Narnia and Imagination
"There is death in the camera," C. S. Lewis said, meaning that films kill the imagination. Andrew Adamson, director of the upcoming The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, has said that he wanted to film what the book spawned in his own imagination.
So as we get ready to see the Narnia film, what's in our imaginations? Tell us. Let it all out; no inhibitions.
And do you think that the Narnia film will kill your imagination? Was Lewis really right?
Greg Wright
Senior Editor and Narnia Blogger
So as we get ready to see the Narnia film, what's in our imaginations? Tell us. Let it all out; no inhibitions.
And do you think that the Narnia film will kill your imagination? Was Lewis really right?
Greg Wright
Senior Editor and Narnia Blogger
posted by Greg Wright at 7:50 PM
18 Comments:
The book was so spare, I didn't imagine it anything like the way it looks in the film's trailers. The first film has apparently gone way past the first book in "feel" and acquired the epic scope of the entire series. While I don't think this will kill my imagination, I maybe become preoccupied with the question, "Gee, that was fun; but where do we go from here?"
How am I supposed to know if it has killed my imagination? It it's dead then I don't even know!!
Kidding...I can't speak for my generation or the Billions of people out there but for me Movies spark my interest in reading. Lord of the Rings definetly did that! Before that trilogy I would tell you I had no imagination!
I know that CS Lewis and wrong don't go in the same sentence but it's true for this quote. I just think film and books and poetry and painting are different art forms. The provoke imagination differently. So that famous saying goes "It's not good or bad it's just different." (who said that?)
I for one can't wait to see the movie. I loved the books and wouldn't call them spare at all. Long live Narnia and long live THE Aslan...
From the trailers I've seen, the CGI talking animals will probably be the biggest disappointment to my imagination. In my mind, Mr. Beaver, Reepacheep, et al. were talking animals, not some well done animation.
However, even at that, if the film does credit to the books, it will probably let imagination go in new areas.
It would be good to remember that C.S. Lewis wrote NARNIA in the 1950s and died in 1963. Therefore, he could only make his comments on what that then technologically possible. Today, CGI unleashes the imagination and we (Hollywood) can make anything we envision in our mind's eye. I say "Thank God" for the technology that we can create a Narnia on film that equals the wonder, mystery and beauty of it as found in our own minds and on the written page.
Film is film and literature is literature. Imagination operates in both, just in different ways. Also, it is a different age, in terms of the cinematic art, than what CS Lewis could have ever imagined. This film, in terms of CGI, would not have been possible just 5 years ago. The Narnia film is the collective imagination of many artists, story board artists, animators, cinematographers etc. Whereas, the Narnia book series is essentially the imagination of one person. Book writing is not as community centered as film is and tends to be very individualistic.
I think movies spark the imagination -- and depend on it -- more than we typically think. Even in the simplest scene, a director in fact DEPENDS on the viewer's imagination to fill in the blanks. Unfortunately, more often than not, this filling-in just leads in entirely predictable directions. But a movie like Memento (or The Sixth Sense) reminds us that we are much more engaged with the visual construction (and interacting with it) than we take for granted. Composers also rely on our familiarity with musical conventions to anticipate where melody and harmony go; but the best music takes us in places that we don't expect.
The best films do that too!
Just ran across this article at the LA Times... A good summary and analysis of Lewis' thoughts on film.
Melinda said, The appearance of the characters is defined, their facial expressions and physical reactions are acted out for us, the mood, lighting, set and music are all established, and then asked, "What is left to imagine? What blanks are not filled in for us?"
This is where the apparent simplicity of film is very deceptive. Take a BAD example that happens to be one of my favorites. In Hook, the adult Peter, played by Robin Williams, worriedly drives down a lane, anxious to see his son's ballgame. He pulls over to the curb, hops out of his car and runs to the top of a hillock. The camera pulls back in a crane shot to reveal an empty ballfield. The game is over. Peter has missed the game. Wow, what a drag!
But the emotion of the scene is ruined for me because the shot also reveals what the camera DIDN'T show us when it was tight on Peter to start the sequence: that Peter drove right past the empty ballfield and didn't need to get out or run to the top of the hillock to find out that he'd let his son down.
Spielberg's cinematic laziness (and dishonesty) in this scene demonstrates how the audience's imagination is often not the least bit trusted by a director, or may even be entirely unengaged. How many audience members even NOTICED how they'd been duped in this way, even though it was laid out right in front of their eyes? How many even cared? So this is a case of blanks being filled in for us in terrible, manipulative and shoddy ways. And if we haven't filled them in properly for own selves, it's simply because we're not thinking very deeply about what we're seeing. And that's to our shame, as well as the director's, in this case.
In contrast, Siskel and Ebert ranted violently about all the blood and gore in The Hiticher; yet, as is also the case in most of Hitchcock's movies, all that stuff actually happened offscreen. The director didn't have to show ANY of it, because he trusted the audience's imagination to be far more powerful than anything he could visualize for us. This is a good example of a director and audience working together to create something far more visceral that what's present, technically, onscreen.
The best films suggest a framework for our imaginations to play upon: they don't lay everything out for us to merely consume.
At a more basic level, just think about the purpose of a simple reaction shot in most films. The camera cuts away from the subject of a scene, just for a moment, whowing us someone else's face, so that the story of the scene can be told more efficiently. We don't have to actually watch a character walk the entire way across a room—and the reaction shot allows us to fill in the blanks and still not mind that the scene hasn't played out in "real time." If our imaginations were NOT engaged and active, or if the cuts were managed in a clumsy way, our willingness to accept the "reality" of the scene would be thrown off track. At the very least, we'd think, "Gee, that scene didn't work," even if we didn't know exactly why.
Part of the mistake we often make with film is to also think that the imagination is just visually oriented. It is not. Film is seductive, in part, because the power of the visuals easily distract us from the hard work our imagination is actually doing in so many other ways, and in even in visual ways that we don't suspect.
The Sixth Sense is a great case of a film that presents a very contrived and subjective point of view; but until the end of the movie, we think we've seen a film from an objective point of view. We think we know what's going on. And we haven't. We don't. But boy, have our imaginations been active!
I hope those concrete examples, which regrettably require familiarity with the films discussed, shed some light on what I was getting at.
Chiming in from the netherlands...
Sure movies do engage the imagination. Look at all the fanfiction sites all over the web (www.fanfiction.net being one). People are starting to imagine their own stories from the images and characters portrayed on film. They expand on what they see, even with obscure films. They come up with new angles, new scenes, based on the film. I know my imagination works that way. I'm visually oriented in that way, even though I write stories. I always imagine my stories visually first. Even as movies: I come up with a trailer in my mind before I wrote a letter. Often movies (lord of the rings, the matrix) inspire me to write more. And I would love to one day write a comic or be able to see one of my stories filmed.
Just to say: like any great art cinema, like literature, can enlarge the imagination, just by providing it with images.
No, it does not require the same imagination while watching. But to say that it kills the imagination... No way!
Johan
Because I haven't read any of the books, I have ZERO expectations on what this film will look like. However, I wonder how much of the Christian allegory will ultimately be preserved since this film IS a Disney product, after all.
My father read the WHOLE Chronicles of Narnia as bedtime stories to me SIX time through, starting when I was six. I have not read it for myself in 20 years. It was only this past fall that I have read The Lion/Witch/Wardrobe outloud to a second grade classroom.
My imagination came alive again like the stone statues in the witch's garden...The movie will not disappoint...
To use a specific example, I found that the Lord of the Rings trilogy (at least one of if not my all time personal favorites) did kill my imagination in the sense that i cannot think of the story, even the books, without the movie images coming to mind. The pictures, images, and conceptions that i had created in my own mind as i read the stories before i saw the movie are dead, gone, never to come back again, replaced by the new film versions of Viggo Mortenson et al. playing the much loved characters i once knew my own way. However, i don't necessarily think that this is bad or wrong. (Although, i would much prefer, in cases such as Narnia and LOTR, that people read the original stories first and come up with their own imaginative ideas.) Unfortunate? Maybe. Slightly disappointing? Sure. But this new medium of telling the story opens up many new avenues for still more imagination to take place.
I couldn't wait to see the movie when after I saw the trailer. I must admit that it didn't disappoint. The themes and explanation of Christ are very clear and it will be a great evangelistic conversation for all ages. I'm excited and can't wait to see it again and take others too! I'm in Spain, so it came out today here. You'll love it and it'll be a great opportunity to share with your children the love of Christ and the love He desires to share with them! God bless!!
I personally have read all the Narnia books once and I am in the process of reading them all again! I fear that the movie may kill my imagination but I plan to veiw it! I am a Christian and I believe it is a great way to send the message of Christ Jesus to everyone all over the world! I think the movie is a great idea to make the movie!
Here's a link to a blog discussing Narnia. The theory presented in this article is that the power of imagination is, in fact, so powerful that Narnia gets away even from Lewis. It's an interesting position.
From this standpoint, imaginative reactions to the movie would be wide, wide open.
Every time you read a book its story unfolds in your head.
Obviously everyone will have a different version, and this film is Andrew Adamson's. Narnia was written as a book and should be enjoyed as such. I am not against the film - I think films like this both encourage as well as discourage reading of the original work, but that's another arguement.
As for the story relating to Christianity, I think that anything dealing with magic, witches, and talking animals has nothing to do with it at all. There are too many films out there nowdays pushing magic while hiding behind so called 'Christian' values. All it does is help make magic, and all that goes with it, seem more and more acceptable as well as harmless in a Christian environment. The Bible tells us to distance ourself from these things, not embrace them.
Of course Hollywood loves to wrap them together and present them as New Age Christianity, a view that incorporates anything and everything. A view we saw in the "Passion" where a false (and wrongly violent) Roman Catholic perspective of the crucifixtion was shown, and the most important part of all - the Resurrection itself - was not even a part of it. "Harry Potter" and"LOTR" can't be called Christian. If they were, people would be turning towards Christ. Instead they dress up as wizards and witches and learn spellcraft.
Remember that the Bible tells us "You will know a tree by its fruit, a good tree produces good fruit, while a corrupt tree produces evil fruit. - Food for thought.
Well Matthew, all I'm saying that generally speaking these films inspire more of an interest in magic than an interest in christianity. And don't forget that most non-christians would not really even see such a corellation in these stories - after all "good triumphing over evil" is the oldest plot of all.
It is so easy nowdays in a bookstore too make a stop (after the Harry Potter display of course) at the ever expanding esoteric section, and pick up books which do show practical applications for all kinds of magic. In fact many of these "harmless" books are aimed at children.
Don't get me wrong, I've read all the C.S. Lewis, Tolkien etc and really enjoyed them too, but I still maintain that, if anything, they turn more people to 'magic' (or at least spark an interest in it) than to the Lord.
As for the 'Passion', compare it to the Bible and you have a rather different series of events. Peter did not confess to Mary after denying Jesus. Satan did not tempt Jesus in the garden. He was not flogged in such a violent and enduring way. Simon carried the cross not Jesus. The temple did not split in two after the curtain did so, etc. It's plainly a dogmatic Roman Catholic version of the events scripted in the Bible. A version that perverts the whole thing towards extreme violence and abuse, while of course wrongly throwing in a much Roman Catholic symbolism as possible.
My apologies for getting off the subject of this blog.
To steer the conversation back to the subject of the imagination and Narnia, the "rising interest in the occult" is a natural consequence of the larger imaginative turning of our culture toward the metaphysical.
What it all points to is an increasing openness to spirituality -- not a unilaterally increasing rejection of God. This is not the end of the story, as one of my pastors is fond of saying.
Any quest for spiritual truth can lead through many convoluted and misguided paths (including the ones I've walked, and am undoubtedly still on); but we can be thankful that people are actually looking can't we? And can't we be grateful that this quest expresses itself in imaginative explorations like these movies?
What an interesting and exciting chance to talk about spirituality! What a fantastic thing to have people interested in spiritual truth!
While I don't agree with neopagans, wiccans, Buddhists, Mormons or even many of the Christian pastors with whom I've worked, I'm confident that the truth we're all looking for is out there, and that the Truth will reveal itself.
And imagination is one terrific tool (as is Scripture) through which truth may manifest itself -- because whatever my conception of God may be today, it's undoubtedly incomplete and needs to be broken and reshaped: to reveal, as Lewis himself said, "not my idea of God, but God."
Now, do fantasy films help do this for everyone? No. Will the Narnia film in particular do this for everyone, either? No.
But where it DOES, wow. What a great thing. And who knows where all this leads, anyway?
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