Tea with McNair

• the enemy of creativity

"And by the way, everything in life is writable about if you have the outgoing guts to do it, and the imagination to improvise. The worst enemy of creativity is self-doubt."

    ~ Sylvia Plath

[See post below for an antidote to self-doubt.]

• doing the impossible

"Difficult takes a while.
   Impossible takes a little longer."

 ~ Walt Disney

• eigth below, thirty-two thousand above

[Antarctica map, left.Click to enlarge]

My least favorite place to spend time is IN an airplane. I do not fear flying. Imagine going into a furniture store and picking out the smallest, least comfortable chair they have and dragging it into the far corner of the store--away from the front door so you won't get any bothersome fresh air in your face. Now sit down and pull the chair as close to the wall (facing the wall) as you can. Stay there for several hours, until you arrive in (insert name of large airport.)
    Don't worry, some one will bring you a soft drink and an un-openable bag of .05 oz. of salty carbohydrates. Enjoy your flight.
    But wait, there's good news for your time spent at 32,000 feet above the earth, they're going to show you a movie. A big Hollywood movie--on a tiny Seattle-installed screen.
    Our feature presentation today will be either a recent blockbuster that can barely be enjoyed on your giant home theatre system with surround sound, under-sofa-woofer, and flat plasma screen, or it is a movie you have never heard of, but if you had you still would have chosen not to see it in a theatre near you.
    For your listening pleasure there are headphone-shaped devices in the seat pocket in front of you--crammed between the in-flight magazine and the vomit bag.
    Recently I watched KING KONG (2005) in-flight and fell asleep “on the boat.” On my recent European bivouac I both watched films from United’s nine film playlist and brought my own DVDs, just incase. Fortunate kismet occurred when I discovered on their  list of lofty flics, the delightful Australian production of PETER PAN (2003.) Though I had seen this effulgent production both in a theater and on home DVD I watched it again. Then, following a trip to the bathroom-like closet onboard, I plugged my Mac Powerbook into the power socket, inserted my own DVD and cried my way through FINDING NEVERLAND for the sixth or ninth time. (By-the-by, Jan A.P. Kaczmarek’s Neverland soundtrack is among my “most played” while writing and imagining these days.) These two films would be a full, rich, remarkable mid-summer night’s miracle for your next neighborhood family film night. You do have family film nights on your block, don’t you? It’s Summer, start them!
    All that (the previous 404 words) to say this. Last week I watched a real gem on my flight home from New York, New York. I had never never heard of it and rush to United’s Red Carpet Room in the Denver Air Museum to go online for more info. Once again life has smiled on us all as it was due to be released on DVD the  very next Tuesday. Which Tuesday is now, as I write this, behind us and the film is available for rental and ownership, everywhere.
    “What’s the name of the movie, McNair?!”
  I thought you’d never ask. EIGHT BELOW (Poster, left. Click to enlarge.) Even when I saw it listed in the in-flight movie guide I had to look it up. There was an entire paragraph on the story, Antarctica, scientific outpost, guy and his dog team (eight dogs living below the Arctic Circle.) It is based on a true story. I am going to tell you no more of the story as even a little bit of plot will give it away. You will want to have it unfold before you as I did and relive the  adventure. It also has a good bit of comedy and a sprinkling of romance.
   This is certainly a kid-friendly (PG, but not at all sappy) movie--produced by Disney. There are some emotionally tense, high-adventure sequences that may be too powerful for very young kids. (I make it my policy to NEVER say any film is appropriate for your kids. Every kid is wired different, as any parent of two or more well knows.)
    If you are an animal lover, it will grab you deeply. If you are a dog person (as I am, completely) it will make you want to run out and buy six Siberian Huskies and two Alaskan Malamutes, today! Mine are sitting outside in my vehicle, watching me write right now, here in Cafe Zoetrope (photo, left, red awnings) in San Francisco. The human cast is flawless and under the keen direction of Frank Marshall--long-time Spielberg producing partner (Indiana Jones, etc.) Marshall creates a steady emotional pace that would have been lost in less deft directoral hands. The near perfect score (by Mark Isham, one of our current masters) weaves effortlessly through a challenging piece of storytelling that must jog back-and-forth between two or three simultaneous plot lines.
    EIGHT BELOW, at 32,00 feet above sea level was one of the great surprises of my recent travels. It stirred me on the level of persistently and relentlessly going after something you believe in no matter the cost--even when those closest tell you to give up and the outcome may be bleak, at best.
    The real risk in life is doing what’s safest. So, on your next flight, get comfortable, and watch the stupid, you’ve-never-even-heard-of-it-before movie. You might just meet eight amazing new friends.
    (Just incase, have a good book nearby--and a cup of tea. Don’t be dummy.)

   

 

[Let me know what you think, after you’ve watched this delightful film and watched my new friends, above.]

    [ 917 ]

   

• NARNIA - Exactly! or Not

Third and final NARNIA post ~ read all three in any order

    ~ Part 3: “Narnia Nonsense”

Picking Apart the Narnia Nit Pickers and Pevensie Purists

Before the first-ever public screening of a much-anticipated film--based on a very popular book--the producer felt moved to make a few comments to those of us in attendance. Thanks for coming and thanks for being willing to fill out a comment card after the screening. Then an unexpected boast with a warning.
    “We believe this is a faithful and accurate version of the original text. Though not a word-for-word retelling, it is an exacting and careful film of this great story. I need to warn you, though, that there are no wisemen in our Christmas story--as we have based this film on the Book of Luke, and Luke never mentions wisemen.”
    “What?!” I said, out loud. It stopped the proceedings.
    “The Gospel of Luke does not mention the Wisemen and we wanted to make the most Biblically accurate film on the life of Christ ever produced.”
    ”Where did you get a Bible that only has one Gospel in it?” I asked.
    “We decided - - ”
    “To create a big gaping whole in the beginning of the film that will distract every audience member. Or will you be there to give your "most Biblically accurate" speech at every screening?”
    The movie was called simply, Jesus. Maybe they should have called it Jesus Without the Wisemen or, Jesus Lite, but with or with out wisemen it was a muddled, confusing and not very engaging story retelling. The producers will tell you it’s been seen by millions and changed lives. So, I guess it’s okay if it isn’t very good film making--and incomplete storytelling.
    What is accuracy? At a conference on Imagination and Faith at Oxford University (Oxford ‘91) I heard Madeleine L’Engle read from the Oxford Dictionary, “Perfect, to do thoroughly, to complete.” Looking up from her notes she smirked, “I have written over forty books, I must pretty damn perfect.”
    When a story is transferred from the page to the screen, or the stage, I do not want accuracy, but I am very interested in the film makers being thorough. I want them to find the heart and soul of the author and his story and let it breath life through flesh and blood characters. I want to share the anguish of their struggle, cry at their collapse, and bellow at their triumphs. If screenwriter and director have done their homework--read the book--if they have found the heart of the work, the stories objective, the film has more than a fighting chance. The objective tells us why the author is telling this story. What are we to carry away, to do, consider, change, make complete in our lives as a result of sitting in the dark, staring at 24 images per second for two hours. How might this story complete us?
    With the announcement that The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe was coming to wide screen cinemas (and not-so-wide mall-plexes) Narnia fans the world over sat up and paid attention. At the center of the pack the nit-picking Narnia purists—self-appointed “wardrobe monitors.” Would the Disney/Walden team get Narnia “right”—exactly, or not?
    Does their need for perfection and accuracy include C.S. Lewis’s outdated language with the Pevensie children saying “rah-ther” and “splendid”? Lewis was a master storyteller, but he never expected to be writing for the whole world and several generations. He wrote to British children in the middle of the twentieth century. Fifty years later we have new ways of telling stories and, at the same time, preserving Narnia’s story. Some moviegoers on this side of the Atlantic divide will be put off by the mere hint of the British accents of the four siblings at the heart of the journey. Trust me on this, as I just spent a week in London and Oxford, that’s really the way all children in England sound. They can’t help themselves, they’re British.
    So, changes were made in the story-moved-to-screen through the fourteen complete drafts of a screenplay. Co-writer and director Andrew Adamson (Shrek I & II), a big Narnia fan as a kid, estimates that some scenes had nearly a hundred versions. This was a task not entered into lightly. But stories are told visually on film where a book has all that narrative, adverb, and adjective stuff.
    Everyone who reads fiction imagines the look, and feel, and sounds of the story’s places and people. With our favorite stories—Narnia—we hope for a film version and set about to create our version of that film in our minds. Thus even the Narniaholics would not agree amongst themselves on an accurate film version. “Where two or more (Narniacs) are gathered...there will be”... a discussion group, an argument, and a helping of tea and cakes.
    A friend of mine wrote one of the earliest and best Narnia companions and had to spend not a few pages correcting some of the folklore that had grown up around Lewis’s motivations and intentions. I suspect if there were a film of C.S. Lewis himself reading Narnia to a group of children, there would be many who would not be satisfied with his interpretation.
    Sometimes the film, or parts of it, can be better than the book. Narnia:LWW is such an experience, for me. First example:
    That wonderful moment, in the book, when young Lucy, only a minute after arriving in Narnia, for the first time, encounters her first resident of this magical be-Wintered land. Both she and Mt. Tumnus are startled. He drops his packages and almost right away begins picking them up again. It is a great moment--in the book. Ah, but in the film, director, screenwriters, actors, editor, and the director of cinematography all conspire to create an even richer scene. Both characters are surprised and driven to hiding behind lamp post and tree. Lucy, ever-curious approaches the stranger and along the way she picks up the packages and delivers them to her new friend. What is a brief and delightful moment in the book becomes, in the film, a series of playful peeks and tentative false starts towards a great moment of discovery. And having Lucy retrieve the packages brings more meaning and depth to the story than even Lewis himself found in the original NArnia-on-the-page.
    Like filming the life of Christ, or any other story that we have first encountered as written word, there is going to be a clash of the places and people that our imaginations have built, painted, decorated and populated with all the images devised by the hundreds of artisans who have crafted a filmic retelling of the story.
    How then, or whom, shall we judge a popular work like LWW? Who decides?
    No one. And everyone. It is not your place to tell me it wasn’t accurate, therefore wrong, nor is it my place to pronounce it correctly done. What I am hoping to do in these paragraphs is assist those who are worried with a bit a understanding about the process of moving a story from one medium to another. Also, I wanted to share the bits and pieces of info that I have found from the production team and the love they had for the story and their understanding that carefulness was needed. And they had help, expert help form someone close to old “Jack” Lewis himself.
    All along the way, lending his life-long (and first-hand) knowledge of C.S. Lewis was Douglas Gresham, Lewis’s stepson. He was there in Alsan’s camp with the centaurs and the Beavers. He was in on world-wide “auditions” for real lions to portray Aslan. He had script approval. That is nothing short of the keys to the kingdom of Narnia. Mr. Gresham was in on early planning and was there for the world premiere at the Royal Albert Hall to greet HRH Prince Charles.
    There was early speculation by the film community and worry by church folk as to whether Narnia, the film, would be as big as Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, or King Kong. I for one don’t care. If it’s not, if the current episode of Harry Potter halls in more cash at the box office does God lose? Well, that’s what you’d think was at stake here. Harry and Aslan, apples and Kiwi. Two very different target audiences with a good bit of overlap. But your average Hogwart’s kid is likely to be old enough for a drop off viewing, while many younger Narnia visitors will need a parent in toe. Fear not, Ma and Pa, you will have a good time in Narnia. I sat next to three young Brits and a middle-age rock star and we all loved it. For now, opening weekend was the second best December opener ever at just north of $62 million. According to the website Box Office Mojo, Narnia has earned more than $247 million, to date (cf. $192 million for King Kong.) Are you happy now?
    That’s enough for Disney/Walden to have already announced Narnia II, Prince Caspian, for a December 2007 release.
    Hollywood and some who think you earn your salvation (your worth) by good deeds and good box office receipts, will need to keep score. But we “wrestle not against flesh and blood’’ or movie special effects—and Narnia has loads of them—all thanks to George Lucas’s ILM (Industrial Light and Magic.)
    I am already weary of the online chat rooms, blogs, radio and TV debates among Christians who want to improve God’s image through box office ratings, best seller book lists, and “Christian musicians” appearing on the popular variety shows (Jay Leno et al.) None of that is supposed to matter in God’s calculus. The one visit Jesus made to a mega church (the Temple in Jerusalem) was an embarrassing disaster. He trashed the DVD, t-shirt, and gospel gadget booth in the lobby and thrashed the senior pastors with reptilian name calling. He was not rebooked.
    If Narnia has anything to say it is a message of God’s grace. No other belief system offers this ridiculous, unreasonable, remarkably elegant, and foolishly illogical distinction. God’s Grace creates a seamlessness where once there were scars.
    By contrast, there is an inelegance to the church trying to compete by the world’s standards. If people of faith who are also author’s, musicians and film makers create works that are critically acclaimed and commercially successful, great. But that does not make their work legitimate or better. So the new film, based on the “first” book in C.S. Lewis’s Narnia series might be a big hit, or not. It does not change the film’s quality and impact. Of course when something grows in popularity, more folks are attracted to it. This is good, IF the boook/film/music is good. “Popular” does not equal good or valuable. We all have a favorite life-changing film or book that we can’t understand why everyone hasn’t read or seen.
    The larger worry with this film is it’s so-called accuracy, as though we were discussing scripture. Narnia is, after all is said and done a completely made-up fantasy. It is an allegory devised for children to understand good vs. evil, God's grace and other grand, eternal themes. C.S. Lewis wrote it for children, not grown ups with tiny reading glasses, highlighter pens, and a check list of the exact words of Aslan. Just like Father Christmas and the Easter Bunny, Aslan, too, is make believe. Unlike those seasonal icons Aslan is rich, powerful, unsafe, and very good. Meanwhile, Santa Claus never died for anyone.
    Example two of the film being better: Film is a hugely visual storytelling art form. As great a writer as C.S. Lewis was, he did not create battle scenes as exciting and vast as the film of his story. 
    As an actor I have preformed Shakespeare’s plays word for word, with audience members who sit in the dark following along in their well-worn copy of the text. Nowhere, in any of Shakespeare's plays did he pen either stage directions or clues as to how the words “should be said.” Yet thousands of performances of his plays will thrill audiences around the world this year and next. All those actors and directors will conspire to break open any and all meaning they can mine from the Bard’s rich and rewarding rhythmic writing. Many stage productions and all but one film interpretation of Shakespeare’s plays will leave out a scene here and there. Is this bad? No. There are many reasons for making “adjustments” in the structure and ordering of those scenes.
    Narnia on film is as magical, if not more so, than the story that first leaped from the page into my mind more than forty years ago.
    Was Aslan strong enough, LOUD enough, scary enough, theological, and wise enough? 
    “Magic.” There’s the hundred dollar word in this film. It is used prominently and it will bother some, or mostly persons of Christian Faith. But Narnia IS magic and magical. No one owns that word, not the New Age crowd, “the Force” folks, or even the children of God–and that group includes all of us. So when Aslan, the great lion of Narnia, confronts Jadis, the White Witch, they speak of the Magic of Narnia. Aslan reminds all that he was there when it all began—life, Narnia and all the Magic.
    For now we have the first film of the seven books of The Chronicles of Narnia, The Magic has begun and begun well. Is it complete, flawless, exact. Audiences like it. Book shops can’t keep it in stock. Lots of folks are rediscovering—or reading for the first time—Lewis’s magical adventure. Many are reading other Lewis titles, beyond Narnia--that’s very good. Most importantly, Narnia is in the national conversation in schools, around the water cooler, everywhere. Sunday night, after attending the Narnia world premiere in London, I was riding the subway, in New York City, and a young man (early thirties) was reading a copy of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. Noticing he was just a few pages in, I asked, “Re-reading an old favorite or is this your first rip through the wardrobe?”
    He looked up, smiled, and said, “It’s my first trip.”
    “And...”
    “It’s amazing.” He beamed. “I don’t know why I’d never read this. But I was at a party last night and everyone was talking about it ‘cause we’re all going to see the movie together and I was the only one there who had never read it. I didn’t want to be left out.”
    “Stop reading.” I said
    “What? Everyone else has already - - ”
    “Good. So you read it now and every little moment will be fresh in your mind when you see the film and you will be expecting something and it won’t be there. At least it won’t be there exactly like you imagined it. You be the one kid in your group who sees the movie with fresh eyes. And you’ll help the others see the story in the film as it is there, exactly.”
    “Yeah?”
    “Yeah. I promise. And then you can go back and read the story and enjoy it on it’s own terms.”
    “Okay.”
    He closed the book, put it in his coat pocket, and got off at the next stop.
    Next stop, Narnia.

[ 2,590 ]

• C. S. Lewis At 24 Images Per Second

     ~ 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.

• your man in Narnia

Narnia ~ Part 1 ~ The World Premiere Event

[ Dateline: London, England ]  A very vivid imagination! That's what Lucy was accused of after her first visit through the wardrobe in the spare room, past the rows and rows of big, old, fur coats, and across crunching snow and sharp pine needles, to the lamp post. It was there that she met . . . Oh, but you already know this story. It is the first book (*) in C. S. Lewis’s magical series, The Chronicles of Narnia. I have now been to Narnia and I have met all those characters that I was first introduced to in the book, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, more than four decades ago.
    I finally met them all this evening, along with HRH Charles, The Prince of Wales, and many others. No I did not actually meet bonnie Prince Charlie, he was there in Narnia with me and he also met Professor Kirke, Mrs. MacCready, Mr. Tumnus, and . . . everyone. We were all together in the Royal Albert Hall in London, that had been transformed into a palace of ice with a cool blue carpet replacing the tradition red carpet of movie premieres. This was the World Premiere of Walt Disney Pictures and Walden Media’s production of The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
    It was as celebrity-filled an event as anything Hollywood has held recently. Here’s who we saw: Annie Lennox (of the Eurythmics and great solo tunes as well), Roger (James Bond) Moore, Cliff Richard (enormous British rock/pop legend), and Sharon (“Mrs. Ozzie”) Osborne, and most of the Narnia cast. Noticeably absent was Liam Neesan, the voice of Aslan. Seated directly in front of me, Brian May, lead guitarist for Queen. So much big curly hair in Stall H, rows 9 and 10.
    The Royal Albert Hall is a huge circular arena that, for concerts, seats 7,000. Tonight (7 December 2005), it was fitted out with an enormous movie screen to accommodate the Super 35mm Panavison images that Don McAlpine, DoP, shot in New Zealand and Poland. Early in the evening--for more than an hour before the film began, we were treated to the familiar celebrity arrival moments out front on Narnia’s ice blue carpet. But rather than hearing runway interviews and “who are you wearing” palaver, there was a British entertainment announcer telling us what and who we were seeing. These live sequences were in a more traditional 16x9 TV format that grew to the ultra-wide format of 2.4 x 1--very wide--for the movie. They had also tricked out the old oval (272’ x 238’ x 135’ high) domed hall with a surround sound installation to rival the most high tech cinema. Opened in 1871, the Royal Albert is not a sporting arena with plastic seats and sky boxes, this is crushed velvet, curtained “Stalls” with plush arm chairs, marble and terra cotta grand hall. Our seats actually swiveled so that we could turn our whole body toward the screen--avoiding a stiff neck during Narnia’s 2:3o plus running time. (Note to early movie leavers: Don’t! The story isn’t finished when the end credits begin to role, and I ain’t talking cute out takes of Aslan choking on one of his big roars. Sit tight, oh, rude and inpatient ones. You came for the movie, stay for the whole movie. The closing music is new and great as well.)
    Our souvenirs from the event include: our fancy, tri-fold, full color ticket envelopes, and the thick and lavish 63 page program book with small pictures from the film and way-too much text in a size too small to read in the Royal Albert’s dramatic lighting. The last page of this elegant program book is an index of the twenty-five advertising pages with easy-to-find page numbers listed. They would be easy-to-find had the program’s design team actually put numbers on the pages...there were none. (Note to brochure, magazine, annual report, program designers everywhere: bigger pictures, less text, larger point size.) The endless, tiny text (10 pt. and smaller throughout) and few, too-small photos mostly likely accounts for the endless number of the programs left behind on seats and floor by premiere attendees. My vacation companion is film maker and friend MaxPaul Franklin--head of IMS Productions in Colorado Springs. (www.imsproductions.com)
    The Best part of the Narnia world premiere was, of course, the film. As the credits began to role, the applause was thunderous and would have continued for several minutes more, but the story on film continues, for a bit. Then there were lots more credits and a second wave of applause. As I wandered the crowded halls to catch snippets of post-premiere conversation every child’s voice I heard was effusive. More than one said, “I want to see it again.” There were loads of kids in attendance. Adults too were expressing their delight. “I enjoyed it very much.” One woman said as though she was surprised just how much she liked. “Yes” said a man near her. “Really terrific.”  Virtually every comment I caught was positive to gushing. This was a “Strictly black tie” event--I wore a tie-it-yourself bright red tie and black linen shirt with my tux.--All topped off with my Australian (purchased in Canada) big, brown, 5X beaver, cowboy hat. It’s warm and keeps my head dry in these rainy nights.
    I will see Narnia again--soon.

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Next ~ Narnia Reviewed  (Part 2 of my three part Narnia series)