 |
 |
|
| From
Page to Screen by Claire Gross How does one translate into film an action-packed but philosophically complex first volume of an indivisible trilogy widely regarded as a modern classic? With fastidious fidelity, apparently. Screenwriter and director Chris Weitz and New Line Cinema retain most of the major set pieces of The Golden Compass and introduce the larger themes of the trilogy. The shared plot can be summed up in a few (deceptively) broad strokes: Lyra, orphaned ward of Jordan College, Oxford, overhears her uncle, Lord Asriel, explaining the latest research on the mysterious phenomenon of Dust. Meanwhile, rumors circulate of kidnapped children, and one of Lyra’s friends goes missing. The two mysteries intertwine and propel Lyra on a journey that encompasses the sinister agent of the Magisterium Mrs. Coulter; sentient, fearsome armored polar bears; wise “gyptian” and witch allies, and numerous other colorful characters. Though the result doesn’t begin to approach the mastery of the original book, it commits no trespasses. Visually, the movie is simply stunning. The battle scenes are grandiose, and the golden Dusting of daemons when their humans are killed makes concrete the cost of each fight; the violence may be toned down for a family audience, but it’s not sterilized. Sweeping, snowy vistas deliver the grandeur and desperation of the chilly northern journey; effects that favor atmospheric over flash (a close-up of a carriage propulsion mechanism, for instance) reveal Lyra’s world with a captivating wealth of ordinary detail. Seamless interactions between CGI and human characters make Lyra’s battle of wits with the corrupt bear king — and the ensuing no-holds-barred fight between him and her bear protector Iorek Byrnison — the most hair-raisingly tense scenes of the entire film. The portrayal of the daemons is matter-of-fact, allowing viewers to focus on their personalities. By the time the concept of intercision, the severing of human and daemon, is introduced, the bond between the two is well established. And with a truncated ending that postpones (though understandably) the real “wow” moment of the book, Weitz seizes upon this bond to power the reshuffled climax: the near-intercision of Lyra and her daemon Pantalaimon. The cast is another strength, with the notable exception of Ian McKellen, who seems substantially miscast as Iorek. His cultured tones, no matter how passionate, never evoke the rough berserker nature of the armored bear, and it’s nearly impossible not to hear echoes of Gandalf in his every pronouncement. Nicole Kidman is murmuringly creepy as Mrs. Coulter (though the flickers of true affection she demonstrates in the book never surface), and Daniel Craig (Lord Asriel), Sam Elliott (Lee Scoresby), and Jim Carter (Lord Faa) make memorable their relatively brief roles. Dakota Blue Richards as Lyra is a standout. Exuding both sweetness and immutable stubbornness, she provides the heart of the movie, completely believable as a loyal adventurer destined, unaware, for greater things. With all the kerfuffle surrounding the trilogy’s alleged atheistic proselytizing, it seems odd that the adaptation of this first book, in which the Magisterium was a distant third-party force and God more a concept than an entity, should so pointedly set up both as institutional villains. In the movie, it is a Magisterium official, not the Master of Jordan College, who attempts Lord Asriel’s murder, and it is the Magisterium that is responsible for the destruction of all the other alethiometers, while in the novel they are simply very rare artifacts. Magisterium officials overtly plot the destruction of free will with Mrs. Coulter, whose horrifying experiments with intercision are entirely sanctioned. All of this may be in keeping with the spirit of the plot, but it does rob it of some subtlety. Shades of gray are few and far between: Lee Scoresby is no mercenary, Iorek is no murderer, and the issue of Lord Asriel’s cruel betrayal of Lyra’s trust is avoided altogether — for the moment, at least. Indeed, the primary failing of this adaptation is its reductivity. Where the book was a series of questions, building upward, layer upon layer, the movie is all about the answers — starting with an opening-credits voiceover that explains many of the central truths of the trilogy, truths Pullman teased forth over the course of the whole story. Without those mysteries to draw viewers forward, the story seems merely to skate the surface (and while a shorter run time is usually indicative of responsible editing, here the film could really have borne expansion). In some ways the early explanations make the rest of the story more confusing, raising topics not explored until later volumes and eliminating, in the process, some brilliantly propulsive reveals. With the current demand for mass-market fantasy blockbusters (a search for the next Lord of the Rings, much like publishing’s search for the next Harry Potter), is a lack of outright butchery the best we can hope for? Should we conclude that, despite the apparent best efforts of the movie’s creators, His Dark Materials is simply a story that needs to be told in words, not film? The movie is a solid, coherent exercise in escapist epic fantasy, and though it lacks the multi-tiered cultural resonance of Pullman’s text, it proves an able introduction to that world.
|
 |
  
 
  |
||||||||
