May 15, 2008
No Bacchus? Let's Get Raucous!
Groan. And so it begins, the list of revisions and omissions and additions that the second Narnia movie prepetrates on C. S. Lewis' story Prince Caspian. I once, perhaps rather rashly, said that they should not make a movie of this chronicle at all, and perhaps that would have been better than some of the changes they seem to have made here. But passing over this story would have created very tough sledding, like Jadis in Aslan's Spring, to bridge the story over to Dawn Treader.
Well, I am not going to remake all the points that this article, by a very sensitive Catholic reviewer, makes about the film, but, alas, there is no Bacchus, thus evicerating much of Lewis' use of myth to illustrate truth. No Susan saying, " I wouldn't have felt very safe with Bacchus and all his wild girls if we'd met them without Aslan" and Lucy responding, "I should think not." There will be no Bacchus asking, "Is it a romp, Aslan" and proceeding to create vines to tear down the stones of oppression and new wine to gladden the heart. I am just going to have to wait till heaven to dance with wild abandon as Bacchus and the maenads and Susan and Lucy did then. To be fair, though, such holy joy would have been very difficult to pull off cinematically. Though the filmmakers might have looked to the beginning of Much Ado About Nothing for some (though definitely not all) of the expressions of joy and revelry shown there.
If only the movie makers had taken Jeffrey Overstreet's advice, I might not be as miffed:
"But I just wish that efforts like this one, and like Alfonzo Cuaron’s extraordinary film Children of Men, would do away with the label 'Based on the book.' Rather, they are new stories, 'Inspired by elements of the book.'”
Also, here is the Christianity Today review. Ouch. Two and a half stars out of four.
Posted by jackdas at 10:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
February 28, 2008
A Blog on Jack!
Here is a newish blog on Clive Staples, known to his close friends as Jack, Lewis, which I heard about courtesy of Jeffrey Overstreet. There are some pretty well known, and published, C. S. Lewis scholars blogging here and the whole enterprise is connected to the publisher Harper. I have not had the chance to dig in as yet, but it looks pretty cool. And one can even comment. Nice.
Posted by jackdas at 8:05 PM | TrackBack
January 25, 2007
C. S. Lewis Film Online
This is not the the Lewis biography I referenced in a recent blog entry. That one is in the latest box set of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe movie from Disney. It has an interesting style, with a group of children reading from the books in various places. It is really quite good, and I am very open and eager to loan it out.
The links below are to a video you can view online for free. It is a documentary which I think originally appeared on the Hallmark channel.
You can screen it online for free, after signing in to the site, and they don't send you any emails either. It involves dramatization of Lewis' life by actors along with commentaries by Lewis scholars, and is really quite good.
There are other religiously themed videos available to screen online as well.
Posted by jackdas at 7:30 PM | TrackBack
January 19, 2007
Love's As Warm as Tears
Love's as warm as tears,
Love is tears:
Pressure within the brain,
Tension at the throat,
Deluge, weeks of rain,
Haystacks afloat,
Featureless seas between
Hedges, where once was green.
Love's as fierce as fire,
Love is fire:
All sorts—infernal heat
Clinkered with greed and pride,
Lyric desire, sharp-sweet,
Laughing, even when denied,
And that empyreal flame
Whence all loves came.
Love's as fresh as spring,
Love is spring:
Bird-song hung in the air,
Cool smells in a wood,
Whispering "Dare! Dare!"
To sap, to blood,
Telling "Ease, safety, rest,
Are good; not best."
Love's as hard as nails,
Love is nails:
Blunt, thick, hammered through
The medial nerves of One
Who, having made us, knew
The thing He had done,
Seeing (with all that is)
Our cross, and His.
C. S. Lewis
-buy the book here
Posted by jackdas at 10:09 AM | TrackBack
Late Night Yearnings...
...after watching a biography on Jack.
Posted by jackdas at 9:18 AM | Comments (3) | TrackBack