Summer of Popcorn II: Prince Caspian

When Andrew Adamson's The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe first came out, I heard a lot of comments along the lines of "but what is a big, Hollywood studio going to do with the specifically Christian messages woven throughout Lewis's stories?" The worry was, I think, largely founded. Hollywood seems to show a marked trend of misunderstanding Christianity, Gibson's personally driven Passion being perhaps the only exception in recent memory.

The odd thing about Prince Caspian is that, in general, the specifically Christian allegory is about the only thing the film consistently gets right. Aslan's relative absence, Lucy's longing for the peace and beauty of Narnia, Edmund's penitance, all are there. Better yet, the movie chooses perhaps the best through-line for the child protagonists. Peter starts as a brawling kid, desperate to return to his "rightful" place as an absolute monarch; the movie charts (in part) the folly of his pride and his eventual recognition that in order to grow up, it is necessary to leave the physical Narnia behind and find Aslan "in your own world." Maturity, indeed, is the theme for most characters in the film. Susan learns that "nothing happens the same way twice" and finds that faith in a distant Aslan is every bit as important as love for a present Aslan. Edmund balances his love of Aslan with the desire for solidarity with his brothers, and learns at least one new hard lesson about Peter's fallibility. Susan inexplicably discovers the joys of kissing a boy one is guaranteed never to see again. The world itself has "grown up," though in a much less healthy manner--the desire for "Turkish Delights" has sophisticated into a political network of self-serving backstabbing and manipulation of hereditary conventions.

The problem with Prince Caspian as an adaptation is that maturity was only one (and the least memorable) of the two themes found in Lewis's novel. The problem with Prince Caspian as an entertaining children's film is that the moral story-arc is only one (and the least emphasized) of the two elements in Adamson's film.

For readers of Lewis's novel, the first impression made by the novel is a profound sense of a mythic but lost past which becomes associated none-too-subtly with the wonder and magic of Greco-Roman paganism. From the first realization that Narnia's great castle is nothing but ruins to the climactic Bacchanal overseen by both Bacchus and Aslan, Lewis sets a sort of cultural regression in opposition to his coming-of-age narrative. As the characters mature, they mature beyond both the narrow-minded politics of self-centeredness and the cruelly pragmatic educational ideology of occupied Narnia. Yet they discover the youth and wonder of the real magic that has been there all along. As Lewis himself once commented, "when I was a child, I put away childish things--including the foolish desire to never appear childish." In this sense, Peter's maturity is of a distinctive kind. He may not be allowed to inhabit the gentle training-grounds of life in Narnia any longer, but it is only because he can find the same wonder--and the same moral struggles--in his own England. In opposition to the Talmarenes who forget their desires in pursuit of wealth and power, Peter retains true to the magic of his childhood by seeking to bring the moral vision into the superficially more prosaic land of England.

For viewers of Adamson's movie, the first impression is of a 21st Century "epic" in the vein of Braveheart, Gladiator, The Lord of the Rings, or even the earlier (and utterly forgettable) Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. In contrast to Lewis's scene (introduced later in the book) of a dark moonlit castle in which the part-dwarf professor introduces Caspian to the hidden truths of Narnia's magical past, we see a dark moonlit castle as the setting for a realistically painful childbirth, ridiculous attempted crossbow execution, and daring escape into Narnia's woods. Fantasy and imagination has been replaced with savage adventure, and the change is consistent throughout the book. Battle piles upon (unnecessarily inserted) battle, but the only point of divergence with movies seen before is the increase in unrealism. Crossbows treated as automatic weapons are irking enough, but how many people can Susan knock down with the edge of her bow before the battles reduce themselves to meaningless spectacle? The final battle of LWW was memorable as a battle of mythological heroes in individual combat; the most heroic element of Caspian's battles is the courage of an audience that persistently endures through wave after wave of CGI-critters in order to find out what will happen next to the protagonists. At least these battles have some meaningful relationship to the plot (if not enough to justify their length), but one wonders what purpose such endless (if bloodless) carnage serves other than to confuse younger audiences by celebrating the savagery in combat of the child-warrior-heroes.

Fortunately, Adamson's missteps are a misunderstanding of contemporary fantasy cinema as much as Lewis's chidren's story. The Lord of the Rings balanced battlefield spectacle with resonant magic and a constant sense of wonder; only the second (and inarguably worst) Harry Potter focused on numerous creatures rather than images of personality and beauty. It's not that Lewis's book couldn't make a great story, it is just that Adamson seems obsessed with copying the most superficial and easily copied externalities of contemporary fantasy. Before I saw Prince Caspian, I was concerned that the untraditional nature of Voyage of the Dawn Treader might make it a hard sell for audiences and sink any opportunities for further movies. Now, I'm just happy to see what happens when Adamson is given a story which is virtually impossible to turn into a neutered fantasy-war film. He seems to have a decent acquaintance with the characters as Lewis wrote them; maybe next time the audience will be able to spend the time required to get to know them.

Iron Man: Let the Summer Popcorn Begin

1) As a kid, I have a specific memory of a scene from Tom Swift. He was working in his lab with sensitive chemicals, and some thugs ran in with guns, missed Tom, and hit the chemicals he was working with. He dives to the floor, the flaming chemicals slide harmlessly off his special fireproof labcoat, and the head of security catches up with (and handles) the thugs.

It's a minor scene, but it captured a lot of what gave Tom Swift its particular magic. The first element is the most obvious: science, played with for the good of humanity by a boy brilliant and rich enough to do just about anything he wants. The second: adventure, drawing upon (or creating) an association between the visceral thrill of dangerous adventure and the wonder of intellectual discovery. Between the two, I wanted to be Tom Swift.

It's a bit of childhood pulp fiction, but I think these things are important (and healthy) elements of a healthily functioning society. Tom Swift fed my desire to learn all that I could, and to use that knowledge to make life better. And even in college, when I was required to get a lab coat for my O-Chem class, I remember thinking "this is the thing I dreamed about as a kid--just like Tom Swift." It turned out that I have very little in the way of practical laboratory skills, and I ended up switching from biochemistry to English, but the very fact that Tom Swift was one of the vioces making lab coats sound cool speaks to the power of adventure stories.

Iron Man, more than any superhero movie, is about the wonder of human potential. Tony Stark is a partier and a superstar, but the thing that makes him cool is the time spent in the lab, loud music blazing as he perfects his latest invention. This is a movie that understands why people want to see a superhero movie, and gives it to us. Hero slams together prototype in a cave and kills terrorists. Hero builds two more models, experimenting with reckless (and injurious) abandon and painting the whole thing red. Along the way he gets to fly, save the day, and rescue the damsel in distress.

There really isn't a lot to Iron Man (despite its setting in one of our two real-world war zones) but there really doesn't need to be. What is there is precisely what needs to be there. It's a space opera on earth, and a reminder that there's some really cool stuff out there to be built. But it works, and like a well-designed device it works effeciently, cleanly and with just a bit of excessive power. Sure, audiences wouldn't soar with Iron Man if it weren't for the impressive array of actors who give weight to often paper-thin roles. But at its heart, it is refreshing to see a superhero movie that doesn't consciously try to define itself primarily as an obvious metaphor for the struggles of adolescent teenagers or contemporary politics.

2) Iron Man also puts paid to another adage I'd kinda assumed to be true. Traditionally, when talking about comic books and movies, I'd always said something like this. "Well, of course cinema is a different medium, so you have to adapt the comic book to fit the screen." In practice this generally meant an increased level of societal realism, greater room left for incidental character development, and an increased focus on emotions and the surroundings rather than the actions and dialog of the central character. So, instead of:

"Hello, [general who is my friend], how's it going buddy?"
"We have a hostile in the area, is that you?"
"No."
**gets fired at**
"Okay, maybe that was me."

You have a long scene of the general, wakened from his bed where he slept with his wife. He's called to respond to the emergency. Calls the hero on the way to work. Complains. Grumbles. Arrives and interacts with allies. Et cetera. The point is to give audiences what they're accustomed to demand from movies: a sort of all-embracing convention of verisimilitude that focuses the viewer on the world around the hero, rather than just the hero himself.

Then there's Iron Man:
"Hello, [general who is my friend], how's it going buddy?"
"We have a hostile in the area, is that you?"
"No."
**gets fired at**
"Okay, maybe that was me."

It doesn't have time to develop the secondary characters, fill in world details, or do a dozen of other things because it wants to TELL A STORY about a central character, accompanied by pretty pictures. And you know what? It works as well on screen as on person. Apparently screenwriters adapting comic books to movies could've saved themselves the trouble: just have the actors read the comic book dialog while letting CGI artists make pretty pictures of SLAM and BANG. The result: arguably the best comic book movie to date (though on most days I'd still go with Batman Begins), with a thrillingly fast pace and tons of exuberance.

Gilbert Quote of the Day

"Precisely what gave him such a genius for friendship was that life had left in him so much of himself; so much of his youth; so much even of his childhood. He might never have been a Cabinet Minister; he might have been any common literary or artistic fellow, with a soul to save and some dim and secretive ideas about saving it."

-Chesterton on a certain political opponent

A Brief Review: Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day

I'll admit it up front. I'm a huge fan of screwball comedies (1930's rom-coms like Bringing up Baby). I'm also a bit of a sucker for a good, straightforward love story. And like anyone who's given Wodehouse the good ole' whatsit ("I believe the term is 'honest try,'" my inner Jeeves politely intones), I'm a sucker for any story set in the world of irresponsible pre-WWII English middle-high culture.

But Pedigrew is, in fact, all of those and more. The script is brilliant, and if it slows its insanely breathless pace in the second half, it's actually for a really good reason. There's a real tone of darkness hovering around the edges, which doesn't deflate the fun but rather grounds the glittering, highly wrought world in the sort of genuine emotion that makes romantic comedies worth their while. Everything is pretty, the swing music (and other exclusively period compositions) keeps the party going, but it's all just a fragile connection of smoke and mirrors waiting for Nazi bombs to blow it apart. And when, in all the madness, some characters find a few glimmers of love and hope, it's just all that more beautiful.

Also, the ending may seem a bit disappointing at first (and is certain to offend any feminist tendencies), but in retrospect may be the most truly honest moment in the film. The last shot makes the point beautifully--as Pettigrew dissappears into the background, two armed British soldiers march towards their departing train. Young love is beautiful, and well worth making movies about, but it's the willingness to take a chance and throw one's lot in with another (however imperfectly) that makes life worth living in the shadow of death.

This humble screwball comedy may possibly end up as the greatest film of 2008.

Theological Thoughts of the Day

I think that there are two things God will say to pretty much every Christian when he arrives in Heaven.

1) "When you did [X], you were very silly and very wrong. But you were responding to my Spirit, and it was a step towards Me."

2) "When you did [Y], you were very smart and very correct. Even so, you were arrogant about your accomplishments, and it was a sinful stumble away from Me."

Just thoughts of the day. I could be wrong, though.