work of art that Disney, Walden, et al have created. And just as I have urged so many friends to read the books—and always will—I will now nudge them to the local Narnia-plex to hear Aslan roar again or for the very first time.
Will Aslan roar again?
Neither Disney Studios nor Walden Media will go on record, yet, to say that this is the first of seven films--one for each Narnia book. BUT! A couple of weeks ago, in Paris (am I city dropping? Sorry, but that’s where I saw it) in a poster shop across from the Pompidou Center, a Narnia movie poster, in French, with the words “Chapter One” writ large beneath the film's title.
With a $67 million opening weekend, I am certain the midnight oil is, even now, burning at Disney--even during the Holy Days--as plans are mapped out (or more likely dusted off) for the next several visits to Narnia. I am sure, too, that old ideas (hatched more than a decade ago) for a Narnia area in Disney’s Animal Kingdom theme park (Walt Disney World, Florida) are getting fresh and focused attention form my old mates at Disney Imagineering.
If I have any criticism of the film, it would be nit picking: more of the Professor, please. Perhaps he’ll return in future films. My human side wanted a PG-13 offing of the White Witch. Maybe there’s a director’s cut for us big kids who can take a little blood where there was artfully none throughout the film and yet great tension and violence. I applaud the skill of director and crew for this feat. Harry Gregson-Williams’ original score was serviceable where I’d hoped for soaring. When separated from the film, the soundtrack has little that soars or soothes. Listening to it does not, as it should, evoke the images and emotions of the journey we see on film. Great film scores are as integral as production design—scenics, props, costuming—and can add as much as a key character to the overall film going experience. The trailer music promised more than the film score delivered.
The running time, right at two hours, is longer than most films target at younger audiences. All the classic Dinsey animated features and Pixar miracles are closer to 80 - 90 minutes. The Harry Potter pics are for an older audience and can play longer. Even so, Narnia is about the right length for the story they needed to fit in. Maybe a director's cut-expanded edition-deleted scenes-DVD will give "Narniacs" the eight hour version they pine for. It will not be better than the version running in theaters everywhere now. Don't wait for that unlikely event. See this Narnia on the big screen, with the big sound. Even if you are a big kid and have no little ones in tow.
Mostly, this film version delivered the Narnia I’d longed to visit and the long wait was worth it. Go soon if you have not yet been. And revisit the original guide book by reading the C.S. Lewis's books -- especially if you have never read them.
P.S. This just in: (14 Dec '5) Team Narnia (Disney/Walden) is prepping Narnia’s Prince Caspian for a 2007 release. Meanwhile, I'll be at the Beavers, having...tea! Onward and upward.
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Next ~ Narnia Nonsense: Picking Apart the Narnia Nit Pickers and Purists (Part Three of my three part series.) I've got a full rich, Christmas-celebrating weekend with friends in LA so look for Narnia 3 - next week and some pre and post Christmas blogettes.
