Juices Truces: The Conclusion

It’s been months since the initial spark of disappointing reading and stage performances that lead me to write about poorly crafted language, tone, and adaptation and what I thought were ways to resolve those problems. I guess I ranted about how Roy didn’t consider the nuance of subjective states while purveying an intricate story that would be dependent on them. Why, for instance, would she describe events simultaneously from a subjective child’s point of view and an objective writer’s ability? I felt that it made for confusing scenes, as though Roy didn’t know what was really important to her story--the naïveté of her main characters and their loss of innocence, or the long view reflection on postcolonial Indian society. 

I thought almost the same of Orlando; it seemed to ignore the reality of the main character’s long life and sex change which seemed so central and so starkly real in other adaptations and, I am given to understand (thanks to Bernie and Adrian), the source material. Orlando pretended to use high concept blocking, minimal cast, minimalist props, and third person narration to equally present the scope and reality in the details of the story even though it basically forgot that, on stage, these choices can limit the trancient qualities of a good actor’s performance--i.e. using third person narration takes the personality out of a character’s line--and thereby detriment the production.

But all that is, unfortunately, too past to dwell upon. And as a new year dawns, and I go off to the University of Minnesota in days, and hang around my old climbs of AP College English work for now, I find myself wanting to retread some of this ground. So I’ll use another access point because the trouble remains; artists don’t understand their art, and nowhere is it more clear than in the more pulp orders of novels and film. 

So I guess I’ll talk (to whoever’ll listen) about something that’s been on my mind in the same vein as those two earlier posts so long ago. It’s time for “Juices Truces: The Conclusion”. It’s time for something magical. I am going to talk about the Harry Potter film franchise, how David Yates ruined it, how Deathly Hallows is not a Harry Potter book even if it is necessary to the story, why magic is not magical, and why the wizarding world is not a different world. I’ll try not to get bogged down in themes and in-depth analysis of Harry Potter as ostensibly post-war literature or anything like that (even if it’s true). I’ve got my work cut out for me on this one, and I hope that I can “solve” the problems with Harry Potter to boot All in an effort to conclude a post I started a long time ago about writers (or their theatrical/cinematic counterparts) not grasping the intricacies of their stories.