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Jan. 2nd, 2006 06:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tree_and_leafTwo curious parallels that have struck me in the Narnia film, one puzzling, the other a bit 'Say what?'
The first I really can't weigh up at all: namely, the strong visual echo between the German bombs being dropped on London and the flying Narnians dropping rocks on the White Witch's army (or was it the other way round? - that would make more sense, but it didn't look that way to me. On the other hand, I inevitably get confused by on-screen battles)
The other was the direct link between Susan and Jadis. Susan exclaims 'Impossible' when she finds herself in Narnia; the Witch says the same when she sees the resurrected Aslan. Now I don't share the popular fannish belief that Susan is incredibly hard done by in 'Last Battle'; she isn't killed, after all, which means her story is not over and there's no reason to suppose that she mightn't have had a change of heart. (I also don't buy the idea that her offence is, simply, being a grown up woman, but that's a meta post for later.) But, as I say, I don't share that belief, and even I think that that is ridiculously unfair to Susan!
Susan's line struck me on first hearing as being a somewhat odd thing to say, although perhaps it was partly the delivery - it sounded very arch and self-consiously 'grown up'. Of course, that's a defensible reading of the character: Susan sees herself as 'the sensible one' (and in Dawn Treader the narrator remarks that the parents see her in that role, even though - or because - she's not as academically gifted as the other children). But it sounded too much like someone saying a line (er, yes, I know that's what actors do!) that was expected of them, and I would have thought that Susan, at least at that stage, was not too far gone to be play-acting in that situation. In the book, her responses are all on a practical level after a first 'oooh' - she begins to fuss about the cold.
Jadis - well, probably fair enough. In the book, of course, everything happens so quickly that all she has time for is an 'expression of amazement and terror', but the film makers have slowed things down. Perfectly legitimate.
The problem isn't so much that either line is totally implausible (my issues with the Susan version might just be the result of a piece of slightly wooden acting), but the equivalence which they strongly suggest. Susan is not, and never will be, a White Witch. She drifts away from faith, yes, but that's quite different from Jadis, who puts herself in active opposition to Aslan and, more generally, to the good. Susan will go on to convince herself that she is the only member of her family with any sense or knowledge of the world - she doesn't believe in magic. She also, I think, has the classic female problem of wanting to please everyone and to 'do the right thing' i.e. what those around her expect of her. Once she is grown up, that means that means following the norms of society - she behaves just like women's magazine's ideal reader.
Jadis believed in magic - she knew too much not to - but she hated any power that was not at her command. I'm not sure what dramatic or even moral cause is served by suggesting that the two are the same.
The first I really can't weigh up at all: namely, the strong visual echo between the German bombs being dropped on London and the flying Narnians dropping rocks on the White Witch's army (or was it the other way round? - that would make more sense, but it didn't look that way to me. On the other hand, I inevitably get confused by on-screen battles)
The other was the direct link between Susan and Jadis. Susan exclaims 'Impossible' when she finds herself in Narnia; the Witch says the same when she sees the resurrected Aslan. Now I don't share the popular fannish belief that Susan is incredibly hard done by in 'Last Battle'; she isn't killed, after all, which means her story is not over and there's no reason to suppose that she mightn't have had a change of heart. (I also don't buy the idea that her offence is, simply, being a grown up woman, but that's a meta post for later.) But, as I say, I don't share that belief, and even I think that that is ridiculously unfair to Susan!
Susan's line struck me on first hearing as being a somewhat odd thing to say, although perhaps it was partly the delivery - it sounded very arch and self-consiously 'grown up'. Of course, that's a defensible reading of the character: Susan sees herself as 'the sensible one' (and in Dawn Treader the narrator remarks that the parents see her in that role, even though - or because - she's not as academically gifted as the other children). But it sounded too much like someone saying a line (er, yes, I know that's what actors do!) that was expected of them, and I would have thought that Susan, at least at that stage, was not too far gone to be play-acting in that situation. In the book, her responses are all on a practical level after a first 'oooh' - she begins to fuss about the cold.
Jadis - well, probably fair enough. In the book, of course, everything happens so quickly that all she has time for is an 'expression of amazement and terror', but the film makers have slowed things down. Perfectly legitimate.
The problem isn't so much that either line is totally implausible (my issues with the Susan version might just be the result of a piece of slightly wooden acting), but the equivalence which they strongly suggest. Susan is not, and never will be, a White Witch. She drifts away from faith, yes, but that's quite different from Jadis, who puts herself in active opposition to Aslan and, more generally, to the good. Susan will go on to convince herself that she is the only member of her family with any sense or knowledge of the world - she doesn't believe in magic. She also, I think, has the classic female problem of wanting to please everyone and to 'do the right thing' i.e. what those around her expect of her. Once she is grown up, that means that means following the norms of society - she behaves just like women's magazine's ideal reader.
Jadis believed in magic - she knew too much not to - but she hated any power that was not at her command. I'm not sure what dramatic or even moral cause is served by suggesting that the two are the same.