27 November 2010 In praise of David Yates.
Now that Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part I has been released for over a week and I have seen it… well let’s just leave it at ‘several’ times, I feel I’m qualified to register my opinions. Many have been throwing around phrases like ‘best in the series’ or ‘not the best in the series’ but I’m honestly having trouble even comparing film seven to any of the previous six. Kind of a cop out, I know, but it’s just so wildly different in structure, tone, and direction.
In my eyes, the Harry Potter films can be divided into 3 different legs. 1 [Sorcerer's Stone] and 2 [Chamber of Secrets] were children’s films which remained almost painfully faithful to the novels while taking way too many liberties with the tone of the story. The day they replaced Chris Columbus as director was a massive step forward for the series.
Things got interesting with 3 [Prisoner of Azkaban]. Alfonso Cauron, one of the best directors working today, stepped in for a complete 180. The story was darker, the world was more quirky, the visuals were intricate, and yet the film still retained the innocence of earlier chapters. I tend to think that people exaggerate 3′s merits in hindsight, especially in relation to the recent films but that’s neither here nor there. 4 [Goblet of Fire] was directed by British comedic director Mike Newell and is a disaster that I prefer not to talk about.
And then along came David Yates. Utterly unqualified on paper, Yates was brought in for 5 [Order of the Phoenix] with very little experience with feature films, no less CGI-heavy blockbusters. But it worked. Yates gets Potter like none of the other directors. He put emphasis on the story and the performances and it paid off. Also notable, film 5 utilizes Hogwarts [the dormitories, the moving stairs, etc] better than most Potter films. 3, 4, and 5 together make up a bizarre, uneven trilogy in which the films matured to their current state.
And now we come to the final trilogy. 6 [Half-Blood Prince] was, in my opinion anyway, the most visually arresting of the films with absolutely beautiful photography by Bruno Delbonnel. Like the book, 6 has a quiet foreboding kind of atmosphere for what’s to come in 7a and 7b. The supporting performances, particularly Michael Gambon, Helena Bonham Carter, and Tom Felton, are also particularly strong in this installment.
Which brings us to 7a. This isn’t like every other Harry Potter movie. There’s no story arc, no Hogwarts formula, no conclusion, heck there’s not even a beginning. From the opening scene, 7a is just constant climax, the culmination of the past six. It’s almost as if the film is saying ‘Okay kids we gotta wrap this up and we only have 2 movies to do it. Let’s do work.’ In that respect it’s the most thrilling, scary, chaotic, and intense Potter film yet. I feel as though the moment of emotional potency [or attempted emotional potency anyway] can’t be fairly examined until 7b is released in July.
So, in conclusion, I care way too much about this, but I really do love these movies. Mischief managed.
- Leave a comment
- Posted under Movies
