Friday, December 09, 2005

narnia hits the screen

Film director Andrew Adamson’s interpretation of C.S. Lewis’ Narnia opens in theaters today. A few posts back, Tony mentioned his hesitation about great books being made into movies for the reason of “having someone else interpret the atmosphere, personalities, voices and scenery rather than your own mind."

I’m a little hesitant to see the film for the same reason. For twenty years, I have imagined Narnia in the way only Jana can imagine it. And I’m afraid I’ll see the movie, based on Adamson’s imagination, and it’ll push my own individual creations out of my mind, never to return. That’s the thing about movies. As good as the movies can be, books are often best, if for the simple reason that they force us to use our imaginations.

Whether you’re a bookworm or a movie buff or both, the story of Narnia is a story worth your time.

From chapter 7 in The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe: "And now a very curious thing happened. None of the children knew who Aslan was any more than you do; but the moment the Beaver had spoken these words everyone felt quite different. Perhaps it has sometimes happened to you in a dream that someone says something which you don't understand but in the dream it feels as if it had some enormous meaning -- either a terrifying one which turns the whole dream into a nightmare or else a lovely meaning too lovely to put into words, which makes the dream so beautiful that you that you remember it all your life and are always wishing you could get into that dream again. It was like that now. At the name of Aslan each one of the children felt something jump in his inside. Edmund felt a sensation of mysterious horror. Peter felt suddenly brave and adventurous. Susan felt as if some delicious smell or some delightful strain of music had just floated by her. And Lucy got the feeling you have when you wake up in the morning and realise that it is the beginning of the holidays or the beginning of summer."

2 Comments:

Blogger Chel said...

I've never seen a movie that I thought was better than the book, but I've enjoyed lots of movies based on books I've read.

We were going to leave the little one at Parents' Night Out tonight and take our seven-year-old to see the Narnia movie until I found out that it's almost three hours long! He's not nearly that patient. He'll have to wait for Netflix to get the movie... and maybe we'll go see it alone. :)

10:40 AM  
Blogger Tony Arnold said...

Obviously, I say Amen, Amen, Amen.

Tony

2:12 PM  

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